#387 Psychological safety in the workplace

Psychological safety in the workplace

Basics, safeguarding, implementation

Assaults in the workplace are being reported more and more frequently.

The public debate is also increasingly focusing on these aspects. For far too long, unacceptable behaviour on the part of managers was accepted as long as they presented financially successful results. If the situation escalates, there is great astonishment and often (feigned) sympathy, and the damage to people and the organisation is certain. It takes a long time and a lot of effort, time, and money to rectify the situation.

How can you ensure psychological safety in the workplace?

Definition

Defining psychological safety is the first step in the right direction. First, psychological safety means that people can and should be able to take interpersonal risks. This may involve introducing surprising ideas, asking unexpected questions, or openly admitting mistakes. These steps must be taken without the expectation of immediate negative consequences, whether in terms of personal status, reputation, or career opportunities within the organisation.

Core aspects

Psychological safety has many aspects. Some of these are mentioned below (more on this in this week's podcast; see links below).

The first is open communication. Respect for diversity is also important here. If to give just one example, you know people who tell you that everything is now 'left-green and woke' or that 'you're not allowed to say anything these days', you are the first person who does not fulfil the basic requirements of modern leadership and psychological safety in the workplace. Leadership should provide support so that (calculated) risks are also taken, trust and reliability are practised so that a communicative safe space can be created. If, for example, ideas or suggestions immediately lead to negative criticism, you have not yet reached the status of psychological safety. Proactive, prudent, results-orientated conflict management, recognition and rewards for good performance, clear roles and expectations that meet requirements are just as much a part of this as openness to feedback or a focus on aspects of mental and physical well-being. Inclusive, participative decision-making, consistency and fairness, empathy and compassion are further aspects that enable employees to appear and act authentically at work.

Many of these requirements are not met in today's working world, making it all the more important to act proactively to ensure the organisation's future viability.

Implementation

Both managers and employees need guidance here. A list on the intranet, a new 'Code of Conduct' or a short video with empty buzzwords are not enough. You need workshops, coaching, training, counselling, support - you can decide whether this is internal or external. A high level of credibility on the part of the people involved is of central importance.

Also, make sure that nobody abuses the safe space. Some people try to place racism, nationalism, sexism, pseudo-science or open hostility towards science under the guise of alleged freedom of opinion. Everyone has the right to their own opinion but not to their own facts. Communicate the organisation's values comprehensively here and live them to the full.

Please reward positive behaviour accordingly. Negative behaviour or even misconduct must be sanctioned accordingly. Employees will very quickly notice if you want to use the concept of psychological safety solely as a marketing tool in recruitment.

Conclusion: psychological safety is a must today and greatly benefits everyone involved - individuals and organisations alike.

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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Apple Podcasts / Spotify
See below for the podcast transcript.

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Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.

Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.

Podcast Transcript

Niels Brabandt

Psychological safety at work. You probably heard that term in the recent past, especially this year. It has been a big topic. However, many leaders are quite unsure on the matter because they don't really know what that is. And as it sounds very important, which by the way it is, many people don't like to to talk about it at all because they think maybe I address something and the question itself already is is in the category of doing something wrong because maybe I should know, but I just don't know. So it's very important for me to get an update here and welcome you exactly at the right episode for that. We are talking about psychological safety in the workplace.

When you look at what's happening right now, when people show misconduct, especially leadership misconduct, more and more people report leadership misconduct. You see it in HR, you see it in compliance, and more and more people go to public, which of course is not great for your brand. However, it's well deserved because obviously, and we have to be honest with that, for a very long time, leadership misconduct was tolerated. Statements such as they were from a different generation, this is how people work back in the days, or this is how our industry is, up to the statement you're just not hard enough to work here. These are all statements which are anything but psychological safety in the workplace. And today, people do not accept such statements, and when the organization does not act, there's a ticking time bomb in your organization. It will escalate in public.

The question is not if, the question is just when. Worst case here, you have massive damage to the person and that usually ends up in public, but it also can end up with your organization taking massive harm here. And to somehow get this under control and repair, it takes a long time, takes a lot of effort, lots of money, all of the things you do not want to spend and you want to prevent in the first place. So how can you guarantee psychological safety in the workplace? That's our topic for today. 1st, we need to talk about what is psychological safety because most of these definitions are quite wobbly. It starts with you need to have the opportunity to take interpersonal risks.

