In the absence of psychological safety, team trust remains elusive. One might argue, though that without trust psychological safety is not possible so there is often a “chicken and egg” dilemma.
Psychological safety is not easy to create. Much like trust, it evolves gradually and demands unwavering dedication from both the leader and every individual team member. The journey involves a collective commitment to practicing, allowing, and holding each other accountable for fostering a culture of psychological safety.
When you have a psychologically safe environment and people feel safe to bring their whole self to work, people communicate and collaborate effectively and a culture of curiosity and creativity is cultivated.
The 5 pillars of Psychological Safety
Gina Battye, a world-renowned, award-winning Psychological Safety consultant, created the following principles:
#1 Self
Focus area: Self- Awareness/ how to bring your whole self to work
#2 Social
Focus area: Communication / How to build social capital in the workplace
#3 Collaboration
Focus area: Collaboration / How to create an environment where everyone in the team can thrive
#4 Curiosity
Focus area: Learning and Development / How to experiment and innovate
#5 Creativity
Focus area: Solving and Creative Thinking Skills / How to generate solutions to transcend boundaries
9 positive steps towards building psychological safety in your team
- Talk about the concept of psychological safety
- Explore together what it would look like if people ‘felt psychologically safe’ at work
- Allow time for people to really get to know each other on a personal level
- Explore preferences and working styles
- Model questions that seek to genuinely understand
- Voluntarily provide facts and take responsibility when things have not gone as intended
- Share professional learnings and successes
- Adopt a mindset of curiosity and learning
- Share this visual with the team, ask for ways they think it could be used
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BUILDING RESILIENCE: Read in this series
Very good that you bring up this very important matter of Psychological Safety.
People both onboard and in the shore office must have a sufficient understanding and knowledge of the relationship factors in safety leadership by creating trust and psychological safety that encourage and inspire employees.