One thing I know about psychological safety…

Nothing is ever guaranteed

Trigger warning: this article contains references to mental health and suicide.

As a seasoned facilitator of group sessions, I hear a lot more recently about the need for psychological safety. Now as the Gen X daughter of tough as old boots Baby Boomers, my automatic default thought on that concept is basically: suck it up buttercup.

But as I’ve written about before, I now have my woke snowflake side that I am proud to embrace. So let’s get down to business. What is the heck is psychological safety and what does it matter?

According to William Kahn who wrote in The Academy of Management Journal back in 1990, psychological safety is ‘being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career’.

Cool.

Except.

How do you deliver this in group settings?

Not so cool.

Here’s a helpful explainer from Human Interest Ltd which was shared by a psychologist on LinkedIn.

This image describes what psychological safety looks like in practice. What it doesn’t do is describe how you create the space with those conditions in place for a group of people who might not even know each…