So what does that mean? I give you a couple of examples. Interpersonal risks means you, for example, bring an idea forward where you think it might be debatable because it is not it is not a 100%, let's say, a 100% obedient to what management wants. It's a it's an idea that slightly diverged from the plan they had. Bring this idea forward, ask questions, or for example, admit mistakes that you did. And very important here, without the risk of facing an immediate negative consequence either by limiting your personal status, your reputation in the organization, or ending your career by someone who said that was your career here and that's the end of the matter. That cannot happen when you want to guarantee psychological safety.

However, we need to get into more details than that. When we look into core aspects, and I'm going to mention 15 aspects here in total, there are, of course, a lot more. I just give you the core one, so you have an orientation, what are we talking about? The first one is open communication. If people, for example, ask you, do I get a salary raise?

Is that possible? They deserve to get a yes or no. When they say, where does the strategy go? You need to be open about that. As soon as you're not open, people might overthink and that usually ends pretty bad. Respecting diversity is another aspect of that. And by the way, if you now think of people and you probably know people, either people you know personally or people you know online or worst case, people you know in your organization. People who say something like, oh, it's all these left green woke agenda things.

These are the people who shouldn't be anywhere on leadership level anymore because these people either need training and coaching to get their values, aligned to to to the expectations of a modern society. When you have someone who is going against diversity, you have a severe problem and your workforce will very quickly show you the results of that. Of course, a supporting leadership towards not only modern society, but modern approaches of leadership is also part of psychological safety. A leader should always support you, not have a go against you and then disappear as soon as you do your work well. You don't hear anything of them, and as soon as you did did something wrong, the leaders show up. You need to have better leaders than that. I just want to bring back to your mind, 81% of all leaders according to CMI, Chartered Management Institute in London, never received a single day of professional leadership training or coaching.

So there's a lot of work to do here. Another part of psychological safety is that you encourage people to take risks and that does not mean that they allowed to take any risk as they like calculated risk within certain boundaries. The next part here is, of course, you trust people and you are reliable to what you said. I give you an example of how it should not end. So someone took a calculated risk and it worked well, they trusted the person very well done and they agreed when you get this project sold, you will get a salary raise from 1st January of 2025. Perfect. Everything went well.

And then the contract showed up with the new salary, and the employee looked into it. This is this is a real world case, and the employee looked into it. And then they said, well, here you are. You get your salary raise 1 quarter of that 1st January, 1 quarter 1st April, 1 quarter 1st July, 1 quarter 1st December. And then they said, well, that is a salary raise in 2025, isn't it? And that is something which is not acceptable. When you think that you can be unreliable to your people, they will give you non reliability back.

Would you, of course, also need is a so called communication safe space. A communicative space safe space. That means in a protected space, people are allowed to speak up if something needs to be criticized or went wrong and they do not immediately face a negative consequence. I get back to the safe space later because some people misuse these safe spaces, which is of course not okay. Also, part of the safe space is a proactive conflict management. And, of course, when people did something wrong, they get appreciation and, of course, they get a reward. And, by the way, a reward is more than a thank you.

However, to sign off these rewards and probably salary raises or bonuses, you need very clear roles and expectations. I can tell you what not psych what psychological safety is not. Someone has an idea. 1 leader picks it up and says, yeah, I think I have to escalate that. And then they put up to next level, and next level, and next level. Every level filters out whatever could harm their department. And after month month month, you simply see that they are not talking about it anymore.

It it it was just put to death. They just silence you by the talking about it anymore. Very clear roles, very clear expectations also means that people are able and willing to take and make decisions. Openness for feedback, of course, is part of that as well and the focus on well-being. I give you a very simple example here as well. It's now December, so more people call in sick. Surprise. Surprise. Who could have thought?

