Fostering Psychological Safety Starts With Making a Conscious Choice

Ever since Google popularised Psychological Safety as an essential part of Team Effectiveness, every tech company and its leaders have been chasing it. I am no different either. As a senior tech leader who is currently working for an enterprise software company, Psychological Safety is top of mind when I am hiring and evaluating leaders to join my organisation.

Fostering psychological safety is a continuous pursuit for leaders. There is no denying that and it's all well understood. However, the reality is that leaders may be under immense pressure to deliver business results and are removed from the day-to-day operations to take note of signs that psychological safety may be missing.

Here are 10 signs that show that psychological safety is missing in your team. If you are a people manager, regardless of what seniority you are, taking note of these signs and course-correcting before it's too late will help your team in the long run.

1. Attrition rate is high

In tech companies, one of the telltale signs of lack of psychological safety is attrition. Unlike many other industries, tech industry is known to be thriving even with the recent layoffs. It's not hard for knowledge workers to find a job. As a result, their level of tolerance for less-than-ideal work is high and they quit their jobs for many reasons. And yet these reasons are very similar, unclear expectations, unreasonable managers, lack of recognition, or lack of career growth. When there is no psychological safety, all of those five reasons are known, and yet there are no concrete steps to address them, causing attrition.

Action for leaders: Confirm the reasons via exit interviews and anonymous surveys. Avoid putting extra pressure on those who are left. Adjust goals and deliverables as needed.

2. Attrition comes in waves

Often, knowledge workers will try and fight for what they believe is right and what changes they want to happen. They also rally together on a common goal. For example, when they have an unreasonable manager, they will either voice out in anonymous employee surveys or speak to their circle of trust or reach out to HR. However, when nothing is done or when there is no transparency in what is being done, they will leave at the same time. The key to note with attrition is that it's completely normal for people to change jobs but when everyone does it at the same time, it's not normal.

Action for leaders: Confirm the reasons via exit interviews and anonymous surveys. Avoid putting extra pressure on those who are left. Adjust goals and deliverables as needed.

3. People are taking leaves continuously

Again, people take leave for many reasons. As leaders, you should encourage healthy work and life and be ok with people taking Pay Time Off (PTO). However, if more and more people are taking leave to recharge often, this is likely because they find work draining mentally. They haven't reached the point of walking out the door, but they are on their way there.

Action for leaders: Schedule activities that allow people to recharge and socialise. A little bit of break every now and then while creating a strong social bond will go a long way. Adjust goals and deliverables as needed.

4. People don't speak up in meetings

It's easy to notice when there is no collaboration, healthy debate or challenging the status quo in meetings. When quiet meetings happen once or twice, it is ok, but when they become the norm, especially when there is leadership presence, then it's a sign that psychological safety is missing.
Action for leaders: Tell individuals in private conversations, usually in 1:1s that whatever they say or do can do no harm to their careers or jobs. And mean it. For example, some people may be afraid of losing their jobs, some may be afraid of getting a bad performance assessment, some may be afraid of losing their reputation. Speak to their fears.

5. Majority is always in agreement with what their leaders have to say

This is similar to the point above, people don't speak up in meetings. When this pattern continues even in smaller settings such as one on ones, then, it is because they don't feel safe to challenge their leaders. There is always power imbalance in a corporate environment, so leaders need to work extra hard to ensure people are not afraid to say the truth.

Action for leaders: As above.

6. Fear of failure is present across all levels

This may be a hard one to detect as nobody is going to put their hands up and say "I am afraid". One way to detect this is to listen to what people are saying. Phrases such as "We cannot afford to get it wrong." "We must get it right." "We have to deliver X,Y,Z by this date." are how fear of failure is manifesting. Most importantly, as a leader, you need to catch yourself when you say these phrases, because it also shows that you are afraid to fail and your fear is trickling down all the way.

Action for leaders: Tell individuals in private conversations, usually in 1:1s that whatever they say or do can do no harm to their careers or jobs. And mean it. For example, some people may be afraid of losing their jobs, some may be afraid of getting a bad performance assessment, some may be afraid of losing their reputation. Speak to their fears.

7. Team productivity is declining

We all know it, psychological safety is the key to team effectiveness. Effective teams deliver value quickly and autonomously. When there is no psychological safety, while team members may not be upset with each other, they are not motivated to do their best work. Key players and high performers are not immune to this either and as a result, you'll see a decline in team productivity.

Action for leaders: Ignore your desire to increase productivity. Focus on psychological safety and productivity will follow.

8. Every decision gets escalated

Related to team productivity, a team that does not feel safe to make decisions on their own will escalate all decisions to the next level. Depending on where psychological safety is lacking, the next level may then ask their next level, until it gets to a point where there is nobody to escalate to and the last person on the chain will be forced to either make a sub-par decision or ask their immediate level down to make the decision. Both of which result in a wrong decision being made most of the times.

Action for leaders: When a decision is escalated to you, be helpful first. Help make a decision first and then later, coach them on how to go about making a decision. Offer to help with decision making until they feel comfortable with making them autonomously. Do a responsibility boundary exercise with them so it's clear to everyone involved on what kind of decisions can be made by whom.

9. There are signs of micromanaging

I say "There are signs of micromanaging" rather than "Leaders are micromanaging" for a conscious reason. This is because the manager who is micromanaging does so unknowingly as they feel the need to be on top of what is happening at a micro level. From the person's perspective, they needed to have visibility because they cannot trust that everything will happen successfully. That person might even be you! If you're feeling this way as a leader, it's time to stop and assess why. Holding people accountable is great, however, if you have to check that things are being done at a micro level, it's not good. Micromanaging is when you are asking to see receipts of everything. Questions to ask yourself as a leader then is, Is your margin for errors too low? Do you have the right people working on right things? Are you worried about losing your credibility?

Action for leaders: Set clear expectation instead of micromanaging. Because once you start micromanaging, you are saying indirectly that you don't trust them. You can't expect people to trust you when they feel that you don't trust them.

10. Nobody asks for help even when they are struggling

As a leader, you'll see people and projects struggling but they are not asking for help, even when you asked them to. There are two reasons for this: firstly, they may have asked for help in the past and they didn't receive the help needed or worse, it was implied they were incompetent, and secondly, they may have given up on asking for help altogether. In most cases, the first happened way before the second follows. As a leader, you will want to correlate the second sign with the first sign.

Action for leaders: When people ask for your help, help them first. And then coach them next. Not the other way around.

Sounds bad, what should you do as a leader…

As a leader, when you see a few signs of lack of psychological safety, don't panic. Take stock of what's been happening and come up with a plan to tackle the situation. One important thing to note with lack of psychological safety is that it doesn't impact every person at the same time. That's why as a leader, when you're looking out for signs, you need to look out for majority of cases. For example, one or two people might still speak up in meetings, however, the rest stays silent. Similarly, an individual may still feel comfortable asking their leaders or peers for help but the rest of the organisation is keeping their heads down while struggling. Or there might be one person that everyone tends to go to in order to voice out their concerns instead of speaking up openly.

At the end of the day, ask yourself how you want to be remembered as a leader. Inspiring, supportive and inclusive or egoistic, unreasonable and controlling. The choice is yours!

2023 could be the most challenging year for leaders. This is your chance to make a lasting impact and be the leader that inspires, mobilises and serves your team and everyone around you to be better. Use this leadership planner to help you learn essential leadership competencies for the modern workforce.