The big mistake organisations make about Psychological Safety.
In our research, two of the strongest messages we are hearing right now from organisations is that they are placing importance on Wellbeing and Psychological Safety, rightfully so.
One of the ways organisations are trying to improve these two things is through better leadership.
“There is a huge push at work right now for the leaders of teams to check in with their team members about their mental health and Wellbeing, as well as create environments in their team to allow for Psychological Safety. These are two of our key priorities.”
But, here is where organisations go wrong… They are not considering the question of ‘if the leaders feels psychologically safe to enter these conversations’. The vast majority of leaders we studied said they had a lot of anxiety and trepidation about entering these conversations. Some of the comments were:
“I don’t know how to start these conversations, it feels so awkward”
“I am not sure what to say, what if I say the wrong thing and get myself into trouble”
“What do I do if someone gets upset or breaks down or asks for help”
“I am not qualified to do this”
As a result many leaders are avoiding these conversations due to the lack of safety they feel.
The real unfortunate thing is that this is being interpreted by their teams and the organisation as a lack of care or it’s shown as less of a priority by the leader. The reality is that the majority of leaders do care deeply about their teams, but their fear overrides their ability to have these conversations. This calls for the need of organisations to put structures in place to ensure that both parties feel safe.
Over the last 7 years we have been developing and fine tuning a virtual program we called The Evolution Project that focuses on Wellbeing, Culture and Performance
This started when we were asked by an organisation to run a Wellbeing program across 10,000 geographically dispersed team members. The only way we were able to implement this was virtually. So, we created a model where the leader facilitated their team through the program together as a group.
To make the program as simple as possible for the leaders we created a ‘Leaders Toolkit” which consisted of videos by Dr Adam Fraser, diagnostics for the team to fill our, action plans for individuals as well as team and a script for the leaders to follow.
The feedback we obtained from leaders all revolved around the feeling of safety. An example from a leader: “I have been wanting to have these conversations with my team but didn’t know how to do it, the structure of the program was easy to follow, I just facilitated the conversations. It allowed us to have deeper conversations.”
The added benefit that we didn’t expect to see was a 160% improvement in how much the team trusted their leader.
This finding validates the organisations desires to have their leader support their teams around their mental health and Wellbeing. However, this can only happen if the leaders feel psychologically safe. If a leader does not feel safe in this department, they will most likely avoid the conversation or conduct it in a half-hearted fashion.
Leaders need structures and support put around them to make it a safe experience for not only their team members but also themselves.