Manage your reactions

Often, leaders think they must always be unflappable and strong. However, like everyone else in the world, leaders are human. They get triggered and react automatically, which can detract from a team’s psychological safety. To avoid those harmful reactions, leaders need to become highly self-aware and learn how to manage their reactions and respond deliberately. One of the best ways to do that is to hit the Pause button: Before reacting, pause, take a breath, and only when you have taken that pause, intentionally choose your response.

If you want to create an environment in which people are willing to challenge you and others by offering dissenting viewpoints, make it a practice to thank people for their courage in speaking up, even if you do not agree with them.

Embrace risk and failure

How leaders deal with risk and failure has a huge impact on the psychological safety of their teams. Do you encourage taking intelligent risks, or do you punish failure? Do you focus on learning, or do you play the blame game?

There is no innovation without failure along the way. Start to reframe failure as a learning opportunity. Make it clear to your team members that you expect failures along the way when you try new things: “This is new to us, so we will experience failure.” Start to include open discussions of both failures and successes in your team meetings so your whole team can embrace a growth mindset and learn together. The more you model this growth mindset and learning behavior, the more you help your team members let go of their natural fear of failure.

Design inclusive rituals

The need for inclusion and belonging is fundamental to us as human beings. Leaders must deliberately build inclusive cultures where diverse ideas and talents can flourish. Changing a culture means changing how team colleagues behave and interact. By building inclusive rituals into your everyday interactions and by being consistent with these rituals, you can build a culture in which everyone feels heard, seen, and respected.

A perfect place to start establishing inclusive rituals is the way you run your meetings. Have your team members take turns facilitating team meetings by ensuring equal speaking time, a no-interruption policy, and inviting dissenting viewpoints. Make sure no one is dominating the conversation and find ways to engage the quieter team members. Gather feedback regularly after meetings to check if everyone feels included and continue to refine your meeting practices.

We know that building and sustaining a psychologically safe working environment is a continuous journey, with twists and turns and ups and downs along the way. We also know there is no perfect end state. We encourage you to start by trying out one new behavior from this article. You don’t have to do everything at once. You may be surprised by the positive impact of small changes done consistently.