By Jonathan H. Westover, PhD
Abstract: This article discusses how leaders can establish and maintain psychological safety to create high-performing teams. Psychological safety refers to feeling comfortable taking risks without fear of negative consequences. It outlines five strategies for building psychological safety based on professional experience and scholarly findings. These strategies include leaders modeling vulnerability, promoting inclusiveness, providing constructive feedback, connecting work to purpose, and celebrating small wins. Research cited shows psychological safety improves learning, innovation, problem-solving and stress resilience. Two strategies are described in real-world examples, including a manager who modeled vulnerability for her team. A manufacturing company case illustrates how diversity training and mixed work teams fostered psychological safety. Sustaining psychological safety long-term requires ongoing practices such as continued leader vulnerability modeling and feedback seeking. Creating this environment unleashes discretionary effort, agility, innovation and shared success.
As a management consultant with over 20 years of experience working with organizations to improve team performance and collaboration, I have seen firsthand how impactful psychological safety can be in unlocking a team's full potential. Through my research in positive organizational behavior and leadership at multiple universities, I have also gained valuable academic insights into factors that foster trust, belonging, and mutual respect within work groups.
Today we will explore the key aspects of psychological safety and provide practical recommendations for how leaders can establish and maintain an environment where team members feel comfortable taking risks and challenges can be addressed constructively.
Defining Psychological Safety
Before diving into strategies, it's important to properly define what psychological safety means in an organizational context. At its core, psychological safety refers to "a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking" (Edmondson, 1999). In simpler terms, it's the degree to which individuals on a team feel confident that the possible negative consequences of speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes will not be severely punished or judged (Edmondson & Lei, 2014).
Some key characteristics of psychologically safe teams include:
Members feel accepted and respected by one another
Humility and mutual understanding are valued over individual expertise or status
Different perspectives are welcomed and debated constructively
People speak candidly without worrying about embarrassment, loss of status or repercussions
When these conditions exist, team members do not have to constantly monitor or filter their contributions for political reasons. As a result, they are far more willing to take on challenges, surface problems, and propose innovative solutions without fear of reprisal.
The Impact of Psychological Safety on Team Performance
Numerous studies have identified psychological safety as a critical driver of high-functioning teams. Some of the performance benefits include:
Improved learning and adaptation. When people feel psychologically safe, they are more willing to admit errors and knowledge gaps. This enables groups to swiftly learn from failures and make important adaptations (Edmondson, 1999).
Greater innovation and risk-taking. Feeling respected and supported by others enhances creativity and the willingness to championnovel ideas (Carmeli et al., 2013).
Better problem solving. Psychological safety allows teams to fully explore differing viewpoints and surface blind spots, leading to higher quality decisions (Hirak et al., 2012).
Stress resilience. Psychologically safe contexts foster mutual care and support during demanding times, helping teams withstand pressure without fracturing (Frazier et al., 2017).
Stronger commitment and cohesion. When people feel respected and able to authentically contribute, they become more dedicated to the team's mission and cooperative with one another (Liang et al., 2007).
Given these well-documented advantages, it is no surprise that organizations with psychologically safe cultures consistently outperform their competitors. The real question then becomes — how can leaders establish this kind of environment?
Strategies for Building Psychological Safety
Based on my work with diverse clients, there are five core strategies that leaders can employ to build and maintain psychological safety within their teams:
Model Vulnerability as a Leader: One of the most potent things a leader can do is to openly admit errors, uncertainties, and lessons learned from past experiences. This sets the tone that imperfection is acceptable and lets team members know they will not be severely judged for their shortcomings. Regularly sharing successes and failures is key.
Promote Inclusiveness and Diversity of Thought: Diversity enhances decision making only when each voice feels valued. Leaders must champion multiple perspectives and ensure no one dominates discussions. They can also establish group norms emphasizing respect, empathy and active listening across all demographics.
Provide Constructive Feedback and Coach Growth: Rather than focusing on blame, psychologically safe leaders emphasize learning and development when things go wrong. They give balanced feedback addressing both strengths and weaknesses, then coach people toward improvement. This builds confidence the team is growing together.
Connect Work to Meaningful Purpose: Connecting day-to-day responsibilities to higher organizational goals and societal impact gives work more significance. When people understand how their contributions make a difference, they become less defensive about potential shortcomings and more motivated to advance the mission.
Celebrate Small Wins and Recognition: Regular acknowledgment and rewards — both formal and informal — help team members feel valued for who they are as well as what they achieve. This could mean weekly shout-outs at meetings, peer-to-peer acknowledgement programs, or celebrations for milestones completed together.
The following sections will expand on two of these strategies using real-world examples. But before delving into applications, it's important to acknowledge that developing trust and learning openness takes regular effort over time. Psychological safety is not a quick fix but rather an ongoing leadership commitment.
