The 4 stages of Psychological Safety

I recently read ‘The 4 stages of psychological safety’ by Timothy Clark. A book that is among the many books on my manager‘s desk. I love it when you have books around you at work. It is a sign telling you there is room for improvement for everyone.

I have been reading the book for past few days as it is also a topic often discussed as part of the work I do.

I will write and talk more about the book more in the coming days. But want to share one thing from the book. And it is important for us to understand.

“Those who say that psychological safety is nothing more than sympathetic and sentimental slush offered by leaders who are unwilling to hold others accountable are in denial themselves”

As I was reading the book came the news from India about a young professional aged 26 who died (as per her mom‘s letter to the CEO) due to over work and the CEO‘s response on this is not well recieved as it was more on the defence of their own work culture and missing the point on Psychological safety where the individual is at the forefront.

Psychological safety goes beyond what the company can/could do and brings us individual professionals to be aware and act accordingly. In our roles as managers, leaders, individual contributors, consultants, coaches we have a responsibility and accountability to create an environment and culture of psychological safety for others who work with us.

This is our professional responsibility.

We are not perfect and so it becomes more important for us to be aware what impact we create around us. I have been made aware of my shortcomngs while at the same time in my curreny role I am safe to say I feel psychologically unsafe when I feel it and then we all learn from it.

I have been in the industry for over 3 decades and I have worked with a lot of amazing people. And at my current role I am also getting better as an individual and all the credit goes to my manager, his manager and coworkers I have.

The point is not about a company and work culture, but about the fact that we need to make our coworkers feel inclusion safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety and Challenger Safety. The 4 steps of psychological safety.

As a new week starts let us have a conversation about psychological safety in our organizations. Let us have a conversation to create a psychologically safe environment so we can be the best of what we can be 🥰