Psychological Safety: Leadership Development

News and opinion:

This week, psychological safety seemed to really hit the mainstream business world. Maybe it’s the pandemic, maybe it’s just about time, but either way, it’s a great thing:

A fantastic piece from Brian Proffitt at Red Hat’s Open Source Program Office: Culture and engagement in community onboarding: 
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/culture-and-engagement-community-onboarding

Forbes: How CEO style affects culture (hint: Psychological Safety is number 1)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/01/15/want-to-know-how-ceo-style-impacts-hiring-here-are-nine-ways/?sh=1295d084fe03

The Financial Conduct Authority are suggesting that finance firms need to build psychological safety. When the FCA are talking about it, you know it’s mainstream:
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-finance-regulator/dont-ignore-lockdown-fatigue-uk-watchdog-tells-finance-bosses-idUKKBN2AM185

Fast Company: Why psychological safety at work is key to preventing employee burnout.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90604528/why-psychological-safety-at-work-is-key-to-preventing-burnout 

Even McKinsey are on it: “Psychological safety and the critical role of leadership development.”
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/psychological-safety-and-the-critical-role-of-leadership-development 

I also recently read this Fantastic article by Nic Marks – How psychological safety is a haven against racism:
https://nicmarks.org/how-psychological-safety-is-a-haven-against-racism/ 

Academic and research:

Transformational leadership and psychological safety was a key factor in how schools adapted quickly to the Covid-19 crisis: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2020.618483/full 

Learner centred feedback – psychological safety and effectiveness of feedback in higher education:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360.2021.1882403

This is interesting, and I’m yet to be convinced, but here a team used machine learning models to examine movements in meetings, which correlate to higher psychological safety and effectiveness:
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3446382.3448361

There’s an interesting point here that building psychological safety allows people to speak up about problems, and even domestic abuse, that are occurring outside the workplace. Building psychological safety in your team could save lives: 
https://hbr.org/2021/02/intimate-partner-violence-is-a-workplace-issue 

Video and audio:

Psychological Safety, Agile Engineering Podcast – the sequel!  Episode 11: Chernobyl, Volkswagen, Ethics, and Psychological Safety with Tom Geraghty
https://agileengineeringpodcast.com/2021/02/24/episode-11-chernobyl-volkswagen-ethics-and-psychological-safety-with-tom-geraghty/

Another great video by Dr Amy Edmondson, speaking to the Kings Fund: 
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/importance-psychological-safety 

Poetry:

“Bewilderment” by Rumi:
https://www.how-matters.org/2013/04/26/bewilderment-by-rumi

Finally:
And for anyone who hasn’t recently visited PsychSafety.co.uk, we have a few new articles, including How to Run Psychologically Safe Meetings, The difference between Trust and Psychological Safety, and some handy presentation resources.

You can find previous newsletters here:
https://mailchi.mp/d6d9c02a0896/psychological-safety-monthlyish-newsletter