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Psychological Safety
I am fortunate that although I have an hour plus commute to work I get to spend this time with a clinical psychologist who treats wards of the state in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves as a filter for my ideas about leadership and motivating teams of people to perform at a high level. In one recent conversation with him I brought up the concept of Psychological Safety as an explanation for workplace misbehavior. I do this hoping that he will not explode in laughter at my sophomoric understanding of what can be complex psychological ideas. Instead, he smiled and nodded in a way that made me feel comfortable with my belief that psychological safety can free an employee to take chances, speak up in meetings and offer more of themselves. On the other side of that coin, a lack of psychological safety will inhibit an employee from sharing ideas, trying new things or looking out for anyone but themselves.
One Harvard research team found that 75% of people say their boss is their primary source of stress at work, 60% of people say they have seen their boss mistreat someone at work. What is the result of this information? A majority of employees report experiencing Psychological distress, emotional duress and physical pain. Harvard researchers conclude that negative workplace conduct by bosses can have an impact similar to Post Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD). Harvard Business Review contributor, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzi, CEO of Hogan Assessments, and professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, who is also an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab writes that “for every transformational leader and emotionally intelligent manager out there, there are dozens of toxic bosses, and they come in many different forms.” Workplace Bullying International’s 2017 survey reveals that 60 million people are impacted by workplace bullying. In short, the problem is ubiquitous and so are the negative consequences. The economic costs are staggering. The most recent estimates are $14 Billion on Leadership development and $10 Billion on the Self Help industry; a mind-blowing figure, humbling when you consider that bosses are still causing stress for the American workforce.
Ronald Riggio, contributing writer for psychologytoday.com identifies three types of bad bosses as “tyrants, bullies or just incompetent”. Because of their power and influence in the organization and their willingness to play dirty, it might appear that they impact every aspect of your professional life and spill into your personal life. Furthermore, it may seem impossible to surmount their overwhelmingly negative impact over your daily life.
Barbara Kellerman of the Harvard Business School writes in her book, Bad Leadership, about the seven major types of problematic leaders (1) incompetent, (2) rigid, (3) intemperate, (4) callous, (5) corrupt, (6) insular, and (7) evil. Chamorro-Premuzic identifies the commonality that crosses all seven of these leaders is their ability to inflict stress on others, “particularly subordinates”.
The goal of any organization is to deliver the best product to the people they serve. In order to accomplish this goal it is essential that senior leaders and middle managers create conditions for their front line people to deliver excellent service to their customers or clients. Leaders have to overcome the natural tendency to create comfort and security for themselves and create supportive spaces for people who come to work each day. If your people are your focus, meaning you work to see situations from their point of view whether you agree or not you are more likely to create positive environments and less likely to breed anxiety and paranoia.
I am reminded of a colleague who had a particularly bad boss who constantly reminded his team that he was always right and because of that fact things would always be his way. This boss would go on tirades both behind closed doors as well as in the open. He would exaggerate, generalize and outright lie to people on his team. He would jab the air with his finger, raise his voice and criticize literally putting everyone in the department on eggshells. This boss never praised, thanked or recognized anyone for their work or celebrated their accomplishments. Making things worse, this boss would brag to other leaders in the organization that his people ‘loved’ him and loved working in his department. Talk about delusional. I actually know this department and this boss well.
There are tremendous problems with this type of behavior and one of them is that it causes what I call “a slow slide into toxicity”. People are always looking for ways to stay off of the boss’ radar. Any time the boss’ focus is on you, it is never for a good reason. The safe bet was to keep your head down until quitting time. In that office, people were afraid and lived by the Japanese saying “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. For this reason, people stay silently hoping to stay out of his cross hairs. A major cost of this culture is that you never get to fully benefit from the talents and imagination of your team. These are so afraid of making mistakes that they refuse to take chances instead doing the bare minimum. Worse, for that boss at least, his people were ready to jump on the first revolt or coup made available to them.
Another issue with this boss’s behavior is that his denial of reality and his belief that people love him will result in more of the same behavior and very little positive change. In hierarchies, the people at the top of the chain of command have all of the authority and very little of the information on the ground while the people on the front line have all of the information and very little authority. In healthy organizations bosses will share their authority, extending opportunities for their people to shine. At the same time, their front line employees are willing to share information so that the boss can make great decisions. In the absence of psychological safety this order is disrupted and the only other option is self-preservation and mistrust. When psychological safety is felt by all, information flow and shared authority frees people to be their best and deliver the best possible product to the public.
If you are working to be an emotionally intelligent leader then you are making a daily effort to connect with your people and their challenges and aspirations are critical. When your people know they are your most valued resource and you are there to support their success they will be more likely to support you and your success. Further, a revolt or coup that begins to stir will gain no momentum and will die early in its development. It turns out that Psychological Safety has great practical value. Give it a try and watch your organization SOAR!
William A Brown
January 20, 2019
https://www.stress.org/stress-research/
https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-deal-with-a-boss-who-stresses-you-out
http://www.workplacebullying.org/wbiresearch/wbi-2017-survey/
