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Psychological Safety & Trust

Psychological Safety in the Workplace Drives Stronger Engagement & Better Results

Foster trust, creativity, collaboration, and innovation across your organization.

Research has shown that organizations benefit from diversity of thought.

But what if some team members don’t feel comfortable speaking up? What if they avoid suggesting innovative ideas because they’re worried about rejection?

Unfortunately, according to a 2017 Gallup survey, 3 out of 10 employees strongly agreed that their opinions don’t count at work.

That lack of psychological safety in the workplace has major business repercussions. First, when people don’t feel comfortable talking about initiatives that aren’t working well, the organization isn’t equipped to prevent failure. And when employees aren’t fully committed, the organization has lost an opportunity to leverage all its talent.

Psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish them for speaking up. It’s about having trust in your leaders and your team.

A psychologically safe workplace begins with a feeling of belonging. Employees need to feel accepted for who they are, including the characteristics that make them different from others. Then, they need to be able to learn and grow by asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting, and making mistakes.

Psychological safety in the workplace encourages employees to feel safe using their skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution. They can speak up and challenge the status quo — and they see their role in making the organization a better place.

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Upskill Your Team to Build Greater Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Nurture Psychological Safety in the Workplace by Developing Trust Within Teams

Leaders and team members can learn the skills that promote a psychologically safe culture:

  • Ask powerful, open-ended questions, and then listen intently to understand.
  • Agree to share failures, recognizing that mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow.
  • Use candor, whether expressing gratitude or disappointment.
  • Ask for help, and freely give help when asked.
  • Embrace expertise among many versus a “hero” mentality.
  • Encourage and express gratitude, which reinforces team members’ sense of self.

Start shaping a culture of trust at your organization by equipping your team with psychological safety skills. We can deliver our world-class, research-backed psychological safety content to them — or you can.

You Can Deliver Our Psychological Safety & Trust Content, or We Can

You Deliver

We can equip your facilitators to deliver a workshop or internal training on building trust and strengthening psychological safety in the workplace, either online or in person, whichever you prefer:

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License This Content

Let’s talk about how you can leverage this proven leadership program content in a custom internal development initiative

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We Deliver

Or, we can incorporate our content on trust and psychological safety as part of a larger leadership development initiative for your organization:

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Custom Leadership Training Module

Combine with other topic modules and interactive experiences into a customized learning journey for your leaders

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Leadership Programs

Our highly personalized leadership programs prepare leaders to address common challenges with psychological safety

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What Our Clients Are Saying

Organizations who have partnered with us to build trust and increase psychological safety in the workplace consistently tell us the same thing: their experience with CCL made a significant impact on their culture — and their bottom line.

But don’t just take our word for it — take theirs.

Through our work with a pharmaceutical client, our facilitators sought to create a psychologically safe environment for participants, which research has shown to be critical for high-performance teams. Senior executives were frequently present during the face-to-face experience, but facilitators designated parts of the program for participants and facilitators only to create psychological safety and foster candid discussions.

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Honing Leadership Skills for High-Potential Leaders of Color

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“Important information. I work towards creating Psychology Safety at my office. It’s not always an easy road, but worth it.”

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Let's Discuss Psychological Safety & Trust at Your Organization

Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation about the psychological safety in the workplace and how our content could help support your development initiatives.

Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® will use this information to ensure the best response to your inquiry. By submitting this form, you acknowledge that CCL may contact you.

At CCL, we care about your privacy. The information you share with us will only be used to better service you and in accordance with your consent. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

Psychological Safety & Trust: Research & Resources

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Why invest in team-building and collaboration? Because highly collaborative teams directly impact your organization’s productivity and bottom line.

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Other Topics Related to Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Package our research-backed psychological safety content with other proven leadership development topics and solutions for a customized, scalable solution perfect for your organization’s unique needs, context, and culture. Related topics include:

Innovation Leadership

Beyond Unconscious Bias

Boundary Spanning

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