Psychological Safety Part 4: Your 5 Step Roadmap
“Psychological safety is not a personality difference but rather a feature of the workplace that leaders can and must help create.”
- Barry O’Reilly
In part one of this 4-part series, we outlined why psychological safety matters to an organization, as well as the undesired impact of non psychologically safe workplaces.
In part two of this series, we reviewed the 6 key benefits of a psychologically safe workplace including enhanced engagement, creation of inclusion and belonging, unleashing of creativity and innovation, improved employee wellbeing, higher retention rates, and boosted performance.
In part three of this series, we examined the four types of physiological safety including learner, contributor, challenger, and inclusion safety. We outlined the types of safety and how to achieve them.
In this last blog of the series, we want to share our leadership roadmap to create psychological safety in your organization.
Leaders play a vital role in the psychological health and safety of workers and are responsible for creating a positive workplace culture. Leaders with a ‘people and engagement focus’ can help protect and buffer workers against psychological injury and enhance individual well-being at work.
Supervisors and managers should be given the tools and training to develop and utilize the following competencies to support healthy workplace environments (Source: Psychological Safety and Well-being Guide The University of Queensland AUS)
Problem solving and conflict management
Safety and Security
Positive role-modeling
Communication and collaboration
Equity and integrity
Leaders must embark on an introspective journey to harness emotions and confront fears, fostering psychological safety at work, and then extend their efforts outward to empower others by:
Cultivating self-awareness to navigate their internal and external landscapes effectively.
Embracing vulnerability as a courageous act to break down barriers and address unfolding challenges.
Practicing empathy to connect with the emotions of others to cultivate trust and understanding.
Practicing compassion to demonstrate genuine care and support for individuals and groups.
The Predictive Index suggests these 8 steps to building Psychological Safety:
Show your team you're engaged.
Let your team see you understand.
Avoid blaming to build trust.
Be self-aware—and demand the same from your team.
Nip negativity in the bud.
Include your team in decision making.
Be open to feedback.
Champion your team.
To authentically cultivate psychological safety at work and experience the tangible benefits it brings, The Wellsiliency™ Institute has dedicated years of research and development to craft a proven solution – our 5-part Roadmap. We firmly believe that genuine psychological safety is constructed through these five essential steps. As leaders embark on a journey that includes addressing personal wellbeing and new levels of self-awareness, they gain unexpected
BEING WELL
“Leaders who are not well cannot lead well or foster Psychological Safety.
Resetting wellbeing is both vital and ongoing, like changing the oil in your car, it’s a cyclical imperative for optimal functioning.”
To make a profound impact on a team, a leader must prioritize their own physical and psychological wellbeing – a pivotal step often overlooked by most well-being and leadership development programs.
Before attempting to exert influence and effectively interact with others, it is crucial to begin by focusing on self-awareness, understanding one's strengths (how they empower and defeat us), developing self-efficacy (confidence in one's abilities), and nurturing personal well-being.
In our Roadmap, these essential foundational leadership steps fall under the overarching category of "BEING WELL."
STEP 1: Integrate whole-self wisdom to step into and strengthen authenticity. When one gains clarity by skillfully integrating gut instincts with the creative power of the mind and the values and desires of the heart, courage to lead and fully live emerges more robust than ever.
Our Roadmap to BeWell™ unveils the power of Wholeself Intelligence™ to facilitate step one. In this transformative program, participants embark on a profound exploration of stress management and delve into the intricate workings of neurobiology and somatic practices to improve self-awareness and self-efficacy by tapping into embedded and, at times, undiscovered levels of authenticity, creativity, compassion, and courage to unlock strengths and leadership potential. Learning to integrate personal whole-self intelligence, the wisdom of the head, heart, and gut brains, should be taught in schools. Until then, join us to discover how to incite next-level personal mastery. Leaders who are not self-aware and can fully access and discern their whole-self intelligence will never lead at their full potential.
STEP 2: Discover the science-based approach to the profound link between wellbeing and innate talents and strengths. Unlock new personal insights to self-regulate from stress, craft a personalized roadmap to a more balanced, fulfilling life leveraged by personal strengths.
The second stop on our roadmap teaches the little known concept of Strengths Based Wellbeing and how it is the secret portal to actionable personal insights that propel being and leading well. Burned-out employees report high levels of stress, unhealthy coping mechanisms, increased illness, and high turnover rates in the workplace. The primary drivers of burnout include the absence of wellbeing programs and a lack of work-life balance. Improved wellbeing is one of the key factors to reverse these trends.
This program offers the most comprehensive corporate wellbeing course currently available. Participants will learn a systematic approach to create a personal roadmap to “bio-hack” and improve wellbeing, covering 11 interactive modules on strengths-based wellbeing fundamentals, occupational wellbeing, nutrition, sleep hygiene, movement, positive psychology, social wellbeing, environmental wellbeing, intellectual wellbeing, and financial wellbeing.
LEADING WELL
Having achieved next-level self mastery, you are now ready to lead others well
“Establishing Psychological Safety at work is an absolute necessity for boosting productivity, fostering innovation, and nurturing engagement. While it’s everyone’s responsibility to foster it, leaders especially need to make deliberate efforts. Overlooking this fundamental practice will inevitably result in a default culture of distrust, quite quitting, and the departure of your most valuable talent.”