There are more people calling in sick in December than in July. Who could have thought? And this focus on well-being is important because I know that the end of the year can be very stressful depending on which country you work in. And I give you an example. For example, in Germany, many country many companies have end of the year reported December, while, for example, in the UK, end of financial year, fiscal year often is in April.

So end of March there. So that is very important that focus on well-being does not mean everyone needs to sit in the spa while doing Microsoft Excel to whale sounds and getting a feet massage while doing so. That's not the idea. Focus on well-being means that people are not stressed out all the time while doing their work, and that is something which I frequently see again this year. Sometimes work can be stressful. However, focus on well-being is not contrary to that. It's not opposed to that.

It can come along with it. On the next level, you have inclusive and participate, and participation in decision making. Inclusivity means that anyone is part of the organization. You do not exclude people based on either gender, skin color, race, religion, or gender identity, sexual orientation, etcetera etcetera. It could be a long list here. And participation means they have a say in the decision. That does not mean that you need to discuss every single decision you make.

And by the way, people do not even want to be participating in every single decision, but they want to be part of the most important ones. When you now say and I I already see it coming with different organizations. When you now say, hey. In January, we're going to have a kickoff meeting, and the kickoff meeting means we're going to pull some new strategies, some new change out of our hats. Anyone will be totally surprised. People will have big question marks on their faces and say, where did that come from now? And you just say, shut up and just walk along. They won't.

That is the news of the day for you probably here. Inclusive decision making, including participation of the people is part of psychological safety. People do not do not support changes when they say, we should have had a say here, but we weren't even considered to be asked. And it shouldn't be a surprise that they then do not support whatever you have in mind afterwards. Consistency and fairness, of course, is another part of what you should give people and empathy, as well as compassion, is another part here. I can just give you a very simple a very simple example here and the very simple example here is and I always struggle to really put that out because I I hear it every single year and I often wonder what is wrong with people. So school calls and they say your child is sick.

Your child basically is so sick that it almost collapsed in the classroom. This is a massive flu. It needs to be put to bat. Your child needs recovery and probably see a doctor. And, of course, parents are deeply worried. And by the way, I do not have children and even I feel this. And this year, again, I had multiple cases.

Of course, these cases then escalate and then they become training or coaching matters which I have to deal with because leaders said to these employees, your child doesn't recover quicker when you stand next to it. What on earth is wrong with you that you say such things? When you say, oh, your empathy is a bit lower. Well, I'm a mister empathy, I can tell you. I don't even have children. I don't even have children or family and even I know that this is not the right answer. When you think your project plan is more important than a child's health situation, Something in your value system is deeply wrong and we need to deal with that.

So be sure that consistency, fairness, empathy, and compassion are part of your leadership and of course, and that is the main aspect here, bit of an overarching thing here, the freedom to express yourself to be authentic. And I give you a very simple example here again. 1 of my friends lives in Berlin and he works in consultancy, a well known consultancy company, an HR consultancy company. And he's dealing with very important project with high level senior executives and leaders. And but also in his spare time, he's a DJ.

He's a DJ in LGBTQIA plus community clubs. He's openly gay, and he puts insta stories out there DJing and dancing the night away till 7 AM in the morning with everything that's part of that. Of course, nothing where he where he throws him at a lamppost, but it is these these are long party nights, and his employer never made a single comment on that. They said you can put on social media whatever you want, and that is encouraging people to be authentic. I can tell you for situations where I saw and I just I just give you one example here. Northwestern Germany insurance company, and one of the partners in this insurance company sat down with his employees 1 by 1 and went through their social media, LinkedIn, and Xing Xing is the German version of LinkedIn, and said, oh, I see on your on your LinkedIn profile, you you have this as a student, you were barkeeper at this hipster bar, you have to remove that. What what do our clients think when they see you were a barkeeper?

You're you're now selling industry insurance. You can't be a barkeeper in your pro in in your former life.

I just remove that. And that is the exact opposite of be authentic and feel free to be yourself. And by the way, the time for these polished CVs really is over and it's not over since yesterday. It's over for many, many years already. When I see someone with one of these polished TVs, I do not believe a single word I see there. And as soon as I talk to them and they just double down on their polished TV, sorry, you will not sell a single penny to me. So freedom to be authentic is part of psychological safety in the workplace as well.

