Doug Noll argues leaders must create five types of safety: emotional, physical, moral, cognitive, and spiritual. Emotional safety uses a three-step process of ignoring words, listening to emotions, and reflecting back with a "you" statement. Leaders must master their own emotions first, then model and teach these skills to their team.
Chapters
Hi, Doug Noll here, and today I want to talk about something that's very important, and that is psychological safety and leadership. So the research shows that the number one function of a leader is to create psychological safety on the leader's team. And the reason that this is important is because teams with a culture of psychological safety see significant productivity benefits. This is what the research is showing. And yet, in all leadership training, we never hear about the idea of psychological training. And this is certainly not something that's taught in business school or in undergraduate business programs. So this is new and kind of cutting-edge stuff. So if you're a psychological leader, pay attention because I've got some great information for you. So when we talk about psychological Safety. We're really talking about 5 different types of safety. The first is emotional safety, and basically we create emotional safety through a process that I teach called affect labeling. 3 simple steps: ignore the words, listen to the emotions, and reflect back the emotions with a simple "you" statement. Then of course there's physical safety. This means that there are no perceived threats on your team. You know, bullying is a big problem. We don't see true physical threats in the workplace very often, but oftentimes people try to intimidate others through their size or even through sexual harassment. I mean, there's just a million different ways that there can be a lack of physical safety that's very nuanced and very subtle. As a leader, it's your responsibility to make sure there are no, zero perceived threats of physical safety, even though we would expect this in the workplace. It's still there and you as a leader have to stop it. Then there's what I call moral safety. And this is, uh, interesting because you have to make sure as a leader that no one has a fear of calling out morally questionable decisions. And this is difficult because what's a morally questionable decision? This means as a leader, you have to be able to deal with some very difficult problems. And maybe it's the issues of the day, whether it has to do with politics or racism, or economic inequality, whatever it might be. As a leader, you have to be prepared to respond to these issues and make sure that your whole team is safe around even the most difficult questions that you might be confronted with. Then there's what I call cognitive safety. Two things here that are really important. First, all ideas are welcomed, encouraged. There's no such thing as a stupid question. And most importantly, as a leader, you protect your introverts. You make sure they have a voice and you make sure they are not stampeded by the extroverts and the people who think power is everything and will crush anybody who they perceive as weak. Finally, and you probably wouldn't think of this, spiritual safety is very important. And by spiritual safety, I'm really talking about our entire belief structure as human being, human beings. We want to make sure that all beliefs are welcome and respected because this provides a great intellectual foundation for solving problems within your team. So how do you go about doing this? Well, the first thing you have to do as a leader is master your own emotions. And emotional mastery takes work. This is not something that's intuitive. It's not something you're born with. You have to be taught how to master your emotions. And unfortunately, this is not something that's offered in formal education. So you're going to have to seek out people who know how to teach you emotional mastery. Second, you have to model your emotional competence and practice it so that you can demonstrate to your team that you are an emotionally competent human being. Third, and most importantly, you're a teacher as a leader, and you have to teach your team the same emotional mastery that you have learned, because if they don't have emotional mastery, there is no way you're going to create psychological safety. On your team. So that's a very, very quick summary of a very complex and deep subject. But the key here is just remember that your number one rule as a leader is to create psychological safety. That's what a leader is all about— creating safety for the team. And when you do that, your productivity will go through the roof. And you will be able to advance your career by leaps and bounds. So I put my link to my website in the comment below. I've got a lot of information on emotional competency, emotional intelligence, de-escalation, all of these so-called soft skills that are really the hardest skills there are. They're not soft at all. On my website, take a look and reach out to me if you're interested in learning more. Talk to you later. Bye.
