On March 18, 1956, Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, entitled “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” started with a story: “A few weeks ago, a Federal Judge handed down an edict which stated in substance that the University of Alabama could no longer deny admission to persons because […]
When Brenda took over as the Executive Director of a community outreach, nonprofit organization, she walked into a team that had lost its spark. People were burned out. Staff meetings were tense. Deadlines constantly slipped and a sense of defensiveness hung in the air. At first, Brenda responded the way many leaders do under pressure—by […]
I was in a tech store the other day buying a new phone. Five people were in line getting assistance from a patient and bright young man behind the counter. A teenager came through the door and walked right past every person in line, completely oblivious to the queue. He abruptly and rudely interrupted the […]
It depends on how you define psychological safety. If you define it as making things comfortable or easy or secure for people, then yes, you can have too much psychological safety. I define psychological safety as simply a place where people can be honest. Honesty means that you can speak accurately about work progress, challenges, […]
My good friend Allan is currently in the hospital recovering from surgery that removed his voice box in response to a rare kind of throat cancer. He’s relying on tubes inserted into his abdomen for fluids and food. As a psychiatrist whose career relied on speaking and sharing his wisdom, his life will never be […]
We talk a lot about safety: product safety, traffic safety, bicycle safety, workplace safety, nuclear safety, etc. and I teach leaders how to create workplaces that are psychologically safe. This focus on safety in our chronically anxious society could lead us to believe that safety is the most important value in life. Safety is certainly […]
