Want to Create the Best Team? Build Psychological Safety

5 min read.

TLDR: Psychological safety is the secret sauce in world class teams and organisations. Create leadership that is authentic, capable of showing vulnerability, communicates honestly and regularly, keeps learning, invests into individuals as a whole, listens actively and acts, empowers, deals with conflict early and fairly, sees failure as part of success but recognises subsequent success when it happens and supports social activity.

When it comes to high-performing teams, there's one often overlooked ingredient that can make or break success - psychological safety. It's that magical feeling of being able to show up authentically, ask questions, admit mistakes and voice differing opinions without fear of embarrassment or punishment. Get it right, and you unlock a wealth of talent, creativity and collaboration. Get it wrong and team dynamic, culture, motivation and retention are all adversely impacted. In fact, according to a Harvard Business Review, people at organisations that cultivated such trust reported 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more life-satisfaction and 40% less burnout - Sounds like something worth aspiring to.

I've seen firsthand how transformative psychological safety can be, both as a team leader and a member. Teams operating in a safe space don't hold back - they lean in, build on each other's thoughts fearlessly and take calculated risks. An air of trust and mutual respect permeates everything they do. Work colleagues become trusted confidantes and friends, further ‘oiling the wheels’ of the internal organisational machine. Compare that to teams plagued by scepticism, self-censorship and ‘walking-on-eggshells’ syndrome - it's like night and day in terms of engagement and output.

So how do you cultivate this coveted dynamic? (It’s not about having free fruit, a Friday afternoon BBQ and a table tennis table). Here are 10 ways to create psychological safety:

Be Authentic and Show Vulnerability

As with all aspects of organisational culture, tone starts at the top. Having an MD or CEO who has the humility to be vulnerable, to readily own up to their own missteps, who encourages divergent thinking and who seeks out reciprocal coaching with more junior members of their team all signal loudly and clearly that there is a humanistic, empathetic approach. Leadership that reacts calmly when someone surfaces an alternative viewpoint, that remains reasonable and rational when challenged messages safety and encourages healthy debate, irrespective of the hierarchy in the room.

True psychological safety however, goes beyond the boss demonstrating openness. Team members have to extend the same courtesies laterally, respecting each other's perspectives and believing in one another's positive intentions. It means replacing knee-jerk criticism with curiosity, creating room for quirky ideas to breathe, and letting go of looking perpetually polished in favour of a growth mindset.

Communicate Openly, Honestly and Regularly

Only 13% of employees in a recent Gallup poll felt adequately informed by the company leadership - creating uncertainty that inhibits teamwork. The antidote is transparent, frequent communication about organisational performance against company strategy, project developments, market and competitor updates and people developments. Live the “my door is always open” mantra and be consistently accommodating in how you show up in such ad-hoc conversations - any inconsistency and negativity in responsiveness will result in future avoidance on behalf of your team.

Keep Learning from Each Other

Buddy up with people in your business who have expertise you don’t. Personally, as I’ve got older, being open about areas that I don’t know much about and partnering with more junior team members who have expertise in such knowledge areas as Social Media Marketing has played a significant role in building rapport, trust and cooperation. Not only does this future-proof older employees but it creates a relationship bridge between those with longer and shorter tenure and higher and lower seniority. AI is the current playground.

Develop the Person not the Role

High-trust workplaces facilitate professional and personal growth with ongoing feedback, clear goals, and discussions around work-life integration. This boosts engagement and retention more than rigid performance reviews.

One of the most powerful personal learning exercises I found with team members was assisting individuals understand their personal values. Why? Because it was personalised and of high intrinsic value to them, allowed them to align these values to their role in the workplace and facilitated living a more authentic version of themselves in all areas of their lives…including their career. Living authentically means work becomes more enjoyable and more meaningful with greater purpose and better results.

Listen More (and Act)

Give everyone the airtime they need, recognising that format, frequency and depth will vary by individual according to their personality type and circumstance. Listen to understand rather than respond. Remain present. Leaders should offer their input last in group discussions to avoid the creation of bias. Seek feedback from employees - acknowledge and act where applicable; where action is not applicable explain why.

Empowered Autonomy

Give people discretion over how they manage appropriately challenging tasks and projects. Trusting them to figure things out motivates and allows different innovative approaches to emerge. Oversight and debriefs can mitigate risks while letting positive deviations get shared. Relating to people-matters, prior coaching reduces inherant risk but the best way to learn how to manage people-based situations is through experience coupled with pre- and post reviews.

Show Fairness and Deal with Conflict Early

Ensure that any unacceptable conduct is dealt with in an empathetic way, avoiding blame or shame. Differing situations should be dealt with in a consistent fashion, taking into consideration past precedent. Dealing with potential conflict situations early shows both a willingess to address as well as recognition that an issue dealt with in its infancy is much more likely to be resolved favourably and with minimal upset. Taking positive action reaffirms what the organisational parameters in behaviour are.

Recognise Achievements

Celebrating successes has a powerful effect on building trust. This can take the form of a public-sharing of excellence, especially when peer-driven, through to private one-to-one acknowledgments of a job well done. All should be as immediate, tangible, unexpected and personalised as possible. Public recognition tailored to the individual(s) not only reinforces what excellence looks like, but inspires others to aim for it too. Consistency in what qualifies as being worthy of recognition is also key so as not to demean intrinsic value.

Embrace Failure

One of the quickest ways to kill psychological safety occurs when declared intent doesn’t match witnessed action especially when it’s related to a perceived failure. A disparity between prior rhetoric and subsequent punitive action will mean that the team will never believe they are actually safe in making mistakes. Yes, steps should be taken to mitigate risk, cost, resource implications but decisions made when we empower that turn out to be incorrect should be embraced as learning opportunities, not as an opportunity to wield the stick. Psychological safety doesn't guarantee you'll never endure a failed project or bout of office politics, but it is that secret sauce that brews an environment where people show up as their candid, cooperative selves compared to a forced risk-averse version.

The Team that Plays Together…

Neuroscience shows we're hardwired to perform better with strong social ties because it creates affiliation - put simply, we don’t want to let down people we care more about. Make time therefore for team lunches, activities, and challenges that spark bonding over a shared goal. Start these during conventional work hours and then extend into non-work hours as additional entirely-voluntary opportunities for people to socialise. Respect that some will never take up the latter and accept that that’s ok.

In an age of non-stop disruption and fierce competition for talent, the creation of team psychological safety is, in my view, the winning factor. Not only does it bind teams together, but it equips them to problem-solve, iterate and stay nimble in the face of change. To me, that's more than worth leaving egos, silos and face-saving at the door.

Does getting there require work? Absolutely. Undoing hierarchical corporate instincts or personal habits of judgment doesn't happen overnight. There has to be coaching on things like active listening, giving/receiving feedback constructively, and having productive disagreements.

The payoff, though, is exponential. Psychologically safe teams aren't just happier and more engaged - study after study shows they simply achieve more. They're better at spotting risks, grappling with complexity, and innovating solutions. People from all backgrounds feel free to contribute their A-game, tapping into the diversity of thought that unlocks growth.

If any of this resonates with your business or team and you’d like a discussion as to how I can help build this capability with you, please contact me here. I’d love to help!