What is a psychologically safe environment?
As the Center for Creative Leadership states, it is one where employees can fully exploit their potential, a non-toxic environment without any unhealthy competition; instead, employees help one another and open communication takes place. It is also an environment where people are not afraid to talk about their mental health issues, stress, frustration or burnout, and these topics are not looked down upon.
How to create a psychologically safe environment?
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Treat employees' mental wellbeing as a priority. This does not mean having it written down somewhere on a secret piece of paper. Mental wellbeing and caring for the psychological health of employees should be an explicit priority, something you discuss with employees so they know they can come to you concerning mental health issues without having to worry about your reaction.
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Do not support toxic behaviour. Not only should you yourself always avoid toxic behaviour (such as unhealthy competition, bullying, workaholism, ostracism of employees, or gossiping); it is also something you should never support in employees, either directly or indirectly.
- Solve conflicts whenever they occur. Many managers try to have everything so rosy in their teams that they are blind to all the problems and conflicts going on. But conflicts are part of any collective and it is your task to teach your team to solve them. Deal with conflicts as soon as they occur, do not ignore them, and solve them in a transparent and calm manner.
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