{"id":29741,"date":"2023-03-22T18:25:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T22:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getmaple.ca\/?p=29741"},"modified":"2025-04-12T13:03:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T17:03:42","slug":"how-employers-can-create-a-culture-of-psychological-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getmaple.ca\/blog\/how-employers-can-create-a-culture-of-psychological-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"How employers can create a culture of psychological safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2015, Google\u2019s People Operations team embarked on a mission to answer a very simple question: What makes a team at Google effective?<\/p>\n

After months of rigorous research, including more than 200 interviews, the team discovered something surprising: What mattered was less about who was on the team, and more about how the team interacted with each other. When it came to performance, the level of education of the different team members, their work ethic, or diversity within the team all mattered less than the team\u2019s ability to create a sense of psychological safety.<\/p>\n

Beyond performance and employee success, improving psychological safety for employees has many additional benefits. An atmosphere of emotional well-being can nurture creativity, improve team engagement, and cultivate a sense of belonging among employees.<\/p>\n

A People Management report<\/a> also demonstrated that when team members feel like they work in a secure and supportive work environment and feel comfortable being vulnerable, they\u2019re less likely to leave, which can reduce turnover.<\/p>\n

But what exactly is psychological safety? And what can leaders do to foster it within their organization? Here are a handful of ideas to help you get started and create a productive work environment.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s psychological safety at work?<\/h3>\n

The term \u201cpsychological safety\u201d was coined by author Amy Edmondson in her book The Fearless Organization<\/a>. She defines psychological safety in the workplace as a \u201cclimate where people feel safe enough to take interpersonal risks by speaking up and sharing concerns, questions, or ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their day-to-day lives, many employees feel perfectly comfortable expressing themselves and their likes and dislikes, or explaining why they feel something is a bad idea. At work, these same individuals may fear looking bad if they propose an idea their manager dislikes or refrain from sharing their objections when they don\u2019t agree with the general direction of a project.<\/p>\n

This is what communications researchers refer to as \u201cthe spiral of silence<\/a>.\u201d If an employee believes their opinion will be unpopular or is unlikely to be well received, it may discourage them from sharing it. In the long term, this creates an overly positive work culture in which dissenting opinions are left unspoken and employees feel it\u2019s better to hold back rather than freely share thoughts and ideas.<\/p>\n

The cost of silence<\/h3>\n

An organizational culture of passivity and silence can lead to critical mistakes. For example, in November 2022, the luxury fashion brand Balenciaga received almost-instant backlash<\/a> for its new series of ads, some of which featured children holding teddy bears dressed in provocative clothing.<\/p>\n

The spiral of silence most likely played a role in this debacle: many company employees probably saw the ads at various stages of the process, but simply decided not to say anything.<\/p>\n

So how can leaders better promote dialogue? The answer, of course, is psychological safety at work, which can act as an effective countermeasure to this problem. Instead of punishing employees for expressing dissenting opinions, leaders can use their emotional intelligence and reward them for having the courage to share their thoughts, even if it means going against the grain.<\/p>\n

The four stages of psychological safety<\/h3>\n

Dr. Timothy Clark, author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety<\/a>, believes that psychological safety develops over time in four distinct stages. These are:<\/p>\n