Step 3: Act decisively to instill the practices that promote Psychological Safety within your team and organization. Learn and teach active listening, productive conflict, and embracing diverse viewpoints and strengths to cultivate trust and foster collaborative success—a critical component of team excellence.
Creating Psychological Safety in the workplace doesn’t happen overnight. However, you need a plan for it to take root and transform the environment from which all employees gain positive energy.
Our Unleashing Collaborative Teams™ is our third pillar program that strategically builds off the insights from the two “being well” programs (step one and two) to facilitate the mastery of the practices to enhance psychological safety. It helps develop leaders to build the foundation from which an inclusive culture and a sense of belonging propels employees to contribute their highest value proposition, improving innovation and client experience.
Sadly, only 35% of US employees are engaged, and 15% are actively disengaged. Psychological safety is the antidote for disengagement. We believe teaching psychological safety will not take root without a solid foundation that comes from reassessing personal wellbeing needs and individualized stress management practices taught by the RoadMap to BeWELL and LEADWELL.
STEP 4: Identify what is needed for you and your team to cultivate and improve the five behaviors that drive results as an interdependent team.
Once you have put into practice the elements to build and foster Psychological Safety, it will make it exponentially easier to address and improve the Five Behaviors® that drive results via our Unleashing Team Synergy™, our fourth pillar program.
Based on Patrick Lencioni's book, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," master the skills of interdependent communication to address and develop the five behaviors for an impressive interdependent team: trust, productive conflict, commitment, accountability, and improved results.
Through this comprehensive program aimed at overcoming barriers that lead to team member disengagement and frustration, and often result in "quiet quitting," the foundation of psychological safety will facilitate open discussions addressing how to improve the five behaviors. These conversations will revolve around how team members' strengths interact, whether in independence, co-dependence, or, most importantly, interdependence – the approach known to deliver the most innovative results.
STEP 5: Develop coaching agility to build strengths-based teams for a collaborative and inclusive culture that fosters belonging.
The next stop on our roadmap is building a strengths-based culture via our Integrated Coaching Leader™ program. Coaching skills are the superpower of the 21st-century leader.
The best leaders lead from their strengths and cultivate the strengths of others. Mastering team interdependence is the most powerful tool for radical team and organizational transformation. Leaders will learn coaching methodology and the skills that lead to 36% higher team performance, 43% more productive teams, 45% increased customer loyalty, and 33-50% more business revenue.
This program develops expertise in understanding and actualizing personal and team strengths to build inclusive and collaborative environments. Create a dream team where everyone actively contributes their highest value, effectively mitigating weaknesses, and can have productive conflict committed to results.
Lasting legacies of impact on humanity are led by leaders who build interdependent teams, practice the five behaviors, and prioritize psychological safety. With coaching skills, leaders are able to transform results and workplace relationships and culture.
In Summary, the five-step roadmap we’ve share with you to build a culture with lasting psychological includes:
Transforming teams into dream teams for collaborative excellence.
Shifting from fear-based, emotion-driven decisions to wisdom-based choices.
Enhancing leader and team member wellbeing to prevent burnout.
Cultivating an inclusive culture fostering belonging and empowerment.
Boosting engagement, retention, performance, teamwork, and workplace culture.
Developing interdependent communication for improved trust, cooperation, motivation, performance, job satisfaction, and collective wellbeing.
Ensuring psychological safety, where employees feel safe to contribute, challenge, and learn without fear, harnessing the full potential of organizational talent.
Going back to the question we asked in Part 1 of this series:
Does your organization have a problem with Psychological Safety?
Do your employees feel safe to contribute?
To challenge you? To learn without fear?
Are you harnessing the full potential of the talents in your organization?
Unless leaders and employees know their strengths, have learned to communicate interdependently, and are intentionally practicing the four types of psychological safety, the answer to these questions is likely to be “no.”
The solution? Let’s connect to tailor the five steps roadmap to your team or organization.
References:
https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/what-is-psychological-safety-at-work/
https://www.betterup.com/blog/why-psychological-safety-at-work-matters?hs_amp=true
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236927/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/285674/improve-employee-engagement-workplace.aspx
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/388481/employee-engagement-drops-first-year-decade.aspx
https://www.predictiveindex.com/learn/inspire/resources/surveys-reports/people-management-report/
https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/01/27/psychological-safety-is-critical-for-high-performing-teams/
We specialize in helping teams and organizations understand and implement practices that cultivate the power of interdependence.
The Wellsiliency™ Institute has developed a series of interdependent courses to comprehensively address the knowledge and skills leaders and teams need to build strengths-based values-driven performance cultures where all experience belonging.
Is cultivating a deliberate culture that leaves a lasting legacy of positive impact in the lives of others important to your organization?
Our institute has designed five program pillars to help leaders be well and lead well through a skill progression from Whole-self Intelligence™ integration to boost resilience and confidence, strengths-based wellbeing, strengths-based team building, strengths-based leadership, and psychological safety to unleash collaboration.
We don't believe in providing superficial programs; instead, we strive to become your collaborative partner by equipping your leaders with the skills they need to create meaningful, enduring outcomes. Our ultimate goal is to help you build a legacy of leadership excellence that will make a real difference in your organization's success.
Contact us to request our 4 page FACT SHEET to learn how our comprehensive 5 PILLAR PROGRAM helps leaders create interdependent teams and organizations.
Let’s partner to create a more harmonious and sustainable future, where cooperation and mutual support lead to thriving.