Being scared to fail: unpacking the importance of psychological safety

I'll start this one off by defining what psychological safety is.

Organisational behavioural scientist, Amy Edmondson, first introduced the construct of “team psychological safety” and defined it as "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking".

Perfectionism

As a self confessed perfectionist, it can be challenging for me to accept that failure is part of the process and is inevitable.

I tend to hold myself to a high standard, and sometimes these standards are impossibly high. It leads me to panic at the thought of screwing up at work, and I start overthinking about how it can alter how others perceive me and the work that I do.

I used to think being a perfectionist was my superpower as it usually lead to high quality work. But the reality was that it also caused me a lot of anxiety, criticism, failure to internalise my success and also a tendency to overwork as I often felt like the things I produced weren't "good enough".

It wasn't until my Mum showed me this video, where Brene Brown says:

"Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of blame, judgement, and shame"

- Brene Brown

Damn. It was me in a nutsell.

Brown goes on to share that perfectionism is about trying to earn approval.

I am in SHOCK. It was me to the core and I had never realised this was my subconscious thoughts that I wasn't necessarily conscious aware of.

It explained why meetings with my managers to gauge what their thoughts were of my performance at work was so important to me. I needed constant reassurance that I was doing well, and any areas that I needed to improve on.

Early praise for achievement and performance has become a dangerous and debilitating belief system: “I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it, please, perform, perfect, prove.”

How psychological safety makes all the difference

Working as a Software Engineer, it is a career that involves a lot of learning - CONSTANTLY. It can feel like you're always a beginner at something, which can be daunting when you want to be an expert (because of the high standards you hold for yourself).

I used to be terrified of making deployments because my biggest fear was breaking production.

I remember I communicated this to a manager at my first role as a Junior Software Engineer, and I got the most helpful response.

He told me about a lot of incidents that he has successfully broke production/ created bugs in production, the fact that my team members have, and essentially to embrace the chaos.

Well not like that, but there will always be someone to help you out, and failing is part of the job.

This gave me a sense of relief, especially because it wasn't a blame like culture.

Plus, I was working in a team that was very supportive, understanding and patient with me. I'd sometimes request to have a second eyes to share my screen while I pushed to production, *just in case* I missed a step or did something wrong.

That helped with the transition of being panicked, to feeling reassured with someone else there to help if shit hit the fan, to then feeling confident making deployments on my own.

I'm very grateful to have had such a good experience with this in my first role, especially with the self-induced added pressure feeling the need to prove myself.

I have been speaking to other engineers about this, and some fears around breaking production come from working in a company that has a blame culture, with little room to see failure as part of the job and also a learning experience.

Managers creating an environment where employees feel safe to fail, contributes to innovation, retention of staff and more productive employees.

If you're reading this, and you're working at a company that leaves minimal room for failure, then please know it isn't YOU that is the problem - is the company that is the problem.

People cannot feel empowered to make decisions, perform, or take risks without employers creating a psychologically safe environment.

I have found that employers who have this kind of environment have a high turnover, demotivated staff, and lack of innovation.

If you personally are working in such an environment, if you can, I would recommend that you move teams (or move company!), communicate with your manager about how you're feeling and get an understanding if there's room for improvement, or speak with HR about concerns you're having.

Let me know your thoughts!