Creating Psychologically Safe Environments

In the previous post, I talked about what we mean by psychological safety, why it is important, and how to measure it. In this post, I am going to finish off by sharing tips to build psychological safety in your teams.

The following tips will help you build psychological safety within your team.

1. Model Curiosity
2. Acknowledge your own fallibility
3. Give constructive feedback
4. Make sure you’re available and make sure your team knows it
5. Invite feedback
6. Get comfortable with failure
7. Put a ban on blame
8. Welcome curiosity
9. Praise effort, not just results
10. Hold regular ‘town hall’ meetings

Continue on for a more detailed look at each of the steps you can take to build psychological safety at work.

1. Model curiosity: Start conversations and encourage debate, make sure you ask your employees lots of questions. Doing these things encourages the team to speak up and promotes healthy discussion within the team.
2. Acknowledge your own fallibility: If employees see their seniors admitting to their shortcomings, and showing a thirst to learn, they are more likely to do so themselves. Phrases like “I may miss things – I need your input” are great for demonstrating this.
3. Give constructive feedback: It’s vital that employees do not feel criticised or contrived by your feedback. When giving feedback, try to draw on strengths whilst encouraging growth in areas requiring improvement.
4. Make sure you’re available and make sure your team knows it: An open-door policy is pointless if no-one comes to the door. Make sure your team know that you are there to help. When they do approach you, try to be approachable, open-minded and non-judgmental. Be aware that to start, people may not engage, so try to go to them.
5. Invite feedback: Being open to feedback shows your team that you’re confident in your ability, but also flexible in your approach and open to change.
6. Get comfortable with failure: Fear of making mistakes can stifle creativity and independent thinking, so it’s vital that your workforce know that it’s okay to make errors. Reframe these mistakes as an opportunity for team learning.
7. Put a ban on blame: When something goes wrong, instead of singling someone out for blame, talk about how the team can work together to put it right.
8. Welcome curiosity: Encourage your employees to voice their opinion, ask questions and challenge decisions. Every breakthrough is the result of curiosity, so it’s also good practice to promote healthy debate around decisions that are made.
9. Praise effort, not just results: If your workforce believe that performance is contingent on effort, and not just results, they are willing to try new things and persevere in the face of failure.
10. Hold regular ‘town hall’ meetings: Hold regularly scheduled meetings, where any member of the organisation can pose ideas or questions to upper management.

When people do speak up, this makes sure they know that their ideas or suggestions are being taken seriously.