Why psychological safety is critical for high-performing teams

Parent Post

Big launches and milestone

Big launches and milestone achievements deserve to be celebrated. 

When organizations take time to recognize the hard work that went into the completion of a release or even a bite-sized milestone, this helps employees recharge and stay motivated. 

But what happens when a team fails?  

Space is created for

Space is created for reflection and review.

The team takes time to learn from past performances to help with future improvements. Retrospectives allow teammates to discuss what went well and what didn’t go so well. 

The 4Ls approach helps uncover what was liked, learned, lacked, or longed for after a particular project or after a certain timeframe such as a year or quarter.

There is a diversity

There is a diversity of thought.

More and more organizations will continue to focus resources on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts. 

Creating a workplace environment that promotes psychological safety is an art, and there is no silver bullet. There are unspoken agreements, company-wide values, leadership qualities, and technology to help support this ongoing work. 

Evaluating your organization’s psychological

Evaluating your organization’s psychological safety

Here are a few ways to gauge the level of psychological safety within your team or organization.

There is a tolerance for mistakes.

Employees are open about the mistakes they made instead of avoiding them or, worse yet, covering mistakes up. Leaders treat mistakes as an opportunity to learn and often communicate their own fallibility. 

If your team is

If your team is not looking at ways to explore ways to overcome these mistakes in the future, this could be a sign that teammates lack psychological safety. 

A psychologically safe work environment encourages team members to speak up with ideas, concerns, or recent failures instead of choosing to remain silent. 

Psychological safety in the workplace is the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

Micro-moments of learning occur

Micro-moments of learning occur regularly.

Leaders model curiosity by sharing their ignorance on a topic and asking questions. 

Employees are empowered to ask questions, poke at proposals, and when the answer is unclear, employees are encouraged to level up through on-the-job learnings. 

Risk-taking is encouraged.Employees voice

Risk-taking is encouraged.

Employees voice radical business and technical ideas. They’re willing to take interpersonal risks by speaking up in meetings, voicing their concerns, and never settling without asking “why.” 

These risks lead to deep levels of participation and ownership. 

When employees feel psychologically

When employees feel psychologically safe, they’re willing to take more risks, share ideas, and speak their truth. 

Trust is created through interpersonal connections and reinforced through an open and transparent environment. 

Teams thrive when they

Teams thrive when they take risks and fail (or succeed!) fast. 

Instead of being stagnant, the momentum continues forward as employees learn from their mistakes. 

Risk-taking and learning from mistakes so the team doesn’t repeat them again are behaviors of high-performing teams. 

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