The Leader Factor

What do you do if you want to bring psychological safety to your organization, but don't find yourself in a position of authority? Or if you do have some authority, how do you approach the topic of psychological safety with your teams and others who are not as familiar with the concept? In this weeks episode Tim and Junior will help you gain a better understanding of change management and cultural transformation.

(02:26) What is the current state of adoption for psychological safety? At a practitioner level it's only been in the last five years or so that the term has achieved any meaningful level of traction. We are still early in the adoption curve. "If you look at the trend lines, though, we are on hockey stick trajectory, in terms of category growth and attention and search traffic and investment, and all of these other metrics that are really good indicators as to where this is going."

(16:44) Is psychological safety a passing fad? How does it stack up against employee engagement? Where does it fit in to other DEI initiatives? It is not a passing fad. Why? Because "we now have this mounting body of empirical research that shows that psychological safety is related to a variety of critical outcomes". Psychological safety is related to key outcomes like employee engagement, retention, inclusion, innovation, and employee wellness.

(32:09) How to get buy-off from leaders using the value equation. Some leaders are "not thrilled" about the term psychological safety others need to see a stronger connection to their key outcomes. It's your job to understand the stakeholders you are working with and to present psychological safety in a way that resonates with them. See our links to previous series on "What's driving demand for psychological safety?".

(40:13) Don't muscle or smuggle change. The two classic failure patterns of organizational change management are muscling (trying to force it through) and smuggling (try to minimize it or do it covertly). "You've gotta square up to the reality of what a change initiative requires and what adoption requires."

Important Links
What Psychological Safety Is Not - Podcast
What Psychological Safety is Not - Post
What Psychological Safety is Not - Webinar

What's Driving Demand for Psychological Safety Series
Pt. 1 What's Driving the Demand for Psychological Safety?
Pt. 2 Exclusion and Social Injustice
Pt. 3 Competitiveness and Innovation
Pt. 4 The Impact of Psychological Safety on Engagement and Retention
Pt. 5 How Mental Health and Wellness is Driving Demand for Psychological Safety

Leadership is not an ethereal concept. It’s not as cinematic as you might think. It is about one simple and profoundly human thing--Influence. In this episode Tim and Junior breakdown 10 misleading leadership theories and how to avoid them. It's a straightforward and practical episode focused on core leadership lessons we can all learn from.

(13:32) Leadership is not about charisma. Just because you have a personal magnetism, dash, and style it doesn't make you a leader. Charisma can be deceptive and superficial. Don't let charisma be the only qualification for leadership.

(15:50) Leadership is not about eloquence. Eloquence, like charisma, can be deceiving. The question is "see what's behind them, what lies underneath those traits, because if what lies beneath is high quality, it's high character, it's good ethics, it's all of those things, then absolutely, add charisma to the pile, add eloquence."

(22:03) Leadership is not about power. Your position, title, and authority cannot be proxy for leadership. "This is a diagnostic question that anyone can ask, and that is when you're looking at leaders, ask the question, "Is there fear around them? Do they produce fear? Do they use fear? Are they cultivating fear?" Fear is symptomatic of poor leadership.

(26:31) Leadership is not about seniority. The passage of time "does not translate into greater experience, knowledge, expertise, competency, all of those things."

(29:57) Leadership is not about scale. You are not by virtue of the fact that you're working on some important scalable issue, then by extension and by affiliation and by association a great leader.

(32:08) Leadership is not about popularity. "The danger, I think, as leaders is when we're aiming at popularity." Oscar Wilde said, "Popularity is the penalty of success." Popularity can insulate you from critique. "You enter an echo chamber."

(35:29) Leadership is not about fame. "You can see how people get to this point of thinking that popularity is synonymous with leadership. "Oh, this person has a massive following, right? They must be able to lead." That's certainly not true."

(37:47) Leadership is not about winning. We do want our leaders to be competent but, "if you're framing leadership is about winning, then that's a zero-sum adversarial frame. You can do better than that."

(39:32) Leadership is about wealth. We cannot judge someones ability to lead simply by the number of zero's in their bank account. Wealth is not a proxy for leadership.

