January 14, 2025 • 6 mins
If you are an employer, manager or leader of any kind, this week's podcast hot take is for you! Join Dr. Sue Zbikowski, behavioral psychologist, to unlock the secrets to transforming your team into a high-performing powerhouse by mastering the art of psychological safety. Ever wondered how some leaders create environments where every team member feels free to express their ideas, share mistakes, and contribute to greater success? This episode offers a roadmap for leaders and employers of any kind who are ready to foster a culture of open communication and inclusivity.
Listen and Learn:
- Practical strategies to get to know your team on a personal level, maintaining a positive tone in meetings, and leveraging diverse communication channels to ensure that all voices are heard and valued
- The pivotal role of emotional intelligence and self-awareness in building a psychologically safe workplace
- How clarity in communicating expectations and resources sets the stage for success
Join us to learn how to cultivate an environment where every team member feels respected, valued, and ready to contribute to the team's goals.
Expert:
- Sue Zbikowski, PhD, Behavioral Psychologist
Thanks for tuning in. Subscribe today to receive alerts of new weekly episodes and follow @GoMoHealth on social for the latest in healthcare engagement.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's start by making sure you understand what
psychological safety is.
First of all, psychologicalsafety is the feeling that your
employees have when they feelcomfortable sharing their
thoughts, ideas, concerns andother things that are beneficial
related to the work at work.
Psychological safety isparticularly important for teams
(00:22):
, high-performing teams.
With psychological safety, youremployees feel comfortable
identifying mistakes, sharingthem, sharing their ideas to
improve projects.
They feel safe, valued, as animportant member of the team.
When they do, they're morefocused on work and they feel
(00:42):
connected with the company.
So what can you do as a manager, supervisor or leader?
The first thing that's reallyimportant is that you get to
know your employees, really getto know them, and what I mean by
this is just talk with them,check in with your employees,
find out how they're doing, andthis is not about finding out
how they're doing in work.
(01:03):
This is about getting to knowthem a little bit better as a
human, to respect them as people.
When you do that, employeeswill start to feel that it is a
safe environment and that yourespect them.
The second thing that you needto do as a leader is to promote
a culture of communication, andthe way to do that is to start
(01:24):
in your team meetings.
Rather than being the one whois always talking in those
meetings, what you want to do isstart pulling out ideas and
thoughts from your team members.
Ask people what they thinkabout an idea.
Ask them to contributesomething.
Ask them if they agree withother people in the meeting or
if they have a different pointof view.
The more you do this, the teamwill get comfortable that.
(01:52):
That is the dynamic, and thenyou need to listen and consider
the ideas.
It's important that you taketime to allow everyone to
process the information andcommunicate.
Not everybody processesinformation quickly, so, as a
result, you need to giveeveryone a little time to think,
react and respond, and then,when you're thinking, just
(02:13):
remember.
You don't have to take in everyidea and act on them, but it is
important that you respectpeople for contributing their
ideas, and you shouldacknowledge that, and when you
do, you'll start realizingpeople will start doing it more
and more.
The third recommendation isthat you are flexible, and what
I mean by that is that you'recreating multiple ways that
(02:35):
people can communicate theirthoughts and ideas In a dream
world, under psychologicalsafety.
Employees will feel comfortablesharing their thoughts and
ideas in any setting, at anyteam meeting.
That may not happen initially,and so, for that reason, you
need to have multiple channelsof communication.
That can include using Teams.
(02:56):
That can include using Slack orother kinds of communication
channels that you use at work,whatever they are.
Gather some of those ideas and,at the next staff meeting or
team meeting, share some of them.
That'll show your employeesthat you're listening to them,
no matter where they're sharingor what they're sharing.
They'll feel more included.
(03:17):
The next thing you need to do isto make sure that you're
maintaining a positive tone.
That is really important.
What you don't want to havehappen is that in team meetings,
people are cutting each otherdown, telling them they have
terrible ideas or being negative.
You want to promote a positivetone.
You want to promote positivemind think, mind share and, in
(03:40):
doing so, to encourage people touse that in their communication
style, and, in doing so, toencourage people to use that in
their communication style.
That might not happen,naturally, to everyone, so you
can try this fifth thing, whichis to encourage people to have
greater self-awareness and todevelop emotional intelligence.
You might even have some ofthese trainings already
available at work.
The thing that you want to dowith creating greater awareness
(04:04):
is to have people self-reflect,to think about their thoughts
and feelings and reactions.
This may help them to identifycertain biases that they have
that might be holding them backfrom communicating or
communicating effectively.
And then, with emotionalintelligence, it is about your
employees identifying theirfeelings, labeling them and then
(04:27):
knowing when they're negativeor positive, when they're
productive, unproductive.
With those strategies, you'llstart seeing more positive
communication.
The next two ones relate to youas a leader.
The first one is for you toshare with the team what the
expectations are for the team.
What I mean by that is tellingthem what's expected of them at
(04:51):
work, the timelines, thedeadlines, what resources are
available and so on and so forth.
And then, if things change interms of those timelines, share
that with them and why thingshave changed.
It is really important to keepyour employees in the know.
If they're left in the dark,then you're not sharing an
(05:11):
environment of psychologicalsafety.
And then the last part is foryou to help everyone to learn
from mistakes.
This is somewhat hard forpeople.
People hate to admit thatthey've made a mistake.
They're afraid of gettingpenalized for doing so.
You can start, as a leader, bymodeling this.
Think of a time that maybe youscrewed up and share with them
(05:35):
what you learned from thisparticular example.
And then you can also encouragethe team to debrief on projects
.
