How do you build & cultivate psychological safety in a team?
This is not an easy task and it will not be done overnight.
However, there are many things we can do to cultivate & build psychological safety.
In this post we’ll address the 4 top things you can do today!
- As leaders, we need to be forthcoming about the challenges we face and be able to address them with employees openly.
This allows us to be able to explain the challenges and encourage our employees to keep up the good work and push through it. A common understanding of the challenges we face will also open up for other great ideas. Remember, there is a reason you have the people you have in your organization. They are intelligent and full of great ideas! - Active listening:
Listening with intent and presence is important for leaders and team members alike.
Listening with intent means that you focus on the person who is conveying the message, not on your response or reaction. You are curious and genuine in your approach. This is return will create and cultivate trust and psychological safety.
Working on practicing active listening and continuously work on these skills is not a one-time thing, rather in it continuous and has to be practiced frequently.
If you want to learn more about the art of active listening join our masterclass on enterprise agility. - Next, we must acknowledge and talk about mistakes:
If a mistake is made, acknowledge it, and talk about it openly, but remember to do so without focusing on the person who made the error or blaming them. When we experience failure we need to focus on the problem and process, and what went wrong. Rather than blaming people. Blaming people will not lead to anything good, instead, it will lead to an unsafe environment and employees.
If you as a leader make a mistake, talk about it, make it human. By leading by example you will establish that same practice among your team.
Instead of considering mistakes as something negative, work on turning this into a learning opportunity & experience. Without the mistake, you, your teams, and organization would never have had that exact opportunity to learn!
Recognize their value as opportunities to learn and build upon. - Lastly, encourage curiosity, encourage curiosity in the organization at all levels.
Be genuinely curious about your people, who are they, what are their passions and interests?
Creating a culture of curiosity will also in return not only spark a culture where coming up with new ideas are safe but also expected. It will spark innovation among your organization and excitement among your customers.
Want to learn more about enterprise agility?
Check out our course to learn more?