(42:38) Leadership is not about education. Simply having a degree or credential doesn't make one a leader. We do want highly competent people in leadership positions. However, gaining competence alone does not endow you with the ability to lead.

Some people possess all of these things and are not leaders. Others possess none of these things and are. These 10 things only point to the possibility of leadership, but make no promises.

Important Links
Leading with Character and Competence - Book
10 Things Leadership is Not - Download

Psychological Safety Podcast Series
Stage One: Inclusion Safety
Stage Two: Learner Safety
Stage Three: Contributor Safety
Stage Four: Challenger Safety
Overview: What is Psychological Safety
Bonus: What Psychological Safety is Not

In this episode Tim and Junior introduce the two leadership failure patterns found in The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ model - paternalism and exploitation. This is a very practical episode for managers and leaders but applies to anyone working with other humans. Progressing through The 4 Stages of Psychological safety requires balancing a combination of respect and permission while avoiding these two failure patterns.

(03:11) Where did The 4 Stages of Psychological safety come from? While studying psychological safety Dr. Clark worked to identify how psychological safety is developed. During the research a pattern emerged, a sequence through four successive stages. Psychological safety isn't something you have or don't have. Every organization has a level of psychological safety it's a matter of degree.

(10:16) The failure pattern of exploitation. Exploitation is the combination of low respect and high permission. Simply put exploitation is " treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work." All organizations are exploitative to some degree. "Think about, not, do we have exploitation in our organization, but to what degree and in what forms do we have exploitation?"

(21:15) The failure pattern of paternalism. Paternalism is the combination of high respect and low permission. "I care about you, I value you, but please sit in the corner and don't touch anything." Paternalistic leaders are micromanagers and yet they're well-intentioned. If you want to overcome paternalism you need to learn how to transfer accountability and the critical thinking.

(36:53) These patterns exist on a spectrum. In some cases there are blatant acts of exploitation as well as intentional acts of paternalism. Our intentions and motivations matter. "We need to have some time for reflection, and we need to think about the way that we're interacting, and it goes back to what we said before, let's examine our motives and our intent, is it clean, is it pure?"

Important Links:
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety - Book
What is Psychological Safety - Introducing The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety
The Complete Guide to Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety Podcast Series
Stage One: Inclusion Safety
Stage Two: Learner Safety
Stage Three: Contributor Safety
Stage Four: Challenger Safety
Overview: What is Psychological Safety
Bonus: What Psychological Safety is Not

In this episode of Culture by Design, Tim and Junior explain the 5 Functions of Leadership, originally created to provide a job description for a CEO. When you're an executive leader, nothing is your job and everything is your job. Delegated authority is hard to find success in, but this episode will help you better understand how to be effective in any leadership role.

Function 1: Vision & Strategy (07:26)

Vision and strategy represent the direction of an organization. Inherent in the leader’s role is the commission to give the organization sight by painting a portrait of the future and inspiring others toward it. The essence of strategy is the deliberate reduction of alternatives to determine how value will be created. To achieve the vision, leaders need to apply strategy principles to achieve competitive advantage.

Reflection Question: How are YOU doing painting the vision?

Function 2: Alignment & Execution (19:56)

To align an organization is to load-balance and pace the organization, and then cognitively and emotionally prepare people to achieve the vision and execute the strategy based on specific goals. Through alignment and execution, leaders convert vision into plans and plans into concrete activity. They merge priorities, plans, incentives, expectations, and measures to get desired results.

The 5 Alignment Questions

1. What are your concerns? Don’t ask people if they have concerns—of course they do. So let’s get them on the table and discuss them.
2. In your view, why are we doing this? You need to check understanding, which you can only do if your people explain where you’re going and why, back to you. They need to teach it back.
3. How do you see your role in this? This allows people to see themselves in context and personalize the direction they’ve been given.
4. What support do you need? Again, it requires the individual to think more carefully through the personal implications of what they’re being asked to do.
5. And finally, how committed are you to support this direction? This last question assesses the level of commitment; it ties a bow on the whole thing.

