Few instances bring psychological safety into sharper focus than that of Lucy Letby, the neo natal nurse who was convicted of murdering seven babies in her care and harming many more.
Letby’s colleagues at the Countess of Chester Hospital – including consultants and doctors – felt uneasy about speaking out. When they did, action appears to have been taken reluctantly and slowly (the mysterious deaths kept happening). Initially, at least, some were made to apologise and even mediate with Letby.
Now, it is easy to pinpoint cases where people had a clear moral duty to voice concerns rather than a seemingly run-of-the-mill incident which can often be one person’s word against another without any hard evidence to investigate. However, the principle of psychological safety remains the same.
Although it isn’t explicitly one of the FCA’s four Drivers of Culture, in my experience as a compliance consultant psychological safety is one of the key measurables of good culture within a firm.
Psychological safety is in many ways a collective state of mind – an approach that everyone within a firm, not just senior managers or leaders, live and breathe by every day to attain and maintain a healthy culture.
In essence, it relates specifically to the first Driver of Culture – leadership. Do we cultivate an environment where we listen, actively invite and encourage everyone to speak up – even the most junior of our employees?
In those blogs, I mention the attributes the FCA looks for in ‘good’ leadership, not least the blind spots some leaders have when it comes to taking ‘reasonable steps’ under the Tier 2 Conduct Rules. Although psychological safety isn’t mentioned, it is implicit within effective leadership.
Let’s be clear about what the FCA expects.
If you are a leader within a firm, you must actively invite employees at all levels to share their thoughts and concerns with you. Telling your employees to ‘speak up’ on command in an annual review, newsletter or during a speech isn’t sufficient to create action. Neither will merely telling people your ‘door is always open’.
Leaders who get this right stand out by a mile. Others can be unintentionally blinkered. They genuinely believe that they have created a psychologically safe working environment for their employees but when you speak to employees in confidence this clearly isn’t the case.
When I ask employees how often their senior team or their line managers remind them to engage with ideas, concerns or worries, they often say ‘never’.
The get out clause for some leaders is to say it’s written in the employee handbook or some other casual comment.
Indeed, at firms like these, if I ask the leaders what they think of their culture they will often say ‘pretty good’ and list the good things they do as a firm. Ask employees the same question and the answer is usually far different.
Which begs the question ‘why’?
We must be mindful as leaders of the message we send out and how, therefore, what we say and do will be received. If there isn’t obvious evidence of psychological safety within a firm, we must question how well we’re engaging with our employees and how effective that makes us as leaders.
This comes down to good communication. To be an effective leader you need to have a proactive mindset and to make communication a two-way thing. You can start by asking your employees how they want the kind of place they want to work in to look and feel. They need to be able to feel free to communicate openly with you, so you create it together.
That means you need to explain you will listen and act where appropriate, and that their opinions matter. Get this right and you won’t need to promote how ‘inclusive’ you are as a firm – it will be obvious. You’re doing it.
A recent Harvard Business Review article ‘Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions,’ highlighted the dangers of the aggressive approach demanded in the article’s headline.
If mistakes can’t be made by employees, or if solutions must always be found whether they exist or not, and presented to leaders before an employee feels confident to speak up, they will always be reluctant to do so. Leaders need to be human – to openly admit their own mistakes and this will encourage others to do so, with the intention of learning from them.
We know that employees are often willing to speak up about ‘things’ including processes or ways things can be improved or structured, for example roles within a team.
When it comes to speaking up about people it’s different. They are often afraid of highlighting concerns about fellow employees, whether colleagues or senior managers, due to the potential implications.
This brings us to a key concern for the Regulator – non-financial misconduct. Employees are the eyes and ears of the firm. If they don’t feel safe enough to speak up, how can leaders be aware of issues before they develop into something serious? We must make our working environment a safe space for everyone.
If you would like to leave a comment, observation, pose a question or request further information about how to embed a good culture into your business feel free to contact me.
OTHER BLOGS IN THIS SERIES
Driving cultural change – the case for culture
Driving cultural change – leadership
Driving cultural change – purpose
Driving cultural change – governance
Driving cultural change – people