Psychological safety is a term that has been around for years. It means creating a culture in which people feel safe sharing their ideas, concerns, and mistakes without the fear of humiliation and/or punishment. It is an important characteristic of a high-performing organization. In fact, Google’s Project Aristotle discovered that psychological safety is the most important element in high-performing teams.
I ask myself, Do I create an environment of psychological safety? This does not mean avoiding conflict and challenging discussions. It does mean they are anchored in mutual respect.
In this column, the focus will be on creating psychological safety with new hires. We cannot assume leaders know how to do this. The aging of the Baby Boomers has created more retirements than usual. This, combined with Covid, has resulted in less experience in the manager ranks and the frontline workforce. Evidence is clear that the odds of someone quitting a job are the greatest early on. While looking confident on the outside, that new frontline worker and the person new in a leadership role may be thinking, Can I do this? Will I fit in? They may have the fear of looking stupid and being judged.
A few tips:
Show empathy. Help the new frontline worker and new leader know that questioning themselves is normal. Ask experienced people to share with the newer people how they felt in their first days on the job.
Build a relationship. Share more about yourself. New people assume others have never felt like them. Check in often. Ask what is going well, who is being helpful. Go beyond asking, “Do you have questions?” Instead, share some questions you feel they may have. All of this lets the person know they are not alone.
Coach in real time. Take care to do it in a way that does not embarrass the person. Show them what right looks like and reinforce that they should not give up. Experience is the key.
Recognize progress often. Even small wins build confidence. This reinforces that learning and improvement matter more than perfection.
Help the person see that mistakes happen. When I was COO of a company, a few new leaders were moved to the division I had led when their leader left the organization. At our first meeting with the new people combined with the group who had been in the division for a while, I asked the experienced people to share a mistake they had made. Everyone did so in a safe, non-embarrassing way. I went first. Afterward, the question was asked, “What does each person here have in common?” After some guesses, the answer turned out to be, “Each person is still here.” The message was understood. There will be mistakes, and we will get through them.
The bottom line? Make it very clear to new hires that it’s understood that being new is not easy, and that you and the organization are committed to providing support to help the person do well. We are in this together.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen by accident, especially for new hires. When leaders normalize uncertainty, support learning, and respond with respect, people are far more likely to stay, grow, and succeed.
