Want to Create Psychological Safety? Here's what not to do!

Every team member can help to create psychological safety, but if you are a leader your behaviours can have an even greater impact.

If you are not familiar with the term, Amy Edmundson defines psychological safety as a “shared belief that the team feels safe for interpersonal risk taking”. Interpersonal risk taking can include asking questions, asking for help, giving negative feedback, sharing your ideas or making mistakes without the fear of negative repercussions.

If you want to create psychological safety it is important to understand the “shared belief” part of this definition as it’s not enough for you to feel psychologically safe – it needs to be every team member.

To create psychological safety it can be helpful to learn the behaviours which destroy psychological safety, so that you can avoid these (and do the opposite!)

Being that person who speaks the most in meetings – Google’s project Aristotle found a strong connection between the “equal distribution in conversational turn taking” and psychological safety. If you notice that you are the one that speaks the most in meetings, try holding back and giving others the space to share their ideas first. Or even better, encourage others to contribute and show them that you value their contributions.
Not actively listening to your team members – whether it’s a 1-1 conversation or a team meeting, if you find yourself multi-tasking, or if your mind is drifting off instead of listening, this could show others that you don’t value or care about what they are saying (even if that isn’t the case!). Feeling that our ideas don’t matter decreases psychological safety. Active listening is a bit like exercising a muscle – the more we practise and become self aware of it, the better we get at it.
Looking for someone to blame – when something goes wrong, or someone makes a mistake is your natural instinct to look for who is to blame? This behaviour can lead to team members being afraid to share mistakes openly and can encourage people to avoid taking risks, reducing innovation and team success. See if you can instead treat mistakes and failures with a stance of curiosity and learning.
Never admitting when you don’t know the answer (or even worse, pretending that you do) – telling people when you don’t know the answer, or admitting that you don’t know much about something makes it easier for other people to do the same. When I see leaders, regularly admitting that they don’t know something, or showing a bit of vulnerability I see this as a strength, helping to create psychological safety by making it easier for team members to be theirselves and to ask questions.
Reacting to feedback defensively or dismissively – it’s natural to want to explain yourself or defend your work when someone gives you negative feedback. I once stopped giving feedback to a leader because he always dismissed my feedback and argued against it. A simple thank you and a willingness to consider the feedback goes a long way to creating an environment where people can freely share feedback with each other.

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