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673. Psychological Safety Isn’t Soft — It’s Structural · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
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• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody Brian Smith here with the item team series and your daily influence and you know I'm going to pick this up from my episodes from last week where I started talking about
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: deeper subjects about our influences, leaders, and how influence is so important in a such a responsibility for us.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to get even a little deeper and talk about how psychological safety isn't soft, it's structural.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to talk about what I mean by that because I've been talking about growth, milestones, and evolution, but today I'm going to move
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: quite frankly, just misunderstanding.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is the fact that psychological safety in our areas of influence is often described as a soft leadership concept.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's something about feelings, kindness, or culture that makes us think this, but here's the truth.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Psychological safety is not soft.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually structural.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What feels cultural is usually the result of design.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you are
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: or even operational breakdown, that's not personality, that's structure speaking.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Psychological safety is a performance system, it's not a feeling, it's often described emotional.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do people feel safe, are they comfortable speaking up, but feelings follow structure?
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  [SPEAKER_00]: If your meeting format discourages dissent, if your accountability system punishes visible mistakes, or if your incentives reward only outcomes, and not transparency, then you have structurally engineered silence, and safety is created by clear decision rights, defined communication channels, consistent follow-through,
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  [SPEAKER_00]: measurable accountability and modeled behavior from leadership.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: In smart terms, if it isn't specific and repeatable, it's not real.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Psychological safety is not a mood.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an operating system.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Fear and organization really shows up as panic.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows up as withheld information, delayed escalation, everything's fine reports, meeting after meeting.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Silence creates rework and silence creates risk.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Operational breakdown is often misdiagnosed as skill gaps, work ethic problems, and cultural misalignment, but very often the real issue is this.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: People do not believe it is safe to tell the truth early.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: When truth arrives late, cost increases.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: When safety increases, transparency increases.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: When transparency increases, performance improves.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Safety is not about comfort.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about speed of accurate information.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, leaders will oftentimes reward what they repeat.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the structural reality.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Leaders unintentionally reward what they tolerate and what they praise.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: If you praise only flawless execution, you will get hidden mistakes.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you reward speed over clarity, you will get rushed silence.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you shut down disagreement, you will get compliance without commitment.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: People watch leaders under pressure.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They notice tone.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: They notice reaction, they notice what gets attention.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: What you react to becomes the blueprint.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is influence at work.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: In the IM team language, the I sets the pattern, the team amplifies it.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Structures not policy alone.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Structure is repeated behavior.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So look what feels cultural is often structural.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Culture is not a personality trait of an organization.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is the predictable result of incentives, accountability, communication norms, leadership modeling, and decision architecture.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't hope for psychological safety.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You design it.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, as I reflect this year on our journey, our evolution, where we've come from, I'm reflecting on 30 years of leadership growth.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: an evolution.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing has become really clear to me as I sit and prepare for these sessions with you.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Performance does not improve because people feel safe.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: People feel safe because performance systems are designed correctly.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when they are truth travels faster, mistakes surface sooner and learning accelerates, improvement compounds, psychological safety isn't soft, it's structural,
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to see you tomorrow on the Daily Influence.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for joining us.