The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation

About The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation

This is the first practical, hands-on guide that shows how leaders can build psychological safety in their organization, creating an environment where employees feel fully engaged and encouraged to contribute their best ideas.

Fear has a profoundly negative impact on engagement, learning efficacy, productivity, and innovation, but until now there has been a lack of practical information on how to make employees feel safe about speaking up and contributing. Timothy Clark, a social scientist and an organizational consultant, provides a framework to move people through successive stages of psychological safety. The first stage is member safety–the team accepts you and grants you shared identity. Learner safety, the second stage, indicates that you feel safe to ask questions, experiment, and even make mistakes. Next is the third stage of contributor safety, where you feel comfortable participating as an active and full-fledged member of the team. Finally, the fourth stage of challenger safety allows you to take on the status quo without repercussion, reprisal, or the risk of tarnishing your personal standing and reputation. This is a blueprint for how any leader can build positive, supportive, and encouraging cultures in any setting.

  1. Complete Title: The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation
  2. Format: Paperback
  3. Language: English
  4. Number of Pages: 192
  5. Publication Time: March 3, 2020
  6. Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
  7. ISBN: 1523087684
  8. ISBN13: 9781523087686

About Timothy R. Clark

Timothy R. Clark Timothy R. Clark

Timothy R. Clark is founder and CEO of LeaderFactor, a global consulting, coaching, and training organization. Dr. Clark is an international authority in the fields of psychological safety & innovation, large-scale change & transformation, and senior leadership development. He is the author of four previous books: Epic Change: How to Lead Change in the Global Age (John Wiley/Jossey-Bass), Leadership Bones (Bradmore Road Press), The Employee Engagement Mindset (McGraw-Hill), Leading with Character and Competence: Moving Beyond Title, Position, And Authority (Berrett-Koehler). He is also the developer of the EQometer emotional intelligence assessment.
Dr. Clark is a highly sought-after advisor, coach, and facilitator to CEOs and senior leadership teams. He has personally coached over 100 CEOs and executives and trained many senior teams around the world. Dr. Clark earned a PhD in social science from Oxford University, and was both a British Research Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar at Seoul National University in Korea. He also earned a master’s degree in Government and economics from the University of Utah. As an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, he was named a first-team Academic All-American football player where he completed a triple degree cum laude.

Reviews The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation

Now THIS is a message that I wish everyone knew about! Had I known about psychological safety and the 4 stages earlier, I think I could’ve been a much better leader in my past roles. It is so importan…

Meckell Fernandez

This book was a simple read that takes the concept of psychological safety and breaks it up into its constituent stages – inclusion safety, learning safety, contribution safety and challenging safety…

User ImageSri Shivananda

Timothy Clark’s “The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation” deals with an all too relevant topic – the need for organizational leaders to build psychologi…

User ImageJason Hillenburg

So much wisdom in such a small book. A great treatment of how psychological safety in the workplace is built and how it creates personal and team dynamics that unlock true potential of people and whol…

User ImageJeff

#thefourstagesofpsychologicalsafety by #timothyrclark #leaderfactor @bkpub #berrettkoehlerpublishers #bkpublishing …Clark identifies psychological safety as a condition in which you feel: * included…

User ImageHamish Grable

Psychological safety is an easy concept to understand, and I’ve gone to a few online sessions on the topic. Despite my familiarity, I still learned a lot from this book. I highlighted many passages…

User ImageAmy

great concept…but a short article would be enough to cover it…

User ImageLukas Bakos

Dr. Clark is a gifted writer who synthesizes the complexity of human relationships with the dynamic processes of organizational change. He offers to the reader a highly assessable and diagnostic frame…

User ImageDeene Morris

Great elaboration on the number one critical quality necessary for success which is “psychological safety”. As the author states beautifully: “The presence of fear in an organization is the first sign…

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