How do you build a high-performing team? You could set clear goals, make conscious hiring choices or even invest in training. This is a great start. But what if we told you that it runs much deeper than this. What if we told you that psychological safety is the cornerstone of creating a high-performing team?

A psychologically safe workplace embodies a culture where individuals feel comfortable enough to share ideas, speak up and contribute, without the fear of judgement or shame. It allows everyone to be authentically themselves, to ask questions and to have the confidence to challenge the status quo. Research has found that psychological safety within organisations can result in a 27% reduction in staff turnover, a 50% increase in productivity and a 57% increase in collaboration.

Why is psychological safety so important?

A survey carried out in 2020 found that 79% of British people of working age experienced work-related stress. Not only does it have both psychological and physiological effects on your employee, it impedes their performance and contributes to the £56 million lost by UK employers each year due to mental ill-health.

By investing psychological well-being you can:

Improve employee well-being and reduce the prevalence of work-related stress with your team
Enhance employee engagement
Encourage creativity and new ideas, which could result in new or improved processes, services and products
Foster an inclusive workplace culture where everyone can thrive
Reduce employee turnover, which costs UK businesses £22 billion each year
Boost team performance thanks to improved productivity and collaboration

What does psychological safety look like?

Dr Timothy Clark is a social scientist and an organisational anthropologist. A pioneer of data-driven cultural development, the four stages of psychological safety developed following his research, underpin our approach to psychological safety.

Stage 1 – Inclusion safety: This level of safety refers to satisfying the basic human need of connecting and belonging. In this first stage, employees will feel safe and accepted to be who they are — quirky characteristics and all.
Stage 2 – Learner safety: In this stage, employees will feel safe to learn, ask questions, and experiment. They will feel open to giving and receiving feedback (and even feel safe to make mistakes).
Stage 3 – Contributor safety: At this point, they will finally feel safe to make a valuable contribution using their skills and gifts.
Stage 4 –Challenger safety: This final stage involves feeling safe enough to challenge the status quo when they see an opportunity for change or improvement.

How do I create a psychologically safe workplace?

It starts at the top

Creating a psychologically safe culture must begin at the very top. Leaders and managers have an important role to play in modelling positive behaviours, fostering the culture they wish to see throughout their teams.

When working with managers and leaders within organisations, our focus areas are most often:

Enabling and improving communication
Giving them the skills to navigate conflict resolution
Creating a culture of accountability
The importance of vulnerability
Developing empathy
Skills for self-reflection

Our Compassionate Leadership programme is specifically designed for leaders and managers to address these challenges, and more. Over an eight-module programme we explore evidence-based and research backed leadership principles to build resilience and collaboration. By no means does fostering a culture of compassionate leadership result in a ‘soft’ leadership approach, this ‘new wave’ of leadership encourages nurturing compassion (such as empathy and duty of care) with courageous compassion (the ability to make difficult decisions with heart), resulting in better outcomes for all.

A collective journey of culture change

It’s important to remember that psychological safety doesn't just come from the top. Every individual within your team has an important role to play and shaping, and shifting, your workplace culture. There are some key behaviours we can help you to instil within your teams which can really shift the needle towards psychologically safety. These include:

Practising active listening during meetings and brainstorming sessions
Asking thought-provoking, open-ended questions
Giving support and ask for support when needed
Showing empathy, care, and concern for each other
Praising, encouraging, and expressing gratitude for one another
Expressing their creative ideas and politely encouraging others to do the same
Giving each other the benefit of the doubt when expressing challenges

How can Minds That Work help you build psychologically safety into your workplace?

Minds That Work offers a range of services to help you cultivate a culture of psychological safety. If you’re at the start of your journey, and you’re not sure where to begin, we suggest booking a call with Victoria, so she can guide you to find the best path forwards.

Wellbeing consultancy and programmes:

As consultants we can work with you to develop and deliver a well-being strategy that’s tailored to your organisation. Our approach is aligned with the World Health Organisation’s World Mental Health framework for organisations, in addition to Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Management Standards. We work with you and for you to foster mental well-being within your teams.

Leaders and managers workshops:

Leaders and managers are tasked with managing individuals as well as their workloads, yet 57% are offered no mental health or well-being training. Giving them the confidence to lead with openness, empathy and support their team;s mental health, we offer a range of courses to give them the skills they need. The result? Increase performance.

I-act:

I-act is accredited by the Royal College of Psychiatrists to give leaders and managers the skills they need to understand and manage common mental health problems in the workplace, such as stress, anxiety and depression. With specific guidance tailored specifically to professional settings, it empowers managers so they know what they should do, and should not do, when supporting their team.

Compassionate Leadership:

As noted above, Compassionate Leadership is an 8-module evidence-based and research backed programme to foster personal and leadership development from the inside out. The outcomes of this programme include greater individual and organisational resilience, improved financial performance, improved employee engagement and so much more.

Find out more:

To understand how Minds That Work can help you improve psychological safety within your organisation, book you free no-obligation virtual discussion with Victoria.