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Psychological safety is a feeling shared among team members that it’s okay to admit mistakes, share concerns, and ask questions. Teams that achieve psychological safety are more productive, more creative, and better able to resolve conflict than those that don’t.

What is psychological safety?

Psychological safety refers to an environment where it’s okay to take risks, make mistakes, and where it’s accepted that people will voice differing opinions and ask difficult questions. It’s an important part of a healthy workplace, with benefits for organizations as well as employees.

The term psychological safety was coined by Amy Edmondson, a professor at the Harvard Business School and author of The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. She developed the concept while studying teams of medical professionals for her Ph.D.

At first, Edmondson thought that the highest performing teams would be the ones reporting the fewest mistakes during their shifts, but she found the opposite. The teams that achieved the best outcomes reported a higher number of mistakes per shift than their lower performing peers.

She later realized that the high performing teams were more willing to admit mistakes – and learn from them – than the other teams. From that insight came a concept she called “team psychological safety,” which can help anyone who works with a team.

This article will discuss the basics of psychological safety and how to improve that quality in any team.

Make it safe for people to speak up in the workplace

Psychological safety has been called “the belief that one can express themselves freely without fear of negative consequences” in a Penn State University article. Amy Edmondson calls it “felt permission for candor.” However described, the level of psychological safety in any team has major impacts on productivity, innovation, conflict resolution, and more.

For example, Google’s Project Aristotle, a large, multi-year study of team dynamics and team building, found psychological safety to be the single most important factor in creating high performing teams.

The Google researchers began with the idea that the best teams would emerge naturally by putting the brightest high achievers together and turning them loose. But that wasn’t the case. They concluded that who is on a team matters much less than how the team members interact. According to the authors:

Our researchers found that the best teams created a climate of openness where team members admit to their errors and discuss them more often. In other words, they exhibited high levels of psychological safety[.]

Psychologically safe teams accelerate learning and innovation by acknowledging mistakes and exploring new ideas. And not only are they more adaptable, they can also impact the bottom line.

The study found that teams with high levels of psychological safety exceeded their sales targets by 17%, while teams with low levels of psychological safety missed their sales targets by 19%. According to Google, psychological safety was a much better predictor of team success than the number of top performers or the general intelligence of team members.

Developing psychological safety

Psychological safety is a team characteristic. It emerges from interactions among team members over time. Edmondson states, “This is a group level phenomenon – it shapes the learning of the group and in turn affects team performance and therefore organizational performance.” Team members who collaborate closely feel similar levels of psychological safety, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Building psychological safety is “more magic than science,” according to Edmondson, but there are simple steps any organization can take to improve teamwork.

Ensure good management. The first step to increasing psychological safety is the most basic: Establish good management practices, which include setting clear expectations and norms of behavior, ensuring fairness and equal treatment, encouraging open communication, and making sure people feel valued and supported.

Admit mistakes. Psychological safety begins when people are willing to admit their mistakes and learn from them. Leaders must be in the forefront of the effort by admitting their own mistakes, struggles, and challenges. In short, leaders need to become willing to appear vulnerable and less than perfect in the eyes of the people they lead. If they are not, the foundation for psychological safety will be missing.

Actively solicit input. Leaders need to do more than encourage team members to speak out, they should set the expectation that everyone on the team will share their ideas, opinions, and concerns. Some will naturally be more vocal than others, but creating a safe space to share ideas without being judged or criticized is key to developing psychological safety. It may feel awkward at first, but it will become easier with practice. As a bonus, regularly asking team members to express their concerns can help defuse workplace tensions and promote healthy conflict resolution.

In the words of Stanford professor and psychologist Robert Sutton, “When people talk about their own mistakes, rather than pointing out others’ missteps, that suggests your workplace is psychologically safe.” Rather than wasting time and energy blaming and shaming, psychological safety lets teams focus on learning and problem solving in a healthy learning environment, which is the key to unlocking resilience, creativity, and innovation.

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Rachel Burr is an executive and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience working with CEOs and the C-suite across all industries, in organizations of from 200 to 10,000 employees. Rachel holds dual master’s degrees in Organization Development and Clinical Psychology, and numerous certifications in the field of executive coaching. Rachel is a “people expert” who works with clients to unleash their leadership potential. If you would like to learn more about psychological safety and how it can improve teamwork, please contact us.

Soft skills go beyond “people skills” and provide a solid foundation for organizational growth. Improving soft skills through coaching and training is key for any organization facing changes in technology and the future of work.

