Psychologically Safe, Psychologically Secure
A career perspective from my work with over 100 organizations...
Psychological safety appears to be one of the most studied environmental characteristics by psychologists. It refers to an environment (team, group, organization) providing strong elements of freedom from psychological harm, hurtful reaction, or personal reductionism by others, for example. In a psychologically safe environment, I feel I can speak my mind without fear of retribution - unless I’m making others feels unsafe or fearful. Essentially, as a manager by pursuing a psychologically safe environment, you’re removing the fear factor from your people and the environment, and they also know not to intimidate, insult, etc. other members of your unit. You work to have a ‘safe’ environment where the different styles, preferences, positive behaviors, and dynamics exist for your team members. The culture you establish promotes creative solutions to existing problems and the motivation to express and act upon those solutions freely.
But in my experience, that is only half the equation. In building a complete psychologically safe environment, it seems to incorporate what I term members who are psychologically secure. Too often I’ve experienced environments where psychological safety is promoted and desired, but the insecurities of people within that environment act as a block to the desired state. However, when people become secure in themselves, positive behaviors manifest themselves. For example, upon introducing a safe environment for the exchange of ideas, a recent interaction with two professionals rendered this observation from one of them about the other: “I’ve worked with Bob (not his real name) for 25 years and never known him to offer any opinions. Now he does.”
Or in the case of a director as noted by a VP where not only the environment was made safe, but inhabitants of that organization were made a little more secure, this was the result:
“He was always so negative. Now he’s much more positive. What did you do to him?” Creating a framework consisting of a safe environment and people that believe they know themselves well brings about these changes. As many of us know, leveraging the intellectual resources of all available is important to staying competitive, solving difficult problems, and growing the business in a world fraught with change, difficulties, and blocks to success. But how do we get there? In my opinion, being psychologically secure comes, as Aristotle suggested, from knowing oneself well. It is, as he stated, “the beginning of all wisdom.”
This is the obstacle that can prevent establishing a psychologically safe environment, as the insecurity of not knowing oneself well breeds fears - fear of embarrassment, fear of being viewed as incompetent, fear of exposure, fear of contributing, fear of being seen as irrelevant, etc. Having a psychologically safe environment is not enough; you and your people must feel psychologically secure. You must know yourselves. Assessments can be a window into seeing yourself, understanding yourself, knowing yourself. And it does take some courage to want to see yourself, imperfections and all. It is fascinating but also frightening as we face the reality that we aren’t the ideal person we thought we were. Nevertheless, understanding our preferences, motivators, stressors, styles, tendencies, and behaviors (to name a few) is illuminating and can, with assistance, put us on the path toward higher levels of success, both individually and as a group. It will also take more than one assessment (and I include 360’s or multi-raters in this group) to adequately help define us; using only one or even two will provide just a narrow perspective of our vast and complex selves. However, even one or two will be better than none. And ensure your review of your results is guided by a competent and certified practitioner. Knowing yourself well is, in my opinion, essential to the foundation for an environment of psychological security and of course, high performance.