A Culture of Vulnerability: 4 Levels of Psychological Safety That Can Spark Innovation
People + Innovation
Growth-minded C-suites recognize the potential for innovation associated with their most valuable resource — their people. Still, they are often perplexed at how best to maximize the ingenuity of their workforce in environments where fear, hierarchy, and perfectionism quietly stifle fresh thinking.
One key to unlocking employees’ potential for innovation is creating a culture where they feel genuinely comfortable being vulnerable and open enough to share bold ideas, admit missteps, and ask questions without fear of judgment or retaliation. In fact, an environment of rewarded vulnerability is often part of what psychological safety means in the workplace.
So how can leaders build a culture of vulnerability and psychological safety in their organizations? In this article, we’ll dig deep into the four stages of psychological safety that can help spark innovation and competitive advantage.
1. Inclusion Safety:
Inclusion in Exchange for Human Status and Security
Inclusion safety satisfies the basic human need to connect and belong. It is a human right. It is owed, not earned. If you do not present the team with harm, then I am morally obligated to include you. When inclusion safety is present, employees feel valued and safe to bring their authentic selves to work. Without it, employees feel afraid to learn, contribute, or challenge. Inclusion safety is the foundation of all other aspects of psychological safety.
With inclusion safety, leaders know employees’ names and respect their heritage, background, and identity. All feel comfortable sharing about their lives and exposing their values and what is important to them.
Reflection: Does your organization foster an inclusively safe environment? Self-assess with these questions:
- How well do managers and leaders know team members on a personal and professional level?
- Do you hear equally from all team members?
- Are leaders aware of any biases that may impact their ability to engage with, support, and develop certain team members more than others?
- What valuable insights might leaders not be hearing that could help them understand their team members?
Strategies: Executives can help their organizations create inclusion safety by role-modeling and coaching their leaders on the following key behaviors:
- Encourage leaders to ask more questions than they give answers, which creates space for dialogue and shared problem-solving.
- Clearly articulate the values and purpose that guide your team’s work.
- Establish meaningful rituals that help employees connect on a personal level.
- Make yourself available and interruptible.
- Lead with humility — never hide behind a title, position, or authority.
- Recognize contributions and express appreciation frequently and sincerely.
How to Create a ‘Speak-Up’ Culture
Successful workplace cultures consistently provide employees with permission to challenge the status quo in good faith. But you can’t speak a “speak-up” culture into existence. Here are three ways leaders can create conditions to give their employees a voice — and motivate them to use it.
- Separate loyalty from agreement. When loyalty becomes contingent on agreement, it produces manipulated conformity, which isn’t loyalty at all. True loyalty, which refers to genuine concern for and dedication to the best interests of the institution and its people, must allow for (and even encourage) independent thought. Unless the organization divorces loyalty from agreement, the pressure to conform can produce dangerous groupthink.
- Separate worth from worthiness. People will retreat from the opportunity to be their authentic selves or voice contrarian ideas if doing so is expensive. But if their worth is separate and distinct from the worthiness of their input and opinions, they’ll be more willing to use their voice.
- Separate status from opinion. Many organizations stigmatize and punish contrary opinions, motivating each person to become their own gated community. In such workplaces, fear exacts a tax on open dialogue. Smart people don’t become a smart team unless they can harness their collective intelligence by networking their minds. This depends on their ability to invite and process dissent.
2. Learner Safety:
Encouragement in Exchange for Engagement
Learner safety is fundamental to supporting employees in their personal and professional development by giving them permission and confidence to stretch beyond their current abilities and tap into their potential. Learner safety encourages team members to engage in all aspects of the self-development process without fear of rejection or neglect. In this environment, employees feel safe to ask questions, give and receive the “gift” of feedback, admit when they don’t know something, and take measured risks by trying things they haven’t done before.
When this form of psychological safety is in place, team members learn from (and openly share) their successes and failures. This creates an agile environment where managers and leaders support their employees in trying alternative approaches to challenges without the risk of reprisal if things don’t quite go according to plan.
Reflection: As executives cultivate learner safety within their organizations, they could ask themselves if their employees are:
- Encouraged to take appropriate risks.
- Supported in learning from mistakes (or punished for first-strike errors).
- Provided with equitable opportunities to grow.
- Given sufficient support to uphold their appetite to try new things.
- Offered an adequate safety net in case they fail.
Executives have a unique role in helping their organizations understand that failures are only milestones on the journey to success. If your people are not failing, they are trapped within their comfort zones and aren’t stepping into new arenas where risk and reward are possible in equal measure.
Strategies: Here are examples of ways executives can role-model and encourage others to guide their organization to create learner safety:
- Share your personal learning goals and what you’re actively working to improve.
- Demonstrate a growth mindset by regularly highlighting the learning potential in others.
- Support dedicated time, space, and resources for meaningful employee development.