Modeling Vulnerability as a Leader in Action
One manager who exemplified modeling vulnerability for her team was "Sarah" in the marketing department of a large tech company. In our coaching sessions, Sarah shared feeling insecure about an ambitious new initiative she was championing.
To build support, Sarah invited direct reports to an open discussion sharing her perspective along with uncertainties: "I don't have all the answers yet and could really use your expertise. What am I missing? Where do you see holes we need to address?" Her transparency broke down barriers; teammates appreciated being let "behind the curtain" and eagerly provided thoughtful feedback.
Sarah also wasn't afraid to admit when the project hit challenges, keeping the team informed of setbacks and lessons learned along the way. This bred high levels of mutual trust where people felt safe contributing without fear of ridicule if aspects didn't work out as planned. In turn, they worked collaboratively to troubleshoot obstacles.
Within a year, Sarah's group completed the initiative successfully and on schedule thanks to their cohesion and willingness to take creative risks. By modeling humility and learning openly, Sarah ignited psychological safety fueling the team's peak performance.
Promoting Inclusiveness in a Manufacturing Environment
One manufacturing client found promoting inclusiveness especially helpful for building psychological safety across diverse plant worker populations. Demographics ranged from millennial engineers to immigrant laborers from various cultural backgrounds.
To bridge differences, the plant instituted diverse work teams representing a mix of levels, ages, functions, ethnicities and tenures. Ground rules centered on mutual understanding, where people were expected to actively learn about others' perspectives rather than make snap judgments.
The company also invested in cultural awareness training helping all employees recognize unconscious biases. Over time, long-tenured personnel became more open-minded toward new ideas from younger colleagues while new hires felt empowered contributing based on merits rather than outward attributes.
Functioning almost like mini-communities, these heterogeneous work groups fostered deeper respect and bonds across usual social divides. People felt psychologically liberated exploring topics some may have avoided in larger settings. As a result, creative tensions arose along with opportunities for innovative solutions blending varied viewpoints.
Overall accident and turnover rates declined noticeably as employees developed stronger commitments to one another's well-being regardless of role or background. Productivity also rose as inclusion unlocked untapped potential previously constrained by assumptions or prejudices. The plant serves as an example of how diversity, when properly facilitated, enhances both job performance and interpersonal relations.
Maintaining Momentum Going Forward
While psychological safety yields impressive results when established, it remains fragile and must continually be nourished for teams to sustain peak functioning long-term. Some sustaining practices I recommend based on my experience include:
Repeat vulnerability modeling. Leaders must communicate regularly while taking and learning from setbacks to reinforce the message risk-taking is acceptable.
Seek ongoing feedback. Use anonymous surveys and roundtables to monitor the safety pulse, making adjustments where needed to continuously strengthen openness and trust.
Rotate membership sparingly. Too much instability undermines team cohesion critical to psychological foundations, so change personnel judiciously when necessary.
Address “air pockets” proactively. Watch for dips in participation or an increase in “happy talk” as potential signs of eroding safety. Take corrective action through respectful discussion.
Cultivate successors. Identify emerging leaders and coach them explicitly in behaviors promoting inclusion, learning and ownership over failures to pass values to new generations.
With dedication to periodically refining practices, psychologically safe contexts can endure as a sustainable competitive advantage versus a fleeting initiative. The rewards to team performance, job satisfaction and organizational health fully justify this leadership commitment.
Conclusion
Creating truly high performing teams demands more than rules or technical skill development - it hinges fundamentally on establishing psychological safety where every member brings vitality without fear of negative consequences. Through strategies such as modeling vulnerability, celebrating diverse voices, focusing on growth over blame, connecting work to purpose, and acknowledging small wins, leaders can systematically foster the trust and care enabling groups to synergize talents toward boundary-pushing results. I have witnessed firsthand how impactful well-designed safety cultures become in unleashing discretionary effort, agility, innovation and dedication to shared success. Any organization seeking to optimize collaboration and achieve ambitious goals would greatly benefit from making psychological safety a leadership priority. Doing so unleashes humanity's inherent drive to support one another and accomplish extraordinary things together.
References:
Carmeli, A., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Ziv, E. (2010). Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity Research Journal, 22(3), 250–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2010.504654
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Edmondson, A. C., & Lei, Z. (2014). Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior, 1, 23-43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091305
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta‐analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113-165. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12183
Hirak, R., Peng, A. C., Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. M. (2012). Linking leader inclusiveness to work unit performance: The importance of psychological safety and learning from failures. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(1), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.11.009
Liang, J., Farh, C. I., & Farh, J. L. (2012). Psychological antecedents of promotive and prohibitive voice: A two-wave examination. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 71-92. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0176
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2024). How to Create and Maintain Psychological Safety to Ignite High Performing Teams. Human Capital Leadership Review, 11(3). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.11.3.8
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