Reflection Question: Are you prioritizing until it hurts?

Function 3: Change & Innovation (31:22)

By definition, leaders have a contradictory role. On the one hand, they need to preserve the status quo to create value today. They also have to disturb the status quo to create value tomorrow. Organizations change for three reasons: 1) to achieve higher value, 2) to achieve lower costs, or 3) to ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and safety requirements. Businesses need change and innovation because competitive advantage isn't promised, it's perishable.  It’s the leader’s role to initiate change and innovation in order to gain, maintain, or reclaim competitive advantage.

Reflection Question: Is my communication as a leader more discovery- or advocacy-based?

Function 4: Talent Acquisition & Development (38:17)

The fourth function is to acquire and develop human capital. Given the transitory nature of competitive advantage, the true source of sustainable competitive advantage is ultimately people. They are the source of ideas and action—the two assets most responsible for organizational performance. Senior leaders must be deeply committed to and engaged in acquiring and developing talent. They are in large measure defined not only by what they do but also by who they leave behind in the leadership pipeline. Leaders who develop a climate of psychological safety and cultivate a high tolerance for candor engage and retain their people at much higher levels than the competition.

Reflection Question: Do you have top talent leaving? Why?

Function 5: Values & Culture (45:46)

Values are the primary ingredient in any culture. Research confirms what we now call the culture formation hypothesis–the modeling behavior of leaders is the central factor in culture formation. Leaders either show the way or get in the way. This central question now becomes: Culture by design or by default? Because intellectual diversity alone produces nothing, a leader’s most important job– second only to setting strategy–is to act in the role of a social architect and nourish a culture in which professed values become de facto values.

Reflection Question: Am I modeling the culture I want to have? What am I doing to create it?

Psychological safety is the key to creating a safer workplace where employees can bring up concerns and problems before they become disasters. This week Tim and Junior explore the link between psychological safety and physical safety for organizations where lives are on the line.

(02:24) Tim shares a personal experience about his time managing the Geneva Steel Plant.
Safety protocols were not followed and a critical accident happened. The life of a worker was lost.

(11:26) The Duty of Care and the fundamental hazard categories.
In 1788 British Parliament passed The Chimney Sweepers Act which established a legal and a moral obligation to keep each other safe in the workplace. Frameworks have evolved around this duty and we've identified four fundamental hazard categories. They are chemical, biological, ergonomic and physical. We've used that framework for more than 200 years to make the workplace a safer place by identifying and removing hazards in these four categories.

(28:36) Passive observation vs active participation.
When we engage in an activity we do so on a spectrum of passive observation to active participation. During activities where safety is at risk passive observation enhances that risk. Passive observation is more likely to occur in environments with low levels of psychological safety.

(36:18) Toyota production lines and the andon cord.
Toyota's introduction of the andon cord is a great example of what it means to "stop the line". The andon cord enabled anyone on the production line regardless of position, title, or authority, to stop the line by pulling the cord. The main concern for Toyota was quality assurance. We can apply this same concept to safety. Anyone on the job, regardless of position, title, or authority should be given the power to "stop the line" at any moment and not be punished for it.

Important Links
Ebook - Breaking the Chain of Command: Achieving Physical Safety through Psychological Safety
Webinar - Breaking the Chain of Command: Improving Physical Safety through Psychological Safety

In this episode Tim and Junior discuss the seven misconceptions surrounding psychological safety. Some organizations and some leaders dismiss psychological safety because they believe that it means a whole host of things, that it doesn't mean. So they dismiss it and they ignore it. When helping leaders understand the topic of psychological safety, defining what psychological safety is not can be just as helpful as defining what it is.

(03:19) What is psychological safety? Psychological safety is a culture of rewarded vulnerability. It is an applied discipline that requires effort and a high bar to create this kind of culture. Individuals and teams progress through four successive stages of psychological safety.

(10:06) Psychological safety is not "niceness". Tim wrote an article featured in Harvard Business Review titled, "The Hazards of a Nice Company Culture". Sometimes a thin layer of niceness is spread over a thick layer of fear. We're not saying, don't be warm, hospitable, or caring. When we are collegial to a fault, what happens? We create false harmony and false compassion. A barracuda may smile at you, but don’t pet it. Niceness without pure intent is counterfeit. It still induces fear and mistrust.

