Dear Madeleine,

I’m dealing with a very weird situation. I’m on a large cross-functional team made up of leads and managers. Our leader is the new EVP of operational excellence. He seems to really like some of the members of the team and really dislike others. He regularly forgets to include the people he dislikes in critical meetings and decisions. He makes snarky remarks when someone he dislikes floats an idea, only to compliment the next person who says practically the same thing.

He has created a division between the liked people and the disliked people. It is subtle, and I’m not sure I would have noticed it if one of my best friends at work wasn’t on team reject. When she pointed it out, I couldn’t unsee it. I feel lucky to find myself in the in-group, but can also see how the situation is headed for disaster.

I lead teams myself and can’t understand what this new guy is up to, why he is doing this, or how he hopes to succeed. He also does other things that make no sense, but this particular thing is the worst of it.

What would you do in this situation? I am at a total loss.

So Confused

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Dear So Confused,

Getting operational excellence right is hard enough without shenanigans like this. One trait of a toxic leader is to play favorites. It destabilizes teams by destroying trust. There is a good chance your new EVP is totally unconscious of what he is doing and the effect it is having. In my opinion, this is the behavior of someone who needs to have power over others and achieves it by keeping people nervous and jumpy. If he bullies some people and not others, it automatically creates a reflex in the not-bullied group to stay on his good side, and slowly silences everyone.

 It sounds like this person is not your direct boss, nor the boss of your friend who has been relegated to the out-group, so it may not affect your performance review if this cross-functional team doesn’t accomplish anything. But that may not be true for your friend.

You have a few choices here, but none of them are attractive.

You can do nothing, which will inevitably impact the relationship with your friend.

You can get together with your friend and brainstorm what the two of you could do to change the situation. You might consider recruiting a few more team members from both the in-group and the out-group to engineer some kind of revolt. If you could manage to pull the whole team together, you could include HR to conduct an intervention of sorts. It would only work if the entire team was on board and unanimously demanded that everyone on the team be treated with respect.

You might consider going to the EVP and pointing out what you are observing—but that could be a career-ending move. People who need to have power over others usually aren’t keen to get feedback from anyone, especially not from someone they see as a subordinate. It depends on how much power he has and what kind of trust he has built with his peers and his superiors. Along those lines, you might practice standing up for people he is snarky with—but again, it’s possible all that will accomplish is to get yourself relegated to “team reject,” as you call it.

Look at the situation from all angles with as many of your team members as you trust. If a majority of the team agrees to stick together, you might have a chance to shift the ugly behavior. At the very least, you can probably ensure that nothing gets done, and let it reflect badly on the EVP. Does it appear that I’m condoning subversive behavior? I guess I am, because if people don’t stand up for themselves and each other, leaders like your EVP end up getting promoted and wreaking more havoc from an even stronger position.

Document every incident you remember and start keeping a running log of unacceptable behavior moving forward. This way, you will have a leg to stand on should the situation escalate. It would probably be up to your friend to take this whole mess to HR and to her boss. You might also mention the situation to your own boss, if you trust them.

The more you can get the team to stick together, the better chance you have of getting the EVP to change—or better yet, getting him removed.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Feeling psychologically safe in the workplace has never been more important. The storm of the past two years has generated tidal waves of competing priorities and pressing demands, all vying for urgent attention. Hurricane-force winds of unrelenting and pervasive change continue to swirl around us. Without the critical lifeline of psychological safety, employees can feel as though they are drowning.

Leaders who create an environment of psychological safety do more than toss their people a life raft—they hop in alongside them and grab an oar of their own.

The Benefits of Psychological Safety

Cultivating a bedrock of psychological safety allows for honest communication. It creates a space where team members can feel safe enough to speak up—to share concerns, challenges, and questions with their leader and to voice when they are overwhelmed or burned out.

Conversely, an atmosphere depleted of psychological safety will foster secrecy and shame while the team member reports everything is fine—until they cannot pretend any longer. And who is usually left cleaning up the ensuing mess? The leader. Creating an environment where team members are secure enough to be candid can save the massive pain of rework, dropped balls, and valued employees leaving the organization.

