{"id":299,"date":"2021-06-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/seven-considerations-when-creating-psychological-safety\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:49","slug":"seven-considerations-when-creating-psychological-safety","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/seven-considerations-when-creating-psychological-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Considerations When Creating Psychological Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Jun 17, 2021 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Seven Considerations When Creating Psychological Safety<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mental skills matter less than you think, while it would be wise to remember that ‘safe’ is not always ‘comfortable.’<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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A human performance article brought to you by our Main Partners<\/p>\n

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Here, the Leaders Performance Institute, presents seven considerations that will better enable athletes to feel comfortable in both admitting mistakes and openly sharing ideas, while also learning from setbacks.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

Get those right and the simple matter is that psychological safety lends itself to improved decision-making and greater opportunities for innovation. We begin with social skills.<\/p>\n

1. It\u2019s about social skills, not mental skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is tempting to approach psychological safety through the lens of mental skills but that would be unwise. \u201cI think this is one of those areas where mental skills are not as important as other areas,\u201d says David Fletcher. \u201cMental skills, by definition, are intra-focused, but psychological safety is a psycho-social construct, which is heavily influenced by the people around you; those psychological skills aren\u2019t as effective as psycho-social skills. The classic example is emotional intelligence. Being able to read your emotions and reading the emotions of someone around you is a much more effective skill to underpin psychological safety. One of the reasons why that\u2019s so important is because of individual differences within a group or a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is quite neurotic then working with someone like that and helping them to feel psychologically safe is different to someone who\u2019s high on Type A behaviour traits,\u201d he adds. \u201cWhat psychological safety looks like to those two individuals with contrasting personality characteristics is very different. If I\u2019m the leader or an individual within a group, being able to read those two different types of people effectively, which is in large part due to emotional intelligence and empathy; if you don\u2019t have those types of social skills you\u2019re going to struggle to contribute to the contribute to the climate of psychological safety. You might get it right for some people but not for other people in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. The value in conversational turn-taking<\/strong><\/p>\n

Safe spaces for development and reflection are essential. \u201cI think it\u2019s incumbent on us within our clubs to provide that space for development and not just on-field but off-field development,\u201d says Kate Hall. \u201cWe don\u2019t want people who are so afraid about being criticised that they never take a risk, they never grow. That\u2019s about the relationships that are wrapped around the athletes, to give them that courage. That\u2019s their peer relationships as well. We want our teams to be safe and we want our teams to listen. If someone doesn\u2019t feel as if they\u2019re being heard or that they can speak up and feel safe, we want our team culture to be able to understand that.\u201d Mustafa Sarkar suggests using conversational turn-taking and active listening. \u201cGoogle talked about conversational turn-taking within their Project Aristotle,\u201d he says. \u201cIt means giving everyone the opportunity to participate in the conversation; and that can be done in smaller groups but also in the context of bigger groups; that might even be going around each individual person and getting their viewpoints. That can be done anonymously too. For example, with students we use the online notice board Padlet. There are creative ways to let everyone\u2019s voices be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Remember that \u2018safe\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean \u2018comfortable\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about performance environments, particularly at the elite level, a lot of the growth that can come about actually comes from being a little uncomfortable at times,\u201d says Fletcher. \u201cWhen you have that trust and you have leaders that can take feedback then you can get into a position where you can get uncomfortable in certain scenarios but you know that\u2019s it\u2019s being done for a good reason. That\u2019s the hard place to operate not just as coaches but as a collective, striking that balance between psychological safety where you can express yourself but also being in safe elements of discomfort.\u201d This dynamic has enabled Team USA hockey to build what Hilary Knight calls a \u2018solid\u2019 culture. \u201cPlayers can \u00a0express themselves, whether that\u2019s anxiety of a problem or stress of a tactic,\u201d she says, \u201cbut understanding that you can\u2019t just necessarily sit there and pack it all on and have a poor attitude about it, it\u2019s more about a proactive attitude of \u2018this is how I\u2019m feeling, I just want to voice this\u2019 or \u2018how do I work through this?\u2019 It\u2019s more of a collaborative discussion rather than just complaining; making sure it\u2019s conducive to the environment and devising a strategy to solve the problem or bring attention to an issue you might have identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Promote calculated risks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Risk-taking is to be encouraged, within certain parameters. \u201cI think you can take calculated risks,\u201d says Knight. \u201cI think there\u2019s a level of trust and accountability and responsibility, especially when you have the puck on your stick, not to be reckless with it. It depends on the situation, but if it\u2019s a repeated pattern of risk-taking that is having an adverse effect on our team it\u2019s definitely something we\u2019ll address and be like \u2018hey, maybe you should think about it this way\u2019. I think you go out there, you do your best, and I think you have respect for other people on your team that they\u2019re going to do their best and, when they fall short, you just have to be there to communicate and pick them back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mistake are inevitable but how a coach responds will determine an athlete\u2019s level of psychological safety. \u201cGrowth mindset is a bit of a buzz phrase these days but it is that,\u201d says Jayne Ludlow. \u201cIt\u2019s about setting an environment so that people know it\u2019s a learning environment. When we make mistakes, which will happen, everybody will make them at different points, it\u2019s how we respond to them and the language we use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarkar underlines the importance of a coach choosing the right words. \u201cSpecifically the language that coaches and other people use in relation to whether or not is safe to do these things,\u201d he says, citing England men\u2019s Head Coach Gareth Southgate, who publicly praised Marcus Rashford for scoring an audacious goal prior to the 2018 Fifa World Cup. \u201cSouthgate recognises the fact that risk-taking is important and it gives people an opportunity to express that in the way that they play.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Take collective responsibility for errors<\/strong><\/p>\n

