When you go to work today, how are you showing up?
Are you armoured up for survival, ready for the battle?
Or are you showing up as your best, happy, most creative self?
Ask yourself these questions:
❓Can I safely share, with my colleagues, my wacky idea that came to me in a dream last night?
❓Can I point out, with kindness, to a teammate if they aren’t pulling their weight, be curious about why, and offer support?
❓Can I be trusted to do what I said I’d do?
❓Can I admit I made a mistake and I need help to put it right?
❓Can I disagree with the prevailing opinion in the room and offer a different perspective, while remaining open to learning something new?
❓Can I feel joyful for someone who had a success that I didn’t?
❓Can I openly say sorry if I interrupted a colleague?
❓Can I safely share with my boss, without fear of retaliation, that the way they kept checking their phone during our 1:1 left me feeling unheard, and that I would value their full attention?
❓Can I tell a teammate that I don’t understand what they just explained to me and ask them to do it again, differently and more slowly this time?
Do you have any ‘yes’ responses?
I really hope you do, because that would be a good indicator that you have some positive levels of psychological safety in your team.
If we have psychological safety at work, then it gives us psychological permission to be our best, truest, most creative selves.
🌟To be accepted for being imperfect.
🌟To be accepted even when we get things wrong.
🌟Safe to ask for what we need.
🌟To hold (ourselves and) others accountable for their commitment, or lack of it.
🌟To be vulnerable as we share off-the-wall stuff, because who knows when we might hit the jackpot as we throw our ideas around together to make them better and bolder than before?
🌟To withhold judgement if someone messes up and in stead offer help.
🌟To experiment, fail and learn with encouragement.
🌟To dissent without fear of retaliation.
The ‘daily grind’ would be the ‘daily thrive’ if we felt psychologically safe at work.
The power lies in all of us to choose how we show up for ourselves, and how we show up for others.
How are you choosing to show up?