The next time you have aproject that you completed, ask
people to talk about what wentwell, what didn't go so well,
and when you do that, you canstart asking them what did we
learn from those mistakes?
What could we do better nexttime?
(05:55):
And then you'll start realizingpeople are sharing ideas about
how to improve rather thanfeeling fearful about admitting
that something didn't go asplanned.
So it's a win-win for you andthe team.
Now we just covered the sevensteps that you can do as a
leader to promote psychologicalsafety.
(06:16):
It's a long list, it can bedaunting, but it's really
important, because when you arecreating this kind of
environment, it is a win foryour team.
When you don't, things can bepretty detrimental to the group.
Let's start by making sure you understand what
psychological safety is.
First of all, psychologicalsafety is the feeling that your
employees have when they feelcomfortable sharing their
thoughts, ideas, concerns andother things that are beneficial
related to the work at work.
Psychological safety isparticularly important for teams
(00:22):
, high-performing teams.
With psychological safety, youremployees feel comfortable
identifying mistakes, sharingthem, sharing their ideas to
improve projects.
They feel safe, valued, as animportant member of the team.
When they do, they're morefocused on work and they feel
(00:42):
connected with the company.
So what can you do as a manager, supervisor or leader?
The first thing that's reallyimportant is that you get to
know your employees, really getto know them, and what I mean by
this is just talk with them,check in with your employees,
find out how they're doing, andthis is not about finding out
how they're doing in work.
(01:03):
This is about getting to knowthem a little bit better as a
human, to respect them as people.
When you do that, employeeswill start to feel that it is a
safe environment and that yourespect them.
The second thing that you needto do as a leader is to promote
a culture of communication, andthe way to do that is to start
(01:24):
in your team meetings.
Rather than being the one whois always talking in those
meetings, what you want to do isstart pulling out ideas and
thoughts from your team members.
Ask people what they thinkabout an idea.
Ask them to contributesomething.
Ask them if they agree withother people in the meeting or
if they have a different pointof view.
The more you do this, the teamwill get comfortable that.
(01:52):
That is the dynamic, and thenyou need to listen and consider
the ideas.
It's important that you taketime to allow everyone to
process the information andcommunicate.
Not everybody processesinformation quickly, so, as a
result, you need to giveeveryone a little time to think,
react and respond, and then,when you're thinking, just
(02:13):
remember.
You don't have to take in everyidea and act on them, but it is
important that you respectpeople for contributing their
ideas, and you shouldacknowledge that, and when you
do, you'll start realizingpeople will start doing it more
and more.
The third recommendation isthat you are flexible, and what
I mean by that is that you'recreating multiple ways that
(02:35):
people can communicate theirthoughts and ideas In a dream
world, under psychologicalsafety.
Employees will feel comfortablesharing their thoughts and
ideas in any setting, at anyteam meeting.
That may not happen initially,and so, for that reason, you
need to have multiple channelsof communication.
That can include using Teams.
(02:56):
That can include using Slack orother kinds of communication
channels that you use at work,whatever they are.
Gather some of those ideas and,at the next staff meeting or
team meeting, share some of them.
That'll show your employeesthat you're listening to them,
no matter where they're sharingor what they're sharing.
They'll feel more included.
(03:17):
The next thing you need to do isto make sure that you're
maintaining a positive tone.
That is really important.
What you don't want to havehappen is that in team meetings,
people are cutting each otherdown, telling them they have
terrible ideas or being negative.
You want to promote a positivetone.
You want to promote positivemind think, mind share and, in
(03:40):
doing so, to encourage people touse that in their communication
style, and, in doing so, toencourage people to use that in
their communication style.
That might not happen,naturally, to everyone, so you
can try this fifth thing, whichis to encourage people to have
greater self-awareness and todevelop emotional intelligence.
You might even have some ofthese trainings already
available at work.
The thing that you want to dowith creating greater awareness
(04:04):
is to have people self-reflect,to think about their thoughts
and feelings and reactions.
This may help them to identifycertain biases that they have
that might be holding them backfrom communicating or
communicating effectively.
And then, with emotionalintelligence, it is about your
employees identifying theirfeelings, labeling them and then
(04:27):
knowing when they're negativeor positive, when they're
productive, unproductive.
With those strategies, you'llstart seeing more positive
communication.
The next two ones relate to youas a leader.
The first one is for you toshare with the team what the
expectations are for the team.
What I mean by that is tellingthem what's expected of them at
(04:51):
work, the timelines, thedeadlines, what resources are
available and so on and so forth.
And then, if things change interms of those timelines, share
that with them and why thingshave changed.
It is really important to keepyour employees in the know.
If they're left in the dark,then you're not sharing an
(05:11):
environment of psychologicalsafety.
And then the last part is foryou to help everyone to learn
from mistakes.
This is somewhat hard forpeople.
People hate to admit thatthey've made a mistake.
They're afraid of gettingpenalized for doing so.
You can start, as a leader, bymodeling this.
Think of a time that maybe youscrewed up and share with them
(05:35):
what you learned from thisparticular example.
And then you can also encouragethe team to debrief on projects
.
The next time you have aproject that you completed, ask
people to talk about what wentwell, what didn't go so well,
and when you do that, you canstart asking them what did we
learn from those mistakes?
What could we do better nexttime?
(05:55):
And then you'll start realizingpeople are sharing ideas about
how to improve rather thanfeeling fearful about admitting
that something didn't go asplanned.
So it's a win-win for you andthe team.
Now we just covered the sevensteps that you can do as a
leader to promote psychologicalsafety.
(06:16):
It's a long list, it can bedaunting, but it's really
important, because when you arecreating this kind of
environment, it is a win foryour team.
When you don't, things can bepretty detrimental to the group.
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