Everyone, including leaders, reacts to stress differently, but how leaders respond to stress affects their teams. When leaders respond to stress with insecurity, distrust, hostility, or social withdrawal, their attitudes and behaviors can cause significant damage to the psychological safety of the team.
Psychological team safety is the shared perception of whether it is safe or risky for team members to be authentic to one another. The presence of fear, whether it's a leader's fears or the leader's fear, destroys trust and creates the feeling that expressing opinions or ideas that differ from the leader's opinion is dangerous.
Many people see leaders as those who give orders and evaluate others; however, leaders who are successful in building and maintaining high-performing teams focus on defining direction, supporting others, and cultivating psychological safety. Leadership requires strategic self-awareness to understand and control dysfunctional behaviors, or “derailments,” which can occur during stress, overwork, fatigue, or other situations where self-management tends to be compromised.
In this article, we'll discuss how derailment factors can be measured, the effects of five specific derailors on psychological safety, and how leaders can improve the psychological safety of the team.
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In Hogan Assessments inventories, the HDS (Hogan Development Survey) measures personality strengths that, when overexploited, can become problematic. Everyone's personality has obscure characteristics—potential behaviors arising from personality strengths that could derail performance or attitude during particular events. A leader who cares about quality, for example, might overexploit this characteristic, becoming obsessed with project details or paralyzed by the fear of making an incorrect decision. A leader who values self-sufficiency could overexploit this characteristic, appearing tough, distant, or indifferent to team members. While a commitment to excellence and an appreciation for independence are positive qualities, without moderation, they can become risk factors that can strongly impact teams or damage the reputation of a leader or contributor.
The HDS consists of 11 scales classified into three groups that describe overall stress responses: moving away from others (withdrawal), going against others (antagonism), or going towards others (conformity). Most people have one or more high scores, and those high scores often occur within the same cluster.
The “Get Away” cluster is defined by the Versatile, Skeptical, Skeptical, Excitable, Cautious, Reserved, and Nonchalant scales. Behaviors that result from high scores on these scales can be particularly harmful to psychological safety. Because the behaviors that can be implemented in this cluster often involve increasing the distance between people as a method of dealing with insecurity, it can easily be the trigger for creating a space where people fear “the worst.” Characterized by a lack of communication or critical communication, the derailors of the “Withdrawal” group can undermine psychological safety by promoting intimidation and stifling trust and openness.
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“You're forcing me to express clearly and clearly how disappointed I am in you.”
The Versatile scale describes behaviors ranging from calm and stable to volatile and explosive. Because they can be prone to intense emotions and have trouble dealing with pressure, people who score high on the Excitable scale may express their fears or frustrations by appearing moody, overreacting, or showing annoyance, tension, or stress.
“I am being abused and exploited, so I am fully justified in responding accordingly.”
The Skeptical scale describes behaviors ranging from trusting others to expecting disappointment or abuse. Someone who scores high on the Skeptical scale tends to suspect that others have hidden motivations. They may seem dark or defensive and act repressive in the face of perceived slights.
“I have no choice but to highlight any potential issues that may arise, otherwise you will be making changes that could have disastrous consequences.”
The Prudence scale describes behaviors ranging from openness to unwillingness to try new methods, technologies, or experiences. Highly sensitive to the fear of embarrassment and failure, people who score high on the Precautionary scale may be hesitant in decision-making, paralyzed by analysis, or obsessed with details. They tend to avoid risks.
“You say I don't listen to you. You have to understand that if you could say something that interests me, I would listen to you.”
The Reservé scale describes behaviors ranging from socially accessible to socially distant. Someone with a high score on the Reserved scale may adopt a tough or severe communication style and may apply a closed-door policy. Their critical and independent attitude can hinder the transparency and open communication upon which psychological safety depends.
“The only reason I ignored you is because you're always interrupting me at a time when you should be doing your own work.”
The Nonchalant scale describes behaviors ranging from cooperative, coachable, and supportive to stubborn or secretly resentful. Those who score high on the Nonchalant scale may seem friendly but feel hostility, creating doubt about their sincerity. Their irritability and passive resistance can make them seem unreliable.
In summary, the “Withdrawal” cluster describes the behaviors of a person who may be prone to emotional displays, alert to signs of betrayal, fearful of criticism, distant and uncommunicative, or feeling authoritative. Withdrawal derailers can become a problem when people with high scores are under stress or stop managing themselves.
A leader with one or more of these uncontrolled qualities would likely struggle to cultivate the goodwill, camaraderie, and mutual trust necessary for psychological safety.
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Leaders have a responsibility to deal with their fears or how their behavior can create fear in others. Leaders can improve the psychological safety of their teams with their own transparency and willingness to change.
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The underlying mental models (called MENTAL schemas? ) reflect the fundamental beliefs we develop about ourselves early in life, tend to frame our interpretation of social information. For example, someone who has experienced an early betrayal might fear disloyalty and may even misperceive it in others. The strength of patterns, situational factors like stress, and organizational culture all influence the likelihood that derailments will emerge in an individual or leader.
Strategic self-awareness is needed to overcome fears. An article in the Harvard Business Review describes underlying fears as “an active force that leads to unproductive behaviors.” Understanding the extent to which these behavioral characteristics are forces and the point where they start to cause a derailment is therefore a key development point for everyone, especially in a management situation.
In addition to overcoming individual fears, leaders are responsible for promoting psychological safety and reducing fear within their teams. It's an ongoing commitment, and these steps will help.
The personality assessment offers a unique and stimulating self-knowledge. When leaders have only a partial awareness of their potential behaviors and attitudes, they will have difficulty knowing the perception that others have of them, hindering or even blocking an effective development strategy.
Leaders who are aware of their image, their strengths and their points of effort can learn to implement behavioral changes that will allow themselves and their team to develop for the benefit of all.
Everyone has derailment behaviors, and everyone can improve their performance. Leaders who practice transparency create a foundation for psychological safety. Those who take ownership of their behaviors and model openness can repair or build trust: “I'm sorry I was annoyed with you this morning. I was afraid of losing control of the project and I let my anger get the best of me.”
Personal development is a cycle of action, recognition, and reflection. The founder of Hogan Assessments, Robert Hogan, PhD, wrote about the importance of reflection in leadership development: “Thinking about the results of our actions allows us to understand both their consequences and the reasons for our initial behavior. Our analogy is with athletics, where critical feedback on past performances is a constant, and where mental rehearsal is used to refine and improve future performances.”
Long-term behavioral change comes from a leader's commitment to change, his “setting in motion.” This can often involve executive coaching, regular feedback from team members, and evaluations of the performance of interpersonal strategies.
One interpersonal strategy refers to the set of behaviors, attitudes, and approaches that a person uses to influence, interact, and manage interpersonal relationships, while evaluating how effective or counterproductive these strategies can be in a professional setting.
Behavioral interventions are more likely to be effective when leaders have addressed the fears that trigger their derailments. Adaptation can become routine when leaders successfully learn to interrupt their own derailment patterns for the benefit of the team.
It's important to remember that a leader is not someone who has all the answers or never makes mistakes. A leader is someone who achieves goals by facilitating team performance. As Amy C. Edmondson, author of “The Fearless Organization,” writes, “The job of a leader is to create and cultivate the culture we all need to be our best. And so every time you play a role in this process, you are exercising leadership.”
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