Simon Sinek explains why psychological safety matters at work. Without it, employees hide mistakes, fake competence, and withhold problems. He argues you can't incentivize performance, only behavior, which backfires in unsafe environments.
We want to feel safe at work, which means we feel that we can be ourselves. It means that we feel safe enough to raise our hands and say, I made a mistake, or, I don't feel qualified for the position you've given me. I need more training, or I'm struggling at home. It's affecting my work. I'm scared. I need help.
And to say any of those things with the confidence that our boss or any of our colleagues would rush to support us. Because if we don't create those psychologically and sometimes physically safe spaces, but those psychological safe spaces, what we end up is with a group of people who come to work every day lying, hiding, and faking. They're hiding mistakes they are.
Not admitting if they don't know how to do their jobs, they will never admit that they don't know something for fear that it makes them vulnerable, for fear that it maybe makes them the weak link, that they'll find themselves on some short list at the next round of layoffs. And the problem is, how do you run a successful organization that's supposed to sustain over the long term, thrive over the long term, if people are literally hiding things that go wrong, not admitting that they don't know how to do their jobs, and never admitting they need help? That doesn't last. That doesn't last. And the problem is when someone leads with a finite mindset where they attempt to incentivize performance, and by the way, you can't incentivize performance. You can only incentivize behavior, then bad things eventually happen.
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