The question now is, how do you implement all of that? And first, of course, you have to tell your leaders how to do that. That means you have to either offer coaching or training or workshops. You can do this internally, externally as you like it for your leaders and your employees. It is not enough to put an online class out there which you recorded by yourself with a PDF to download with a list of things like, oh, yeah. Tick the box. Say you did this and then now we're fully compliant on psychological safety.

No, you're not. And people, by the way, very quickly realize when you try to play the system and immediately people will go to public with their issues because they know you do not hold a real interest in psychological safety in the workplace. Then, of course, you have to find the right balance because I can tell you one side effect of psychological safety is that some people will try to trick you. I'll give you a very simple example. There's a safe space people meet and there's anyone's open for critique and things are discussed. And one person says, well, I have to speak up here and I I I have the right not to be criticized because it's a safe space here. I think we have way too many foreigners on staff and this is totally annoying.

I can't speak my my native language here. We have to remove them, all of them, or just train them that they are all able to speak English, and that is straightforward racism. Some people try to tell you that a safe space means you can just pedal out any nonsense you have in there from xenophobia to nationalism to straightforward racism, and, no, you can't. A psychologically safe space, a communicative safe space, a communication safe space means that people can say out loud what they want to discuss, but it needs to be based in facts and reasoning. When someone says get the immigrants out, by the way, the earth is flat and the sun is green, you need psychological help, but that's on a different level and you should seek out help from professionals who will give you help in either more open or more closed settings, which professionals on that level then have to decide. So be be aware of the fact that finding the right balance is very important here because some people I can tell you will try to to trick you on that. Speak up with your values.

Tell tell people what the values of the organization are and live by your values. And, of course, and that, of course, wraps it up. You need to reward people when they do something wrong. However, when something goes wrong. So you you need to reward people when they do things right, but you need to also act when people see something's going wrong. So when you do any kind of event, training, coaching, mentoring, consultancy, whatever it is, speaking gigs, whatever, you when you do all of that on psychological safety, leaders misbehave and they get away with it. People will very quickly see and say, that is just another piece of corporate marketing, and I do not trust anyone in this whole organization anymore because this makes it worse, not better.

So be aware, and we can wrap it all up with that. Psychological safety is a must have today and it has a benefit for everyone involved for the people and for the organization. And I wish you all the best implementing it in your organization. And when, of course, now you think, woah.

That's quite something. I probably have 20 different things on my mind. Can we talk about it? Yes. Of course, we can. Just drop me an email, nbnbhyphennetworks. com. Then oh, by the way, I put the email address in the show notes of this podcast, so you find it below this podcast.

Feel free to contact me there. Of course, I also put my LinkedIn there so we can connect on there. You can also just go to my website, nbhyphennetworks dot biz, and then we take it from there. On the website, by the way, you also find the transcript from this podcast just in case you like to read everything I just told you here. You also find additional aspects. By the way, a very important miss, the second step here, I I strongly re recommend you to sign up for the leadership letter. We have live sessions.

That's why when you go to expert. Nb networks.com, I also put that in the show notes of the podcast. When you sign up there, you only receive one email every Wednesday morning. It's a 100% content ad free guarantee. And when you sign up there, then you will receive only one email every Wednesday morning. It's a 100% content ad free guarantee. And in there is, first access to all the podcasts including the archives, access to all articles if you have people who prefer reading over listening, and of course the link to the next live session which when you listen to this podcast on the day of publication is coming very soon.

So feel free to join. It's available to anyone in the email you receive every Wednesday morning. It's the direct access link. There is no registration. You just click on the link and then take it from there. Looking forward to seeing you there. The third step, however, is the most important one.

Apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive change that you obviously want to see in your organization. I wish you all the best doing so. If you need any kind of help, contact me 247. I answer any kind of message within 24 hours, And no matter what kind of help you need, training, speaking, coaching, whatever, we can discuss that. Or we can just discuss whatever you like to, because this episode happened because of questions people sent me. And I saw that psychological safety is a rising issue in the corporate world in the organization, and this is why we covered this topic today. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

And at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.