Last year I was lucky enough to have found an amazing place of work. They encourage me to go way above my levels of comfort every single week. They never judge when I make a mistake, no matter how stupid it was and always try to offer me anything I could possibly need to become even more empowered and independent, from books and conferences to mental health counselling sessions.
Because of this, I am able to be my weird little self and not hide away or think less of myself in any situation. I like the way I talk (or text), the way I behave towards others and I tend to reflect that same image whilst I’m at work rather than making up a ‘serious Likii persona’ who just goes around all day frowning at things and saying ‘I understand’.
Nah, we ain’t about that life here, are we? ?
So this kind of behaviour and unwillingness to settle for anything less is directly influenced by Psychological Safety, let’s see what does that mean and how can you use it for yourself.
What is Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career. It can be defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected.
From this, we can see that in theory this new word you’ve just learnt could make your life a bit better, help you feel better and resolve some anxiety that has been piling up inside.
But how does that work in practice?
It’s fairly simple. You gotta give to be able to receive – in less vague terms, you need to show yourself as vulnerable or as quirky as you really are, value your true uniqueness, skills and talents, settle for nothing less than acceptance of who you truly are. We want the good and the bad!
Reward reflecting the same behaviour in your teams, make it mandatory to schedule ‘important talks’ once a week or once a month and/or bond with your teammates over non-work related things – we have chosen to play games together!
There are hundreds of ideas, guides, videos and other resources available to help you learn more about Psychological Safety, prepare you to take ownership of changing your team’s directions and builds you up into a more appreciative person who is not that hard on themselves and others anymore.
To help you with this, Tom has grouped up all sorts of resources, guides, graphs and charts as well as a proper explanation of terms rather than my simple attempt at it and stored it all on his website within a set of tools he called a ‘Psychological Safety Action Pack’ which you can visit by clicking here .
Tom has been extremely nice and allowed me to share a discount code ‘LIKII‘ which will for sure create smiles on some of your faces ?
If you’re looking to join a new team my article on job hunting and first interviews for junior developers might help out. You can find it here.
I’m REALLY interested in how’s your learning going so far so please make sure to let me know your thoughts and show off your recent projects over on Instagram or my contact page ?