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Coaching for Leaders

404: How to Build Psychological Safety, with Amy Edmondson

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2019

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Amy Edmondson: The Fearless Organization

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She has been recognized by the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers for many years and was honored with their Talent Award in 2017. Amy is the author of several, highly regarded books on teaming and psychological safety, including her newest book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth*.

Key Points

  • Psychological safety varies a lot even inside of an organization.
  • More effective teams may appear to make more mistakes, but it’s likely those teams are just more comfortable reporting mistakes.
  • Instead of calling it an error, call it an accident. And rather than calling it an investigation, call it a study.
  • It’s fine to say, “I don’t know” when appropriate because it signals to others that it is okay to admit when they don’t know something.
  • If somebody shares a problem, say thank you and then ask how you can help.
  • Leaders should be concerned if they’re not hearing bad news.

Resources Mentioned

Book Notes

Download my highlights from The Fearless Organization in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Is it safe for people to speak up on your team?

0:04.0

Are you regularly hearing new ideas and dissenting voices?

0:08.8

If not, there's a ton you can do to create more psychological safety at work even if your larger

0:15.1

organization doesn't. On this episode Amy Edmondson shows us how. This is

0:20.1

coaching for leaders episode 404.

0:23.9

Produced by Innovate Learning,

0:26.4

Maximizing Human Potential.

0:30.6

Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is coaching for leaders and I'm your host. Dave Stahoviac. Leaders aren't born. They're made, and this weekly show gives you access to the

0:45.4

practical wisdom that will empower you to become a better leader. I think virtually

0:51.2

all of us as leaders want to create an environment in our

0:57.4

workplaces where people feel safe to speak up with their ideas, with the things they may see the organization doing

1:05.2

incorrectly or see us doing incorrectly. And yet in a lot of organizations that is very much

1:11.0

a challenge. Today's guest has done a tremendous amount

1:15.3

of brilliant work on how to build psychological safety

1:19.2

in organizations.

1:20.1

And I'm so glad that she's here today

1:22.0

to teach us a bit about how we can do this as well in our own

1:26.1

organizations. I'm so thrilled to welcome Amy Edmondson to the show today.

1:30.0

Amy is the Navartis Professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School.

1:34.4

She's been recognized by Thinkers 50 Global Ranking as one of the management thinkers at the top of her field

1:41.2

for many years and has been honored with their talent

1:44.3

award in 2017. She studies teaming, psychological safety and leadership and

...

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