- Provide your team with stretch challenges that spark new thinking.
- Foster a collaborative learning culture where employees support and learn from one another.
- Dedicate time in meetings for staff to share insights from recent learning.
Executives have a unique role in helping their organizations understand that failures are only milestones on the journey to success. If your people are not failing, they are trapped within their comfort zones and aren’t stepping into new arenas where risk and reward are possible in equal measure.”
3. Contributor Safety:
Autonomy in Exchange for Performance
Contributor safety satisfies the need for employees to offer meaningful contributions that can make a difference. As leaders, when we help create this type of environment, we encourage employees to tap into their knowledge, share their ideas, build on one another’s ideas, and encourage one another to improve. There are no stupid questions, no dumb ideas, and no lack of celebration of effort and intent.
If contributor safety is in place, team members feel safe to tap into their unique knowledge and abilities to participate in the value-creation process. Team members solve problems by asking questions of one another, working with appropriate autonomy, and bringing their discretionary contributions into the workplace. This is the environment that employees hope for when they start working, but that vision is often frustrated by poorly prepared managers and blinkered leaders.
Reflection: As executives working to establish contributor safety, challenge your leaders to ask whether they are:
- Mindful of whether a few voices consistently dominate team discussions.
- Aware that junior team members may feel hesitant to speak up around more senior leaders.
- Noticing who tends to remain silent during meetings — and asking why.
- Attuned to capable team members who may be holding back on their contributions.
Executives have a critical role to play in helping their organizations recognize the value that contributor safety brings in encouraging alternative perspectives. When employees feel truly valued and heard, continuous improvement becomes possible through their generosity, ideas, and willingness to speak up.
Strategies: Here are some ways executives can demonstrate and promote contributor safety in their organizations:
- Exhibit curiosity by seeking out perspectives that are different from your own.
- Step back intentionally to create space for others to speak.
- Acknowledge and build on others’ ideas to show that contributions matter.
- Recognize and praise the effort behind contributions — not always just the results.
- Invite input from quieter voices by asking specific people for their views.
4. Challenger Safety:
Air Cover in Exchange for Candor
Challenger safety satisfies the human need to question the status quo and imagine something better beyond what’s currently visible. It empowers people to speak up when the present situation isn’t delivering on its full potential and to explore new possibilities without fear of retaliation or damage to their position or reputation. When challenger safety is present, teams feel energized to confront outdated thinking, address layers of bureaucracy and entrenched processes, and create space for fresh ideas and new capabilities to take root.
Reflection: Executives can diagnose whether challenger safety is present in their organizations by asking whether:
- Employees feel comfortable respectfully challenging one another in their meetings.
- Leaders tend to set the tone by sharing their ideas too early and dominating discussions.
- Team members feel safe challenging hierarchy or established viewpoints.
- The status quo is challenged regularly and constructively.
- New employees are encouraged to share insights from past experiences.
Strategies: Executives can show and encourage these behaviors to help create a sense of challenger safety among their workforce:
- Invite others to challenge ideas and perspectives openly.
- Encourage “intellectual friction” in meetings and discussion, while working to diffuse social friction.
- Intentionally bring diverse perspectives into key creative discussions.
- Assign individuals to represent different lenses through constructive dissent to strengthen decision-making.
Safe Environments Drive Innovation
Leaders open the door to innovation and competitive advantage when they create safe environments where employees feel vulnerable enough to challenge the status quo, contribute their honest thoughts, and maximize their potential.
By embracing these four stages of psychological safety, executives can fully tap into the potential of their teams. This not only strengthens their position within the C-suite but drives agility, continuous improvement, and a culture of innovation.
8 Ways Executives Can Promote Psychological Safety
- Assign someone else to conduct the meeting. Visibly redistribute power by leveling yourself down to be more of a player-coach.
- Don’t sit at the head of the table. In many physical settings, seating reflects hierarchy. You can disrupt those rituals.
- Create warmth and informality. However, know the distinction between what’s informal and what’s inappropriate.
- Model acts of vulnerability. You have a first-mover obligation to demonstrate vulnerability to encourage others to do the same.
- Stimulate inquiry before advocacy. When you share your position too quickly, it softly censors your team.
- Reward challenges to the status quo. Your team can help you see your blind spots and tell you what you’re missing, but only if a “speak-up” culture is encouraged.
- Listen and pause. This sends a clear message that the individual, and what they’re saying, matters.
- Give highly targeted praise and recognition. Don’t withhold or be stingy with recognition. People want to know that you see and value them.
ALISTAIR AITCHISON is a business coach with Korn Ferry and an associate at LeaderFactor, a Utah-based leadership development firm.
TIMOTHY CLARK is the founder and CEO of LeaderFactor and the author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety (Berrett-Koehler).
BRAD WINN is a leadership practice professor and executive MBA director at the Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.
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