A basketball coach on building psychological safety in teams. When players fear blame, they hide mistakes and stop asking for help. Teams that learn from errors without criticism perform better.
How does your team handle mistakes? That's often a sign of psychological safety. And as a basketball coach, some of the players I had let mistakes completely ruin their attitude and performance. But mistakes are inevitable. Nobody's perfect. You just want to make sure that your team learns from them. And the team that admits and moves on to make the next play usually enjoys the most success, both basketball and business. As a coach, I knew that blame and criticism don't stop people from making mistakes. It just encourages them to hide mistakes, and that limits teams' improvements. So hiding weakness doesn't project strength; it communicates insecurity and it contributes to incompetence. The reality is that most people who you know already know that you have flaws, and you win more as a leader by demonstrating the humility of admitting them. Your team can win more if you create a culture that is safe for them to admit their mistakes and accept help from teammates to improve. That's what effective leaders do.
