Consultant Amy Lenker declines engagements on stress if a company isn't willing to work on trust first. She argues that without a foundation of psychological safety, any attempts to address stress are futile and won't be successful.
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People won't bring you problems if they fear your reaction. To build trust, leaders must not only control their emotions but actively thank the messenger. This reframes problem-reporting from a negative event to a positive act that helps you see reality more clearly.
Innovation requires psychological safety. When employees are afraid to speak up or make mistakes, they become "armored" and growth stagnates. To unlock potential, leaders must create environments where the joy of creation and contribution outweighs the fear of failure.
A 'blame and shame' culture develops when all bad outcomes are punished equally, chilling employee reporting. To foster psychological safety, leaders must distinguish between unintentional mistakes (errors) and conscious violations (choices). A just response to each builds a culture where people feel safe admitting failures.
Innovation is stifled when team members, especially junior ones, don't feel safe to contribute. Without psychological safety, potentially industry-defining ideas are never voiced for fear of judgment. This makes it a critical business issue, not just a 'soft' HR concept.
Instead of avoiding risk, teams build trust by creating a 'safe danger' zone for manageable risks, like sharing a half-baked idea. This process of successfully navigating small vulnerabilities rewires fear into trust and encourages creative thinking, proving that safety and danger are more like 'dance partners' than opposites.
In any group setting, individuals will only share to the depth they feel comfortable sharing with the person they trust the least. This "weakest link" dictates the group's capacity for vulnerability and authentic connection.
A common misconception is that psychological safety means avoiding confrontation. True psychological safety creates an environment where team members feel secure enough to engage in productive debate and challenge ideas without fear of personal reprisal, leading to better decisions.
Musician Jacob Collier evaluates groups on a 'supple vs. brittle' axis. Supple groups adapt to unexpected events, while brittle ones resist and snap under pressure. Leaders must create psychological safety that enables teams to embrace spontaneity rather than tightening up.
Creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up requires more than just asking for it. Leaders must actively model the desired behavior. This includes admitting their own mistakes, asking questions they worry might be "dumb," and framing their own actions as experiments to show that learning and failure are acceptable.
To foster an innovative team that takes big swings, leaders must create a culture of psychological safety. Team members must know they won't be fired for a failed experiment. Instead, failures should be treated as learning opportunities, encouraging them to be edgier and push boundaries.
