Delivering effective leadership includes preserving staff safety throughout the lab. Traditionally, lab safety was focused on physical safety, but recent advancements have introduced the importance of both emotional and psychological safety. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson has been a leading voice in articulating psychological safety. Her definition of psychological safety is "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes." This approach enables staff to freely take risks and be vulnerable with each other, which promotes open communication, shared learning, trust, and respect. You can learn more from her TED talks and her book The Fearless Organization. Here are three tips to help you deliver psychological safety in your lab:
#1 – Frame the work as a learning problem
Most lab work involves both complexity and uncertainty. While there are projects in the lab that have been repeated so often that they are more of a demonstration, most of the key work involves some technical uncertainty. Recognize the unpredictable nature of that uncertainty and emphasize the opportunities to learn. Resist the temptation to focus on the work as a series of tasks where issues are driven by execution.
#2 – Acknowledge our own fallibility
Being open to learning and input will enable you to learn faster, make better decisions, and help the lab succeed. So, learn from your mistakes, run experiments, and freely ask for help. Be willing to discuss the challenges the lab faces and make the best use of the knowledge, experience, and talents around you. Demonstrate how you run experiments and learn from your activities. The scientific method works just as well for lab management as it does for technical bench work.
#3 – Normalize mistakes as learning opportunities
One of the great things about being a scientist is that experiments yield two outcomes: success and learning opportunities. Failure doesn’t need to be part of the lab’s vocabulary. Treating mistakes and issues as learning opportunities allows staff to learn from everything that is going on around the lab. Sharing these experiences allows everyone to learn, not just those who experience the issue directly. Having broader discussions about the challenges allows everyone to contribute to the eventual solution and benefit from the experience. This approach also reduces the inclination of staff to shy away from difficult issues.
The challenges the lab faces can be significant. Developing an environment of psychological safety enables everyone in the lab to contribute from their knowledge and experience. By sharing the successes and the issues, the whole lab learns and benefits.