(26:03) Psychological safety is not consensus decision making. Yes, psychological safety should do much to neutralize the power differential created by hierarchy, titles, and position, but I’ve seen employees who believed that their organization’s emphasis on psychological safety invested them with veto power. Psychological safety should give you voice, but it does not change decision making authority.

(42:13) Psychological safety is not rhetorical reassurance. Some leaders try to enact psychological safety with words. They mistakenly believe they can decree it into existence by simply saying, “Psychological safety is a priority for our organization. Please speak up. Give us your honest feedback and candid input. It’s now safe.” Just making a declaration won’t make it so.

Important Links
HBR - The Hazards of a “Nice” Company Culture
What Psychological Safety is Not
The Complete Guide to Psychological Safety
What is Psychological Safety - Podcast Episode
What is Psychological Safety - Website

There’s a power dynamic in every room. If you’re the CEO and you’re in the room, you control that dynamic. Positional power is consolidated in your hands, and what you say and do can draw people out or make them recoil with anxiety and fear. In this weeks episode Tim and Junior discuss 10 ways CEO's can create higher levels of psychological safety in the room.

(11:48) Hierarchies often create inequality and that inequality can foster some of those negative outcomes. Leaders should strive for cultural flatness. Cultural flatness is a condition or an environment where people as they're interacting they become agnostic to title and position and authority and therefore they're able to debate issues on their merits. The best ideas in the room win rather than the hierarchies in the room.

(21:58) As the CEO you can re-distribute the power dynamic in the room. Two concrete examples are 1) by delegating the conducting of the meeting and 2) by not sitting at the head of the table. You've got to disrupt the power dynamic by avoiding the head of the table and sitting next to someone different.

(35:35) Rewarding challenges to the status will bring more psychological safety to the room. The premise of this recommendation to stimulate inquiry before advocacy. It's not enough to ask for feedback you have to respond positively to feedback and buffer strong personalities to encourage everyone's participation.

Important Links:
HBR - How a CEO Can Create Psychological Safety in the Room
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety Behavioral Guide
Why Some Leaders are Afraid of Psychological Safety

This episode is part five in our five part series on "What's Driving Demand for Psychological Safety". When individuals feel psychologically safe at work, they are more likely to report positive mental health outcomes such as increased job satisfaction, higher levels of well-being, and lower levels of stress and burnout.

(05:20) What is mental health? Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects how we think and feel and act, and it also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Previously organizations looked at individuals as "units of production" and only recently are we finally beginning to recognize individuals humanity.

(13:56) Employers have a duty of care towards their employees. This is certainly the case for employee physical safety. How far does this duty of care reach? Does it encompass mental health? Ask yourself, "Do you bear some level of responsibility for the mental health and well-being of the people you employ, the people you associate with, and look even more broadly in association, just any social collective." The answer is yes, you do bear some of the responsibility.

(20:34) More than 264 million people of all ages suffer from depression worldwide according to World Health Organization. 76% of US workers in 2021 survey reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, including anxiety and depression, which is an increase of 17% from just two years ago. According to the American Psychological Association, stress levels in the United States have been steadily increasing over the past decade, with almost two-thirds of Americans reporting that their stress levels have increased in the past year. Mental health and wellness is a growing category that deserves deliberate attention.

(26:38) ISO, The International standards Organizations Standard 405-003 is a new standard that recognizes that employers are responsible for protecting not just the physical health of their employees but the psycho-social health as well. This means managing psychosocial risks, which are defined in that regulation as risks related to how work is organized. Not risks related to the work itself but also risks related to how work is organized.

(39:31) Psychological safety and a positive workplace culture can help to reduce the stigma associated with mental health making it more likely that individuals will seek the support they need. When individuals feel psychologically safe at work, they are more likely to report positive mental health outcomes such as increased job satisfaction, higher levels of well-being, and lower levels of stress and burnout.