I hate the term “soft skills.” Let’s just put our cards on the table. “Soft” is a terrible descriptor. According to Thesaurus.com, synonyms for “soft” include comfortable, easy, mushy, and fluffy. “Soft” sounds like a fluffy cushion for “hard” skills to rest on.

We may think debating what to call “soft” skills is silly, but language influences how we think. When we label skills as “soft,” we label them as “easy” and imply they aren’t important. Yet when I coach executives and other leaders, “soft” skills are often the hardest skills for them to master.

So, why do we call them “soft” skills? To understand the “soft,” let’s start with the “hard.” Traditionally, organizations have focused on “hard” skills, such as technical skills and competencies. “Hard” skills tend to be easier to define, teach, and assess. In other words, hard skills are more tangible. By comparison, “soft” skills seem more intangible. We struggle to clearly define “soft” skills. For example, what are the specific skills required to be an expert in “interpersonal communication”? How do we teach someone “resilience”? As a result, it can be more difficult to understand “soft” skills and how to develop them.

So, before we dive into a discussion about “soft” skills, I want to plant a seed. I vote to rename “soft” skills as “Critical Intangible Skills,” or “Critical Intangibles,” for short. I may not yet have swayed the rest of the world, but throughout the rest of this blog post, I challenge you to think “Critical Intangible” when you read “soft,” and see how this change affects your thinking.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are sometimes equated with “people skills,” but that isn’t the whole story. Soft skills include mental qualities like persistence, resilience, problem solving, emotional regulation, and creativity. They also encompass practical skills of self-regulation through time management, organization, and the ability to prioritize tasks. Finally, soft skills include “people skills” like communication, teamwork, and leadership.

Soft skills apply broadly and can be transferred easily between jobs and industries. They have been called “durable”, because, unlike technical requirements, they remain constant.

Twelve of the top 15 skills needed globally are soft skills, as reported in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023.

Soft skills are the “secret sauce” for long term organizational success in a changing world.

Teaching critical intangible skills in the workplace

Contrary to a common misperception, soft skills are not hard-wired or unchangeable. According to research conducted by McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC, the Harvard Business School, and Forbes, organizations can help people improve their soft skills through coaching, mentoring, and training. When people improve these skills, they are better prepared to adapt to changes in technology and the workplace.

Teaching soft skills requires planning, execution, employee buy in, and assessing success.

Survey the organization’s needs. The first step is to determine which soft skills are most in need of development.

Look at both gaps in performance and high performance. What skill gaps may have contributed to negative customer feedback? What skills contributed to rave reviews? What skills are bubbling up most often in employee performance reviews? What skills are leveraged most by the highest performing teams? What are the skills on which you want to focus, and how can people best develop these skills?

Develop teaching strategies. With clear development priorities, the organization is ready to create an action plan. HR Partners and People Partners may find it useful to leverage consultants to help deliver programs and coaching to support development efforts.

Use a mix of approaches. Different skills and personal learning styles will require different learning strategies. Developing skills requires acquiring knowledge and putting that knowledge into practice. Here are some examples of learning approaches to help people develop their skills:

Skills workshops that include role plays focused on real work scenarios with self-reflection and feedback.
Coaching
Mentoring
Other learning methods that people can then put into practice, such as online courses, webinars, podcasts, etc. to build knowledge and insights, upskill or reskill.

Continuing efforts, as opposed to a “one and done” approach, will be needed. After all, we don’t expect people to master skills in a single session.

Get employees to buy in. To invest in people development, employees need to understand the importance of soft skills and how coaching and training will help them develop these skills. Organizations can further emphasize the importance of soft skills through recognition, performance reviews, and requiring soft skills as criteria for promotion.

Measure progress. One mistake to avoid when assessing teaching programs is simply measuring “inputs,” such as the number of training sessions offered, “butts in seats,” or the number of hours completed. It’s more useful to design ways to measure outcomes. Metrics will vary by organization but may include assessments of individual performance, employee engagement, team dynamics, customer satisfaction, sales volume, and similar data points. The goal is to be as objective as possible, and to keep the workforce informed.

As the world of work changes, soft skills (or “Critical Intangible Skills”) will only become more important, and strengthening these skills will provide an enduring foundation for success.

Please contact us if you would like more information about soft skills and employee development.

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Rachel Burr is an executive and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience working with CEOs and the C-suite across all industries, in organizations of from 200 to 10,000 employees. Rachel holds dual master’s degrees in Organization Development and Clinical Psychology, and numerous certifications in the field of executive coaching. Rachel is a “people expert” who works with clients to unleash their leadership potential, through coaching soft skills, among many other areas.

Tag: leadership development

Boost Psychological Safety for Healthier, More Creative Teams