120 ways to immediately improve the psychological safety of your team.

Teach inclusion as human need and right. Inclusion isn’t something we earn; it’s something we’re owed. Teach your team members to approach each other with the understanding that we are entitled to the human need to be included.

Listen and pause. Have you ever been talking to someone and you can tell that they’re simply waiting for you to finish your sentence so they can jump in? Listen with intent to comprehend rather than the intent to respond. Do this by listening, pausing to reflect, and then responding thoughtfully.

Ask twice as much as you tell. When you ask someone a question, it’s an invitation to engage and a form of validation. Telling can be fine too, but if you tell too much, it’s self-serving and it signals selfishness, arrogance, and dominance, all of which are off-putting.

Avoid comparisons and competitions. We lose the ability to connect when we compare and compete with each other. Identify and recognize the talents, and abilities of each person and point them out. Celebrate the strengths of others, especially when they are strengths you may not possess.

Express gratitude and appreciation. Your team members aren’t included and excluded as members of your team on the basis of success and failure. When team members perform well, express genuine gratitude and appreciation. When they try hard, but fail to meet their goals, recognize their efforts with empathy.

Share what you’re learning. One of the most powerful ways to encourage others to learn is to share what you’re learning. Share the topic, the insights, and most importantly the joy and satisfaction you have gained in the learning process. Your optimism and enthusiasm for learning is contagious.

Adopt a student mindset. Use the word student with your team. Students approach learning with humility and consistency and avoid complacency and arrogance. Help them understand that although we may develop expertise, we’re always learning and will never arrive at a place of permanent competency.

Share past mistakes. It’s hard to learn from mistakes if a team has a culture that hides its mistakes. Take the opportunity to mention some of your mistakes, laugh at them, and share what you learned from them. This will encourage others to be more comfortable sharing their mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward.

Frame problems before you solve problems. Teach your team to frame problems before they solve problems. Otherwise, we often end up solving the wrong problem. Find a problem and say, “I’d like you to help me frame this problem, not solve it. I want to make sure I’m defining the problem correctly first.”

Dedicate time and resources to learning. If you talk about the importance of learning but don’t dedicate any time or resources to it, it’s really not a priority. Formally allocate budget and dedicate time to learning. There’s no perfect approach. Just make sure that you offer everyone consistent resources and time.

Recognize accomplishment. Certainly accomplishment is its own reward, but receiving genuine recognition from your peers makes it all the sweeter. As a leader, recognize the successes of your team quickly. Never delay or resent the opportunity to show genuine excitement for their accomplishments.

Celebrate small wins. Small wins increase confidence and build momentum. When your team members see a series of small wins, it creates a sense of forward motion. Ultimate success may be a way off, but it’s the small wins that fuel the team members’ efforts to continue contributing at a high level.

Shift from tell to ask. A leader’s coaching continuum ranges from telling at one end to asking at the other. A good leader uses the entire continuum. Too much telling breeds dependency and learned helplessness. Shift as much as you can to the ask end. Lead through questions more than answers.

Help others see their strengths. Many team members deliver mediocre performance because they don’t realize their strengths. Identify the hidden or undervalued strengths that your team members have and bring them to their attention. This will ignite the desire to contribute more.

Ask people what they think. Ask a team member, “What do you think?” Those four simple words invite contribution and increase confidence in the process.  Don’t say those words when you don’t really mean it. At the same time, don’t move to a decision or action without asking, even if you think you know the right answer.

Take your finger off the fear button. Fear triggers a self-censoring instinct that causes people to retreat into silence. When a leader uses fear, it’s normally a punitive response borne of frustration and insecurity. More importantly, it’s an abdication of leadership.

Respond constructively to disruptive ideas and bad news. Your positive emotional response to disruptive ideas and bad news is a clear signal that you have a high tolerance for candor and will protect your people in their right to dissent.

Weigh in last. Speaking first when you hold positional power softly censors your team. Listen carefully, acknowledge the contributions of others, and then register your point of view.

Encourage others to think beyond their roles. Inviting your people to venture out of their tactical and functional silos creates more opportunity for divergent thinking and allows them to connect things that aren’t normally connected. Manage the process carefully and discern when constructive dissent is giving way to destructive derailment.

Model the art of disagreement. Having challenger safety means that the members of your team can debate issues on their merits and find the best one without creating fear and interpersonal conflict. It’s your job to teach them how to have marvelous disagreement to create this idea meritocracy.