Important Links
World Health Organization - Mental health: strengthening our response.
Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General - Workplace Well-Being
Employee Retention Statistics And Insights 2022
2021 Employee Wellbeing Mindset Study
NYT - The Rising Tide of Global Sadness
World Health Organization - Depression
Australian Bureau of Statistics - National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing
National Institute of Mental Health - Mental Illness
American Psychological Associate - Stress in America
Mental Health Commission of Canada - National Standard

This episode is part four in our five part series on "What's Causing Demand for Psychological Safety." Tim and Junior dive into the data behind the great resignation and the link between workplace culture and employee retention. 

(04:30) Before employee engagement there was employee satisfaction. We learned that employee satisfaction was not the right measurement. You can have satisfied employees that are not productive so we graduated from employee satisfaction to employee engagement.

(07:41) Recent data suggests that only 32% of the workforce is considered engaged while 52% are "just showing up" and 16% are "actively disengaged". These numbers feed into the employee turnover.

(15:24) Not all turnover is bad. There are cases where a certain amount of turnover is healthy. You don't want disengaged and unproductive employees to stay if they are not a good fit and they are not contributing. What we are hoping to avoid are the regrettable losses.

(26:37) The Work Institute Report shared that 40% of employee turnover occurs within the employee's first year with the organization. Retaining and engaging our top talent is becoming a bigger and bigger challenge.

(35:48) "52% of voluntarily exiting employees, say their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job." Gathering this feedback in an exit interview is too late. We need to be proactive in retaining our top talent.

(45:44) Just as we have seen a graduation from employee satisfaction to employee engagement we are beginning to see a graduation on to psychological safety. Psychological safety is the lead measure for employee engagement and can help leaders be proactive in resolving cultural issues.

Important Links

• Psychological Safety Stay Interview Guide
• This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Table 4. Quits levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted.
• Deconstructing the Great Resignation
• EY Global Survey Data
• The great executive - employee disconnect
• Work Institute 2020 Retention Report
• State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report
• Glassdoor’s Diversity and Inclusion Workplace Survey
• SHRM Global Culture Research Report 2022

The 4 Stages Team Survey
Your engagement survey isn’t telling you the whole story about your company culture.  Find out how your culture is really doing and how to improve it by measuring psychological safety.

https://www.leaderfactor.com/psychological-safety-survey

This weeks episode is part three in our five part series on "What's Driving Demand for Psychological Safety". Tim and Junior discuss why the need for innovation sparking demand for psychological safety and how innovation is just as much cultural as it is technical.

(01:11) How do you win in a competitive landscape? In short, you can win one of two ways differentiation (product, market, model, operations) or you can win on price. Both of these require innovation.

(05:48) Whose job is innovation? There is a myth that innovation lives at the top of the organization with a select few individuals who meet around a big long table and decide the future of the organization. That is an old mindset that is handed down from the industrial revolution. In reality, it's much different than that. Innovation is the responsibility of everyone.

(14:21) Innovation is a cultural competence. Innovation is just as much part of an organization's cultural competence as it is an organization's technical competence. Some may think about innovation and they think about tools, they think about infrastructure, they think about new technology, new software, whereas they don't spend as much time thinking about the culture of the organization and all of the enabling factors that must be in place in order for the organization to accept any deviations from the status quo (innovation).

(26:36) Most innovation comes from creating marginal gains not big breakthroughs. There are fundamental disruptive or major innovations, but most of it's incremental, most of its derivative, we're talking about marginal gains, we're talking about the 1%, we're talking about these little things that we can get better at.

(31:31) Extending challenger safety and the removing personal risk from challenging the status quo can enhance the speed of innovation. Without it you will be defensive and fail to innovate at or above the speed of change in the market.

Important Links
Don't Let Hierarchy Stifle Innovation Podcast
The Intersection Between Diversity, Inclusion, and Innovation
Don't Let Hierarchy Stifle Innovation Article
5 Steps to Create Innovation with Your Team
Stage 4 Challenger Safety Podcast
Stage 4 Challenger Safety Article
Surfing the Boundaries of Chaos and Innovation with Professor James Evans Podcast