what a year we've had covid-19 economic collapse raging wildfires in the American West and Australia not to mention the ongoing social justice crisis in the madness that has been 2020 it's not just that our businesses have had to adapt to changing conditions it's that we don't even know right now which conditions are changing or which might be changing tomorrow so how do you even lead effectively when every single day is so uncertain welcome to the Ted business podcast I'm your host mupa ainola today's talk is from the Ted video series the way we work in
this talk Amy Edmonson is going to explain how leading through absolute upheaval is very different from leading through everyday change Amy is a professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School and she came up with the concept of psychological safety at work her most recent book is called The Fearless organization creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning Innovation and growth I really want you to pay attention to how Amy explains how leaders can gain trust and loyalty when life has been upended but leaders don't always do that so after the talk I'll explain
how you can help create that trust even if your boss doesn't we think of a great leader as the unwavering Captain who guides us forward through Challenge and complexity confident unwavering leaders armed with data and past experience have long been celebrated in business and politics alike but sometimes and certainly now a crisis comes along that is so new and so urgent that it upends everything we thought we knew one thing we know for sure is that more upheavals are coming in a completely interconnected World a single political Uprising a viral video a distant tsunami or
a tiny virus can send shock waves around the world upheaval creates fear and in the midst of it people crave security which can incline leaders toward the usual tropes of strength confidence constancy but it won't work we have to flip the leadership Playbook first this type of leadership requires communicating with transparency communicating often so how can leaders lead when there is so little certainty so little Clarity whether you are a CEO a prime minister a middle manager or even a head of school upheaval means you have to ramp up the humility when what you know
is limited pretending that you have the answers isn't helpful amidst upheaval leaders must share what they know and admit what they don't know paradoxically that Honesty creates more psychological safety for people not less for example when the pandemic devastated the airline industry virtually overnight CEO of Delta Airlines Ed Bastion ramped up employee communication despite having so little clarity about the path ahead facing truly dire results at one point in 2020 losing over $100 million a day it would have been far far easier for basan to wait for more information before taking action but effective leaders
during upheaval don't hide in the shadows in fact as Bastian put it it is far more important to communicate when you don't have the answers than when you do second act with urgency despite incomplete information admitting you don't have the answers does not mean avoiding action while it's natural to want more information fast action is often the only way to get more information worse in action leaves people feeling lost and unstable when New Zealand prime minister jenda urn laid out a four-level alert system very early in the covid-19 crisis she lacked information with which to
set the level despite lacking answers she did not wait to communicate about the threat with the nation At first she set the level at two only to change it to four 2 days later as cases rose that triggered a national lockdown which no doubt saved countless lives later when cases began to dissipate she made subsequent decisions reflecting that new information third leaders must hold purpose and values steady even as goals and situations change values can be your Guiding Light when everything else is up in the air if you care about customer experience don't let go
of that in times of upheaval if a core value is health and safety put that at the center of every decision you make now doing this requires being very transparent about what your values are and in this way your steadfastness shows not in your plans but in your values prime minister uran's clear purpose all along was protecting human life even as the immediate goal shifted from preventing illness to Preparing Health Systems and ultimately to bolstering the economy and finally give power away our instincts are to hold even more tightly to control in times of upheaval
but it backfires one of the most effective effective ways to show leadership if counterintuitive is to share power with those around you doing this requires asking for help being clear that you can't do it alone this also provokes Innovation while giving people a sense of meaning nothing is worse in a crisis than feeling like there's nothing you can do to help we follow this new kind of leader through upheaval because we have confidence not in their map but in their Compass We Believe they've chosen the right direction given the current information and that they will
keep updating most of all we trust them and we want to help them in finding and refining the path forward so I have a confession to make I have a big academic crush on Amy Edmonson we went to the same school we had the same Mentor Richard Hackman who was a Pioneer in understanding the nuances of group dynamics and I really love her advice that leaders should inspire people to quote have confidence not in their map but in their Compass brilliant but most of all I admire her as a person who developed the concept of
psychological safety and this is the idea that all workplaces should feel safe enough for anyone to speak up without fear of rejection or humiliation and this is kind of what Amy was talking about when she mentioned the importance of being transparent and humble when things are abended so what is this thing called psychological safety and why does it matter in organizations Amy stumbled on the concept of psychological safety while she was working on her doctoral thesis she was helping a professor Study Medical mistakes and then she noticed that certain parts of the hospital she visited
were more accident prone than others so she took a close look at the teams and the problem that made some weaker wasn't the errors that they made it turns out that for certain units when a mistake was made it was held against people more people felt less psychologically safe and psychological safety was literally the difference between life and death for patients well since this discovery Amy and other researchers have found that a psychologically safe environment where people can speak up without fear Fosters fewer critical mistakes and more innovative ideas and it's not hard to see
the connection between Amy's work on psychological safety and the recommendation she made in this talk psychological safety is even more important during times of upheaval because it allows people to feel really comfortable speaking up all right so Amy has given us some really good tips that leaders can use to create psychologically safe environments but what if you're an employee who doesn't feel psychologically safe at work how can you help make work a more psychologically safe place for you and for your co-workers one very important thing you can do is change the way you talk to
your colleagues make sure you're framing questions and challenges at work in a way that makes people feel safe opening up to you and to others so for instance when someone is struggling and even when they're doing well maybe you can ask what can I do to help or what are your concerns and be genuine really be interested in their answers because thoughtful questions and thoughtful listening tell your co-workers that you value what they have to say and it makes them feel like their thoughts matter also the way you talk about challenges can have an impact
on how safe people feel to voice their concerns and ideas so when you're working on group projects and you have a chance to speak up remind your co-workers of the uncertainty ahead or of how difficult it might be this lets people know that input is isn't just welcome it's needed psychological safety is ultimately about vulnerability interest and availability so even if you aren't seeing those traits from leadership you can express them yourself and be a model for your co-workers and one last point you can act as if your workplace is already psychologically safe by pushing
your nervous gut aside and speaking up when you have something to say this is another way of leading by example because it is possible that when no one knows the answer which is so often the case when things are upended you offering some solutions may be exactly what the leader needs thanks so much for listening if you found Amy as fascinating as I did check out her other Ted talk about how to use psychological safety to build great teams Ted business is hosted by me mupa ainola an associate professor of management at Columbia business school
and I also direct The Bernstein Center for leadership and ethics Kim nater fan petersa is our producer Grace Rubenstein is our editor the show is mixed by dula and special thanks to Colin Helms Michelle Quint Angela changen Corey Haim and Anna felin talk to you again next week
