Psychological safety.

Psychological safety has been defined as the ‘belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes’ (Edmondson, 2019).

Workplaces and teams that have good psychological safety are characterised by inclusivity, collaboration, a fair approach to mistakes, and a coaching - rather than always ‘telling’ - culture.

Research has shown psychological safety to be associated many significant benefits including:

• greater staff engagement and wellbeing

• greater resilience

• better learning throughout the organisation (because people have a clear picture of what is really going on)

• improved team performance and innovation

  Psychological safety is one of the vital tasks of modern leadership, and a key part of creating better workplace cultures.

There are many factors that influence how psychologically safe a person or team feel to speak up with ideas or raise challenges and concerns.

The most influential factor is leadership, and so this should form the focus of efforts to improve a culture of psychological safety.

Good question! The topic of psychological safety has received much attention, but through my reading and research I could not find a clear, evidence-based set of observable behaviours which support psychological safety.

So I created the SPACE(R) model of leadership for psychological safety which forms the framework for my workshops and talks on this topic. It consists of a clear, observable set of behaviours - so that everyone can share an understanding of what ‘good’ looks like and what to aim for.

To find out more please get in touch.