We are living in an extraordinarily turbulent and yet refreshingly open time for people’s mental health. Today, employees are wrestling openly with complex issues, such as what it means to “bring your whole self” to work, burnout, blurred lines between work and personal lives, and the perennial mental load. Employee mental health is justifiably salient. It’s estimated to cost the UK economy £118 billion annually, the equivalent of 5% of the UK’s GDP (NHS England).
With work making up such a significant proportion of our lives, more and more people are looking to their employer to at the very least acknowledge their mental health and, at best, be proactive and emotionally intelligent in creating an environment that supports it.
While mental health can be a catch-all phrase, we wanted to focus specifically on the role of psychological safety. Without which, individuals are dissatisfied, relationships erode and performance suffers.
What is psychological safety?
The term “psychology safety” is one of the current darlings of corporate vernacular. Everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks they need it, but what exactly is it? And why does it matter?
According to academics, psychological safety is “the willingness of an individual to take interpersonal risks at work”. It has also been described as the “willingness to speak up” – to be honest if something is bothering you, to raise a hand if you are uncomfortable with behaviors you are witnessing, to challenge if something feels unsafe, to feel included, safe to learn, contribute and challenge the status quo, all without a fear of retribution or punishment, marginalization or embarrassment (Schein and Bennis, 1965). Its foundations rest on deep, reciprocal levels of interpersonal trust.
Why does it matter?
Psychological safety is a big concept, which is often treated as an isolated behavior or state. However, the wealth of research that exists on it paints a much more nuanced picture because the very existence of psychological safety is critical to almost all other positive organizational behaviors. Its existence, or lack thereof, underpins nearly everything else.
Let’s think of it in terms of an organization’s espoused values – say you want to encourage your people to be good problem-solvers, agile, and innovative. These are all standard organizational values and desired behaviors. Psychological safety is the non-negotiable precursor to all of these becoming a reality.
Problem-solving and good decision making is predicated on individuals and groups taking decisive and conclusive action. Psychological safety is a proven lever for performance in high-stakes team environments, improving the quality of collective decision-making. If you don’t have psychological safety, and people aren’t able to contribute, you risk bias and groupthink or indecision.
What about values like creativity and innovation? Psychological safety is a known precursor to adaptive, innovative team performances. It makes sense – for individuals to be creative, they need to feel safe enough to take risks and to express themselves freely.
Finally, let’s think about transformation more broadly. Our most recent CEO Purpose Report revealed that CEOs recognize employees to be the most critical audience to engage in delivering an organizational purpose. In other words, if you have an ambition for your business to be a force for good, galvanizing your employees and creating a culture in which they can deliver on your business ambitions is a non-negotiable. And what lies at the very heart of that? You’ve guessed it – psychological safety. Because the existence of it mitigates anxiety, reduces perceived threats and removes barriers in times of change.
How can we create a culture of psychological safety?
As with anything culturally, it all comes down to the experience you provide your people. From the smallest, seemingly incidental moments through to how you build processes and policies in the organization. You can tell people they are safe, but unless they feel it, they won’t believe you.
Before you think about creating a culture of psychological safety, we’d recommend a period of observation, introspection and learning.
Look at moments in your employee’s day, like meetings – who participates in the meetings? Who speaks? Who is invited to share their opinion? How are decisions made and how do people react when things don’t go according to plan? The answer to these questions may start to give you an indication as to where psychological safety is not being supported by the subtle day-to-day interactions of your people.
In its rawest form, when an individual feels psychological safety they are released to perform. When we strip away the anxiety that comes from not feeling completely safe, we free up individuals to contribute fully and uncompromisingly. That leads to more innovative, creative, agile, ethical, high-performing environments. If you do one thing, make it a conversation about the psychological safety of your people.
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