In team sports, collective responsibility encourages psychological safety. \u201cGenerally, there are things that lead to that point, it\u2019s never a one-person incident – it can be that, but it rarely is \u2013 and it\u2019s that collective approach to how we evolve knowing now what we know,\u201d says Ludlow. Knight agrees. \u201cI think when you start to point fingers that\u2019s when it becomes an issue because you\u2019re quick to negate any responsibility and you have to understand that there\u2019s six people on the ice,\u201d she says. \u201cIf there\u2019s a mistake, yeah, it might look like it\u2019s someone else\u2019s error, but you definitely have a shared hand in the error as well because you\u2019re out there on the ice. It\u2019s understanding that you\u2019re all in it together in some way; yes it might show up on someone\u2019s stick or on video; it\u2019s going to happen and you just need to be able to adjust and adapt through it.\u201d With collective responsibility comes collective problem-solving. \u201cA small example is an evaluation of video,\u201d Knight continues. \u201cYou sit down with your line mates or teammates and evaluate what your performance was like previously. That\u2019s where I think that level of trust comes into play. You don\u2019t want to sit there in the video session and say \u2018oh my god, I hope they don\u2019t see this\u2019 or \u2018oh man, I let everyone down because I made this mistake.\u2019 It\u2019s really a way to evaluate a performance and do better next time and it just goes into the culture that you\u2019re building, that you want to bring out the best in one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

6. Letting people be themselves<\/strong><\/p>\n

With psychological safety it is also important to let people be themselves. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with a lot of footballers clinically who have felt as if they can\u2019t be themselves within a club and they feel a sense of burnout and fatigue from continually having to put up a wall of psychological safety themselves because they haven\u2019t been able to truly be themselves within their club or their team relationships,\u201d says Kate Hall. \u201cIt might be as simple as they have really diverse interests. To be able to foster that part of the human as well in that.\u201d During her time with Wales Women, Ludlow thought this could be achieved by letting players chose their own wardrobe. \u201cCan players wear different clothes to things? Hell yeah, because that\u2019s their identity. Does it mean we have different approaches on a match day for individuals so that they get to a game and feel at their optimum? Yes. There were big chunks of the programme that every single player had to conform to and there\u2019s a certain way to do it; but there\u2019s also just as many big parts of the programme where they could bring who they are to the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. Can psychological safety be linked to performance outcomes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we measure and assess psychological safety and the outcomes of that psychological safety within a team?\u201d asks Fletcher. \u201cAssessing the degree of psychological safety would be worthwhile but also trying to link that to outcomes. So if athletes are feeling more psychologically safe, is that translating into development of new skills, tactical enhancement? Tying that in with performance analysis would be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This article first appeared in the latest Performance Special Report, Psychological Safety: The origins, reality and shelf life of an evolving high performance concept – featuring the athlete, coach and academic perspectives. Download now.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n