Psychological safety is a requirement for innovation. When someone feels secure in their role with their team, and especially with their leader, it will translate into a greater willingness to take risks, think outside the box, expand beyond their comfort zone, and share creative ideas. In today’s fast-moving business world, this type of innovative ideation can be a game changer. It gives one permission to—in the words of Brené Brown—“dare greatly.”

Psychological safety is paramount to fostering a sense of community. We all know isolation is a pervasive and destructive force that can be especially acute in remote or hybrid teams. People need psychological safety to support one another and band together in solidarity and spirit. Deep-rooted connections with colleagues can act as a powerfully stabilizing force to protect morale and solidify loyalty across the team.

Best of all, psychological safety lets people be their best selves. When your team members feel safe, they can flourish—boldly sharing their most creative ideas, courageously and candidly talking about their workloads, and taking care of themselves and their teammates.

Model Psychological Safety

One of the most powerful ways to cultivate psychological safety with your people is to model it. A leader is like a master clock by which everyone else sets their watch. Your people listen to what you say, but, more importantly, they watch what you do. And what you do as a leader will be the single greatest determining factor of the level of psychological safety experienced by your team.

A critical aspect of this practice is to volunteer your own struggles, frustrations, fears, and failures. Talk about the experiences that shaped you as a leader. Tell people how you’ve grown from your challenges. Let them know what you’ve learned from your battles and what you’re still learning today.

Remember that trust can be counterintuitive; as a leader, you’ll often need to bravely gift it to someone before receiving it from them. Harness your own vulnerability as a superpower and watch it infuse every member of your team with safety, empowerment, and trust.

Have Regular Check-Ins

Another vital habit to promote psychological safety in the workplace is to check in regularly with your people. Make it a priority—and make it real. Don’t ask, “How are you doing?” Instead, ask, “How are you really doing?” Be willing to dive beneath the waterline to talk about their emotional climate. The depth of feelings shared will likely vary from person to person, and that’s okay. Meet people where they are. Allow your actions to intentionally communicate that you care about them as a person first; that you don’t see them as a human doing, but as a human being.

There’s a myriad of ways to do this other than in one-on-one meetings. For example, you can start a meeting with a slide that asks people to share how they are currently faring—kind of like an internal weather forecast. If people aren’t comfortable talking, they can share how they are feeling by picking an emoji. Cracking the door to meaningful dialogue can make all the difference in strengthening psychological safety.

Promote Wellness

Wellness and performance at work are closely linked—and a sense of well-being depends on psychological safety. That’s why, again, it is critical that you first model wellness behaviors in your own practices. A simple tactic is to start meetings five minutes past the hour and end them early, which gives people the permission to do this with their own schedules.

Remember that what you do is so much more important than what you preach. Don’t just tell people to take care of themselves; show them how you take care of yourself. Consider sharing a picture of yourself walking your dog in the middle of the day or eating lunch with your family.

Are you good about reminding your team members to unplug after work hours or during vacations? Here’s a harder one: do you send emails during off hours or on PTO days? Remember the master clock: everyone is watching you set the tone. Your people are going to imitate the example you set. Make it a sacred priority to share your wellness practices and witness how it liberates your team to do the same.

A Final Thought

Consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goal may be self-actualization—ascending the pyramid—but you can’t grab that elevator without first building out the lower levels. Psychological safety is the vital foundation of the entire structure, allowing for transformative growth, rich team connections, and powerful self-awareness.

As a leader, if you architect an environment of psychological safety, you are giving your people a spectacular gift. This gift will manifest in their attitude, sense of camaraderie, effectiveness, commitment to the team, and spirit of innovation. The world could certainly use more psychological safety these days, and it starts with leaders like you.

There’s been a flood of articles lately about psychological safety—and for good reason. It is essential if people are to be engaged and productive. It is the foundation for a dynamic, vibrant workplace. And it is woefully missing at most companies.

Psychological safety happens in a workplace when people feel free to speak their mind, take a risk, or admit to mistakes without fear of being punished. The pandemic has made it a hot topic. Many people have felt psychologically battered and bruised over the last couple of years. They’re raw and they need a work environment where they feel safe.

