Psychological safety means that employees feel they are allowed to voice their opinions, share their ideas, and make mistakes without the fear of punishment, retribution, or embarrassment.
Elaine Ho, Chief Diversity Officer at NASA, joins workplace transformation expert Mika Cross on the latest episode of “Management Minutes With Mika” to discuss the power of psychological safety. Ms. Ho uses a “three-legged stool” analogy to help explain how she views psychological safety in the workplace. In this example, the stool has three legs: leaders, individuals, and the organization. All three legs must be sturdy to support psychological safety. Leaders need to support individuals in speaking up and, in turn, creating a psychologically safe organization.
However, she points out that the burden should not fall completely on leaders alone. Each person may also have their own reasons for not speaking up, like past negative experiences where your ideas were shut down. We all need to reflect and consider why we might not be ready to share ideas openly. Managers need to understand their teams on an individual level to understand how the differences in backgrounds and experiences may contribute to someone’s willingness to share and feel psychologically safe. “What makes you feel empowered to speak up may not be the same things that make me feel empowered to speak up,” Ms. Ho commented.
View the entire discussion now:
