MENTAL HEALTH
A leader who takes their team to this point of creative abrasion and constructive
dissent has created a culturally flat organization, a work environment
that has neutralized the barriers of social hierarchy. Most teams and
organizations never get there. Why? It’s because of the insecurity and ego
needs of the leaders.
The single hardest thing to change in an organization is culture.
Everything else – structure, process, systems, equipment and technology
– is more easily configurable. Culture, that’s the soft operating system, the
values, beliefs, norms and assumptions. The good news is that the current
coronavirus pandemic has changed the status quo, so organizations can remove
cultural roadblocks more easily than in normal times.
Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” in 1959, and yet
workplace culture is still approached like it’s 1959, which essentially means
the approach is by default instead of by design. Industry continues to elevate
the hard-core authoritarian bosses, conditioned in another time and
place. The reason many of these leaders survive is because their organizations
have sources of competitive advantage such as scale economies that
compensate for and conceal their liabilities. However, those days are coming
to an end. The increasing demands of hypercompetitive markets require
a leader to be a direction setter, servant, coach, enabler and facilitator
– an individual with flaws and weaknesses, to be sure, but also with humility
and superb emotional intelligence.
Happily, the predominant patterns of leadership continue their migration
from bureaucratic and autocratic to democratic and egalitarian, from
task-oriented to people-oriented, and from directive to facilitative.
So how does a company get there? How does a company transform its
culture through leadership? Psychological safety. It’s the single most important
measure of overall health.
Psychological safety is a social condition in which human beings feel included,
safe to learn, safe to contribute and safe to challenge the status quo
– all without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized or punished in some
way. The four stages of psychological safety are a universal pattern that reflects
the natural progression of human needs in social settings. When organizations
progress through the four stages, they create deeply inclusive
environments, accelerate learning, increase contribution and stimulate innovation.
Psychological safety is what will take organizations from 1959
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Stage 1: Inclusion safety
Inclusion safety satisfies the basic human need to connect and belong.
Whether at work, school, home or other social settings, everyone wants to
be accepted. In fact, the need to be accepted precedes the need to be heard.
When invited into the company of others, a sense of shared identity and a
conviction that we matter are developed. Inclusion safety allows individuals
to gain a sense of membership on a team and interact with its members
without fear of rejection or humiliation, thus boosting confidence, resilience
and independence.
What if someone is deprived of that basic acceptance and validation as a
human being? In short, it’s debilitating. It activates the pain centres of the
brain. Granting inclusion safety to another person is a moral imperative.
Indeed, only the threat of harm can excuse from this responsibility. When
inclusion safety is established for others, regardless of personal differences,
common humanity is acknowledged, and false theories of superiority and
arrogant strains of elitism are rejected.
Stage 2: Learner safety
Learner safety satisfies the basic human need to learn and grow. It allows
people to feel safe as they engage in all aspects of the learning process –
asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting and even
making mistakes. Each person brings some level of inhibition and anxiety
to the learning process; everyone has insecurities. Who hasn’t hesitated to
raise their hand to ask a question in a group setting for fear of feeling dumb?
Learning is both intellectual and emotional. It’s an interplay of the head
and the heart. When people sense leaner safety, they are more willing to be
vulnerable, take risks and develop resilience in the learning process.
Conversely, a lack of learner safety triggers the self-censoring instinct,
causing people to shut down, retrench and manage personal risk. When
learner safety is established for others, they’re given encouragement to
learn in exchange for a willingness to learn.
Stage 3: Contributor safety
Contributor safety satisfies the basic human need to contribute and make
a difference. When contributor safety is present, employees feel safe to
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