Psychological safety is the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. At work, it’s a shared expectation held by members of a team that teammates will not embarrass, reject, or punish them for sharing ideas, taking risks, or soliciting feedback.
Let us say that you are having a meeting with your boss,
Without Psychological Safety:
You look around and see your boss giving ideas or taking a review of the quarters performance. He points out a bottle neck where we have consistantly under performed for all three months. You see people nodding in approval as if to accept his findings, but no one dares to comment on it. When the boss pressures you to give a response you start to hear people giving commitments to achieve the goal in the next quareter and a few complaining about the next person.
With Psychological Safety:
Considering the same scenario, once the presentation reaches the bottle neck the leader gives an opportunity for the team to putforth their scenario. The person with the least performance comes forth and explains his constraint and support required. The boss calls for a brain storming session to analyse if the proposed system is feasible. Some tweaks are done to the proposed plan. The conclude to test the plan and get back if further discussion is required.
So in conclusion psychological safety enhances the willingness to take risks, be open in meetings to put forth your ideas, Accepting your bottle necks and taking failures as learning opportunities.