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Does the concept of psychological safety, encouraging dissent in organisations, serve the sustainable growth needs of the organisations? Or like the ‘woke’ movement, is it another concept espoused by a minority to promote their agenda to disagree with the majority, leading to a backlash that is good for neither?
Aren’t there stable organisations serving populations for centuries that do not encourage or cannot afford dissent, and yet have served the public interest for centuries if not millennia?
Are elements of trust and faith, as well as safety, open to dissent and challenge? Or does dissent instead of integrating, fragment?
What was before Psychological Safety?
Does the concept of psychological safety, encouraging dissent in organisations, serve the sustainable growth needs of the organisations? Or like the ‘woke’ movement, is it another concept espoused by a minority to promote their agenda to disagree with the majority, leading to a backlash that is good for neither?
Aren’t there stable organisations serving populations for centuries that do not encourage or cannot afford dissent, and yet have served the public interest for centuries if not millennia?
Are elements of trust and faith, as well as safety, open to dissent and challenge? Or does dissent instead of integrating, fragment? Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” Her framework suggests that individuals and teams progress through stages of:
1. Belonging: Feeling included and accepted in the group
2. Learning: Feeling safe to ask questions and acknowledge mistakes
3. Contributing: Feeling comfortable offering ideas and solutions
4. Challenging: Feeling secure enough to question fundamental assumptions and practices
Edmondson’s research says that psychologically safe environments lead to greater innovation, better error reporting, and improved organisational outcomes.
What if one questioned and challenged the fundamental assumptions of the concept of psychological safety and its relevance today, a word created by Carl Rogers and popularised by Amy Edmondson?
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) has had Trust and Intimacy as a core competency since its inception, following the psychological safety concept as used by Rogers and Schein. This competency implied a safe and confidential relationship that could exist in any human interaction, and which would be critical in a coaching relationship. This implied Belonging, Learning and Contributing, and did not necessarily include Challenging. A coach does not question or challenge the client’s assumptions. The coach explores in a trusted environment the validity of the client’s limiting beliefs and assumptions. Humble Inquiry of Schein and Client Centricity of Rogers do not preach challenging or dissent.
Listening, a key component in coaching and leadership, articulated by Rogers and exemplified by Edgar Schein in ‘Humble Inquiry’, is about allowing people to express another perspective in a way that does not dissent and offend. Unfortunately, many proponents of psychological safety tend to play the blame game, calling others autocratic and toxic, shifting the locus of control away from themselves to others in a victim mode.
For millennia, hierarchical organisations such as the military and church existed and flourished in Belonging, Learning and Contributing, with no space for dissonance, dissent and challenge. Yet, these organisations were templates of faith and safety. Free Masonry and other secret societies still flourish in mystery and silence, and no dissent.
One can argue that in the case of the military organisation, lives are at stake, decisions cannot be consensual, and therefore, there is no room to question and challenge. The same cannot be said about the Church. Those who dissented with the canons of the Church put their lives at stake. Yet, the majority followed and still followed when there was no pressure to follow, when they believed in the spiritual aspect of religion to serve and treat others as equals, rather than the controlling and fragmenting aspect of fundamentalism of religion.
Is there more to one’s safety and feeling of safety than the psychology of safety, and the need to dissent and challenge?
What Does Science Say?
Scientific studies of spiritual practice, which arise from religious beliefs, and yet with no effort to control conformance, show that practitioners of meditation, reflection and prayer tend to feel safe in a space of acceptance and fulfilment.
Andrew Newberg’s work shows that spiritual practices activate the brain’s default mode network, reducing anxiety and stress. Research by Davidson and Lutz demonstrates that contemplative spiritual practices create lasting structural changes in brain regions associated with emotional regulation and attention, suggesting that spiritual frameworks reshape neural architecture in ways that support psychological stability. Work at Harvard and other institutions has established that any form of meditation leads to reduced stress and increased creativity.
The psychological research of Peterson and Seligman indicates that the inability to challenge doctrine may be offset by the psychological benefits of certainty through spiritual practice. The work of Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon demonstrates that coherent belief systems buffer reducing existential anxiety regarding mortality. Research by Park and Folkman indicates that spirituality helps individuals interpret personal experiences with coherent global meaning, which remains stable precisely because core elements are not regularly challenged.
Both science and common sense indicate that people feel good when they feel they have some control over what they do. They also feel good when expectations are met. Many feel safe and protected in hierarchical structures as long as they feel their interests are taken care of and they are listened to.
Is Toxicity Internal as Stress?
Science tells us that stress occurs as a result of our inability to cope with external pressures. Many people work better under stress. The validity of the Eustress Performance curve is well established. Breaking down under stress and recovering from emotional stress trauma are individual characteristics, often influenced by our values, beliefs, purpose and meaning. As the noble Buddha implied, suffering is relative and optional.
Having worked with people with emotional traumas for decades, I have found that sensorily internalising one’s trauma experience helps relieve one’s suffering through what may be termed the Observer effect. Coacharya has several lecture demonstration recordings of this.
Safety, in my experience, is spiritual, not psychological. Mortality is the biggest threat to one’s safety. No one can guarantee immortality. Toxicity is not very different. We all wish to have freedom of expression and wish to be heard. Not always do we remember that our freedom to express may affect another adversely and toxically. The oldest known scripture in the world, the Isa Vasya Upanishad, says that when one sees oneself in others and others in oneself, only then is that person self-realised.
The next time your coach or consultant tells you to do a psychological safety survey in your organisation, pause. Is it the organisation, the individual, or the interaction that creates toxicity? There are better systemic solutions to this blame game.
(Originally published on Coaching the Spirit – a LinkedIn Newsletter by Ram S. Ramanathan: Beyond Psychological Safety to Spiritual Safety. Views expressed are personal.)
