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. Cultural change is tough business, but
that’s exactly what many organizations need to do.
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 hardcore
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 1) included, 2) safe to learn, 3) safe to contribute
and 4) safe to challenge the status quo – all without fear of
being embarrassed, marginalized or punished in some way.
The four stages of psychological safety is 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 to 2020.
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 learner safety, they are more willing to be
vulnerable, take risks and develop resilience in the learning
FEATURE
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.
42 Q2 2020 www.pilingcanada.ca
/www.pilingcanada.ca