The Great Trust Experiment

The pandemic has been a great trust experiment. Literally overnight, organizations were forced to extend massive amounts of trust to their people by letting them work from home.

We all know what happened. By and large, remote work has been a great success. Many employees have proven more productive than they had been in the workplace. This has shined a spotlight on how relatively unproductive things had been prior to the March 2020 shutdown.

Post-Pandemic Psychological Safety

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re missing something until right after you get a taste of it. In the last two years, many people have developed a taste for freedom and autonomy. Companies trusted them to work from home—without supervision—and to bring their brains to work. Now that offices are slowly reopening, these people, understandably, don’t want to return. They don’t want to go back to the way things were.

What’s the lesson here? People experienced a world where the boss was no longer a few steps down the hall, checking in to make sure they’re doing their work—and they liked it. The Great Trust Experiment showed people the importance of psychological safety.

The thought of returning to a psychologically unsafe environment has many people on edge. Considering that about three out of four people don’t feel psychologically safe at work, every leader should be asking “How do I create a psychologically safe environment?”

Seven Keys to a Psychologically Safe Workplace

Ken Blanchard and I share ways to create a psychologically safe environment in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust.  Here are a few choice strategies you can use to create the culture you want in your workplace.

Eliminate fear: Fear is the enemy of trust. Lack of trust destroys psychological safety. People flourish in a safe and trusting environment.

People must know there won’t be repercussions if they share ideas or their perceptions of the truth or if they make a mistake. Your job as a leader is to live this truth.

Praise often: Unfortunately, we are hardwired to focus on the negative—so much so that it takes five praisings to counteract one criticism. For example, our natural inclination is to interpret emails in the worst possible light. The takeaway for leaders is to praise your people often and keep your communications positive.

Share yourself: People tend to form one-dimensional caricatures of their leaders from short interactions. “So-and-so was short with me, which means they are uncaring in every situation.” You can overcome this mental kink by helping your people understand that you are a multifaceted person, just like they are.

I’m not suggesting you share deeply personal information. It is, however, completely appropriate to talk about your values, what’s important to you, what motivates you, etc. Doing this builds trust with your people, which is essential for psychological safety.

Create clear boundaries: Everyone in the workplace must know what is and isn’t acceptable. Everyone must agree to abide by the same rules. No one should get a free pass because of position or seniority. Everyone must treat each other with respect and decency.

Keep a level playing field: People sometimes think a leader will rush to their defense in a moment of conflict. But if that happens, all the other team members will be fearful of making a mistake or stepping out of line. In a psychologically safe workplace, there are no favorites and there are no scapegoats.

Allow curiosity: At your workplace, do people feel secure enough to try new things, to explore unusual ideas, to express alternate views? Or do they hold back, afraid of possible negative consequences? When people feel fearful, their engagement plummets. But when you give them permission to be curious, you’re providing an open, safe space for them to experiment without fear of repercussion. When they make a mistake, reframe it as a learning opportunity.

Think about this from an employee’s perspective. Instead of bracing yourself for a tongue-lashing, you receive honest, encouraging feedback. How would that make you feel about your workplace?

Be clear about your expectations: Research shows that many people don’t know what’s expected of them. This is a recipe for mistakes and misunderstandings, which undermine psychological safety. You can circumvent all this with a simple activity: Have your people write down what they think their responsibilities are and you do the same. Then compare. Chances are you’ll be quite surprised by the differences between the two lists.

You can also use this tactic for aligning your people’s priorities with yours: Have them write down what they consider their most important tasks, and you do the same. Then compare notes and discuss. A little exercise like this can clear up lots of confusion.

There’s no magic bullet for creating an environment of psychological safety. It takes lots of intentional effort on the part of leaders and it takes time to build the bonds of trust. But the rewards are great.

Unleash the potential of your people. Help them feel comfortable returning to work. Turn the Great Resignation into the Great Renewal!

About the Author

Randy Conley is Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His award-winning blog, Leading with Trust, has influenced over 4 million viewers since its inception in 2012. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.