The uncertainty, change and canceling culture currently happening in society tremendously impacts everyone, also at work. It impacts the way leaders and employees interact.
Organizations are intertwined with society – they have a bigger social responsibility than ever before. Everyone wants to feel they belong to their organization and feel inclusive in a diverse culture. You don’t want to feel stress, unsafety, discomfort which, in this high-pressure society, can lead to distrust and health problems. In the end we all want to work in and long for a safe place.
Psychological safety is a shared belief that you can speak up with ideas, questions or concerns and that you will not be punished for making a mistake. Psychological safety is a key enabler of healthy collaboration and performance. It is the soil for an inclusive, diverse and equitable workplace and enhances innovation, transformation and employee engagement, transformation and change success.
It occupies the mind of many leaders today. Psychological safety is also felt as a sensitive topic. The initial, most of the times subconscious, reaction of us as human beings on sensitive, unknown topics is that we stay silent, shy away or become defensive. We at Deloitte would like to break through this behavior by opening up the dialogue about the sensitive topic psychological safety.
In these podcast series; “Psychological Safety; What can we learn from people with a different perspective…” we talk with a variety of people with a variety of background and expertise. The wisdom that these people share most certainly provides inspiration and sense of awareness, but mostly opens-up the dialogue about psychological safety.