The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ Behavioral Guide
Psychological safety changes when behavior changes. Here's the framework behind 120+ practical behaviors — what to start, what to stop, and how to begin.
Psychological safety is built at the behavioral level. Culture is an interwoven string of interactions, perceptions, expectations, and opinions. It’s the way we interact. While your organization’s macro-culture may claim to have all the psychological safety in the world, what’s actually going on at the team level might be wildly different.
The anatomy of culture
Remember, you can’t speak a psychologically safe culture into existence. So how do you ensure that psychological safety is present in your organization? You intervene at the micro-culture level, at the level where the everyday interactions happen.
We define psychological safety as a culture of rewarded vulnerability, meaning that without consistent vulnerable interactions on a team, psychological safety can’t happen. So “rewarded vulnerability” can’t just be a theoretical concept. It has to have a tangible place in your workplace culture. Which means you have to actually be vulnerable at work, and encourage others to do the same.
So how do you create an environment where your culture can actually stick? You start with behavior in your organization’s micro-cultures. If your team members can embrace concrete daily practices that model and reward vulnerability, you’ll be well on your way to a consistent culture of psychological safety. It will become a sanctuary of inclusion and an incubator of innovation that’ll become your greatest competitive advantage.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™
Psychological safety is built in four progressive stages, and we call this framework The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™. It acknowledges that we’re humans first and employees second and follows a universal pattern that reflects the natural progression of human needs in social settings. These needs exist across demographics, nations, and cultures.
Just like humans need water, food, and shelter to survive, teams that want to innovate need four things in order to thrive: they need to feel included and safe to learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo. Teams progress through these stages as they intentionally create cultures of rewarded vulnerability across The 4 Stages:
| Stage | Definition of respect | Definition of permission | Social exchange |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Inclusion Safety | Respect for the individual’s innate need to be included, accepted, and gain a sense of belonging | Permission for the individual to interact and be their true and authentic self | Inclusion in exchange for human status and the absence of harm |
| 2. Learner Safety | Respect for the individual’s innate need to learn, grow, and develop mastery | Permission for the individual to engage in the learning process and make mistakes | Encouragement in exchange for engagement |
| 3. Contributor Safety | Respect for the individual’s innate need for autonomy and meaningful contribution | Permission for the individual to work with appropriate autonomy and independence | Autonomy with guidance in exchange for performance and results |
| 4. Challenger Safety | Respect for the individual’s innate need to innovate and improve the status quo | Permission for the individual to make challenges to the status quo in good faith | Air cover in exchange for candor |
Each stage answers a question. Inclusion Safety: can I be my authentic self? Learner Safety: can I grow? Contributor Safety: can I create value? Challenger Safety: can I be candid about change?
The L.I.V.E. model for teams
It’s not always easy to recognize when others are being vulnerable. To help you practice viewing your interactions through the lens of psychological safety, we’ll share a framework that will help you make modeling and rewarding vulnerability second nature.
The L.I.V.E. model is an acronym you can use in your everyday life to assist you in remembering to model and reward acts of vulnerability:
- Look at the interactions and social dynamics around you.
- Identify an act of vulnerability that should be rewarded.
- Validate the behavior so the person feels seen, heard, and understood.
- Encourage the person to continue modeling the vulnerable behavior.
Consistently modeling and rewarding acts of vulnerability increases the overall levels of psychological safety on your teams and improves the quality of your interactions.
How to use the Behavioral Guide
This guide helps you quickly move from the theory of psychological safety to actual practice. It’s the companion to The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety by Timothy R. Clark, and your first stop on your way towards an actionable psychological safety initiative.
- Choose one behavior from any of The 4 Stages. Ideally, you’ll choose a behavior that will be relevant to your role and visible to your team. You don’t have to pick one that will be debilitatingly difficult, but you should pick one that will benefit your team and improve its levels of psychological safety.
- Decide how you’ll both model and reward the behavior. Make a list of places and interactions where you can model the behavior you’ve chosen. Be specific. Then think about your team. How can you reward their vulnerability as they model the behavior?
- Record your plans and implement them for 7 days. If you feel like you accomplished your goals after 7 days of practice, choose a new behavior and start again. If not, give it another go. What could you do differently this time around?
What is Inclusion Safety?
Can you be your authentic self with your team? Inclusion Safety satisfies the basic human need to connect and belong. As the first of the four stages of psychological safety, it serves as a foundation for the rest of the framework.
Team members who don’t feel that they belong won’t risk making a mistake or challenging the status quo. They won’t step outside of their comfort zones, volunteer to take on more responsibility, or be vulnerable with their team. Without Inclusion Safety, teams can’t learn and grow, contribute and perform, or speak up and challenge the status quo.
When it comes to Inclusion Safety, worth proceeds worthiness. Deserving Inclusion Safety has nothing to do with your personality or abilities, nothing to do with your gender, race, ethnicity, education, or any other demographic variable that defines you. You are worthy of inclusion just because of your inherent worth.
The rest of the guide is the practice library itself: 120+ specific behaviors organized stage by stage — Inclusion Safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety, and Challenger Safety — each one tagged as a team, individual, or manager behavior, with the top 5 behaviors starred for every stage and a curated list of podcast episodes, blogs, and webinars to go deeper on each stage.
Ready to bring it to your team? Talk with us →