When people feel comfortable speaking up at work, it’s good for employees – and for business. Executive coach Rajkumari Neogy shares strategies to get there.
Key takeaways:
- Psychological safety in the workplace means that people can express themselves and share ideas candidly – without fear.
- Rajkumari Neogy, an executive consultant, says that’s a central workplace need: People want to be heard, be validated and know that their ideas matter.
- To foster psychological safety at work, ask yourself: How are you at giving and receiving feedback? At taking accountability and holding others accountable? At self-reflecting?
At a time when teamwork and inclusion are top of mind for leaders, psychological safety is increasingly important to a healthy work environment. The term, popularised by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, refers to the ability to express yourself without fear of ridicule or rejection. When team members know they can share ideas and concerns honestly and vulnerably, that creates an environment conducive to innovation.
Rajkumari Neogy is an executive consultant and expert on psychological safety who focuses on how neurobiology, culture and empathy intersect in business. Neogy is the founder and CEO of ibelong, which has helped more than 175 companies, including Indeed, foster inclusive workplaces.
We spoke to Neogy about how leaders should think about psychological safety – and how to know if your workplace lacks it.
Indeed: Psychological safety intersects with a few other concepts that are top of mind for leaders. How is psychological safety different from belonging, for example?
For many people, if you feel a sense of belonging at work, that means your needs are probably being met. Psychological safety comes from knowing that if your needs are not being met at a given moment, you feel safe sharing what those unmet needs are. You have the resources and the welcoming environment in which you can do that.
That’s important at the individual level. Can you explain the business case for psychological safety?
One study showed that $1 trillion is being left on the table* by American companies because of exclusionary behaviour. Research from McKinsey shows that toxic workplace behaviour is the biggest factor that drives people to want to leave a company*. These are heartbreaking statistics. What do people need? They want to be heard. They want to be seen. They want to be validated, be appreciated and know that their contribution matters.
What do you see as the tell-tale signs that a workplace isn’t psychologically safe?
Collusion and conformity. When we conform, we’re following what’s socially accepted. It’s about ensuring that we’re not excluded, but at the expense of being our authentic selves. Collusion is when people band together to gain an unfair advantage, and it occurs when we’re afraid of being rejected.
Another thing to pay attention to is if leaders themselves are being brusque or sharp. The question is really about whether the leader is available for feedback, and whether they’re being accountable. If they’re not, then we have a problem. And the opportunity is really to get them to self-reflect and be accountable.
How can leaders create a sense of safety in the workplace?
Look for conflict, tension and places where there’s a rupture. Because then, as a leader, you get to ask more meaningful questions: “What’s going on for you?”, “What’s the deeper concern here for you?”, “What’s making this not work?”, “How do we move forward together?”. Language is the most powerful tool we have.
We’re hardwired to have our needs met, and when they aren’t met we fall into disrepair. It reminds me of 'The Terminator' movies when the silver robot shatters into pieces and then reassembles himself. It may sound strange, but that’s what we’re looking for – someone who can help us find the parts of us we’ve lost.
How would you use psychologically safe communication to redirect conversations that are going off the rails?
If you notice there’s a lot of tension in the room, try saying, “Can we dial this back for a moment and address X, Y or Z?” Or say, “I’d like to invite everyone to take a beat.” Or, “Before we move forward, I noticed we were getting off topic,” or, “This person is on the receiving end of a lot of feedback.”
There are a lot of ways we can interrupt to refocus.
How can leaders deal with factors that might impact psychological safety in the workplace – from layoffs to AI – that are beyond their control?
Get really comfortable with mourning. We, as a global collective, do not understand mourning. We think it’s a waste of time because we’re so focused on executing. And we need mourning for all kinds of situations. The two-year-old who’s eating ice cream and drops the cone on the floor? That kid needs mourning. The person who didn’t get promoted? That person needs mourning too. If we don’t check in and mourn, we find ourselves stuck and isolated.
So if you’re a leader, where do you start? How do you begin changing your own behaviour to create a more psychologically safe workplace?
The three pillars of organisational health are feedback, accountability and self-reflection. Ask yourself: How are you, as a leader, at giving and receiving feedback? How are you at taking accountability and holding others accountable? And, equally important, how are you at self-reflecting? If you’re struggling with all of these pillars, that might be preventing you from showing up as a fully psychologically safe leader.
Leaders also need downtime, because we don’t actually learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. When you put your brain on overload with dopamine and a dysregulated nervous system, you can’t function. Try looking at the clouds, or listening to music without lyrics. The research* shows that if you don’t give your brain time to chill, it starts to slow down.
Spotlight: Rajkumari Neogy at Indeed Leadership Connect
Indeed Leadership Connect brings together senior HR and talent acquisition leaders from across industries to exchange ideas. At a recent virtual event, Neogy spoke with leaders from Fortune 500 companies, tech startups, an Ivy League university and the United Nations, answering their questions about psychological safety. Here were Neogy’s top recommendations for dealing with rude behaviour at work:
- Allow the moment to be uncomfortable. “The No. 1 leadership skill isn’t active listening, it’s sitting with discomfort,” Neogy says. After an outburst during a meeting, you might say, “Tell me what’s going on.” Let the person explain themselves and allow the group to sit with it.
- Next, get curious. Ask questions: “What’s the deeper concern here?”, “What’s not working for you?”, “Let’s unpack that.” As Neogy says, “You’re modelling accountability.”
- Set boundaries. If someone is still being rude after you’ve given them a chance to explain, it’s OK to draw the line. “I’ve advised people to walk away from a conversation mid-sentence if someone is being a jerk,” Neogy says. “Sometimes it has to happen repeatedly until they start speaking differently.”
Join us on a journey to workplace wellness
Here at Indeed, we understand that how we feel at work impacts our entire life.
Our survey into the current state of workplace wellbeing revealed that less than a quarter of Australians are thriving at work (23%). We believe everyone deserves to thrive at work, and so based on our research, we prepared a whitepaper, Wellness at work: Navigating the path to thriving, which uncovers what it means to be ‘well’ and offers advice and guidance on how to build an organisation brimming with people who feel highly fulfilled, motivated, happy and safe at work.
Download Wellness at work: Navigating the path to thriving today to read the full results.
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