LM - Creating Psychological Safety

Treats staff fairly and consistently, encouraging them to use their individual strengths and to raise issues and concerns safely.
Creates an environment of mutual support and a culture of care, where team members believe 'someone has my back'.

Stimulates open and honest conversation, challenge, and discussion, and encourages a culture of constructive reviewing, rather than blaming.

Contributes to a culture where people can speak up, challenge, and admit mistakes without fear of negative consequences.
Removes formal barriers between colleagues to create an environment of trust and establishes care and support networks.

PDFs

Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is one of the most important conditions that you can create to contribute to the effectiveness, productivity, motivation, and growth of a team or an organisation. This PDF explains what psychological safety is, and how you can create it, and what stops it.

Negative and Positive Evidence
This PDF explains how we unconsciously filter information depending on biases we might have and how this can impact how we feel about receiving recognition. Use this to check whether you are more sensitive to a lack of recognition than instances when you are recognised, and learn ways to change this if necessary.

Trust in Self and Others
This PDF covers the nature of trust and trusting relationships and why they are important. It will help you to understand why and when we look for evidence that we are safe in a group and the effect this has on our ability to cope.

ON THE JOB ACTIONS
Review
Read What Is Psychological Safety? and How to Create Psychological Safety. Reflect on your own behaviour. Are you treating everyone with respect? Are individuals able to be themselves without any unkind banter or comment.

Respect
Try to learn what each member of the team is proud of about themselves. Make sure that you comment favourably when they have demonstrated this aspect.

Disagreements
Read Resolving Conflict in the Communication competency and the Skill of Conflict Resolution. Use the recommended techniques appropriately, especially Chunking Up to Agreement as this is useful if you have to facilitate and resolve conflict between members of your team. Doing this successfully will strengthen psychological safety.

Are you biased?
Read Negative and Positive Evidence to understand if you have a bias towards either, and, if you do, how this might affect your own psychological safety and your judgements about others, which, in turn, might affect theirs.

Build trust
Read Trust in Self and Others for a neuroscientist’s explanation of how trust is created in the brain and practical ideas for building it.

LEADING AND MANAGING PEOPLE

Creating Psychological Safety

Level 1

Level 2

Level 4

Resources