What if your job was good for you?

To be happy at work we have to feel psychologically safe, which means an environment where we can truly be ourselves and feel comfortable taking risks and speaking openly.

When we panic, we don’t think straight. The amygdala is an almond-sized part of our brain that deals with threats. In a state of panic, it overrides the higher functioning parts that analyse and give perspective. We have a fast, simple, primitive reaction: fight, flight or freeze.

That’s necessary in the life or death law of the jungle, but not so useful in the 21st-century workplace, when the threat is not a lion lurking in the long grass but a difficult boss, being judged by a colleague or maybe just the pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect.

Overcoming this instinct is tough. It’s hard-wired. One way is to know that we are safe, and that can mean our environment has to be transformed. By changing the social structures and relationships that make missteps feel like threats in the first place, we can get the best out of ourselves and each other. That means embracing psychological safety.

Psychological safety means being able to act in a way that is true to ourselves without fear of negative impact on the way people see us, the way we see ourselves, or our careers. We know it’s safe to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. It is rooted in a team mentality that knows it’s safe to take risks. Everyone feels accepted and respected.

For two years, Google studied what makes a successful team and found that psychological safety was the one thing the most successful teams had in common. Revenues generated by the most successful sales teams differed by as much as 50% and the most successful teams were the ones that felt safest — able to be wrong or make mistakes.

If you create an environment in your business where teams feel comfortable taking some risks, challenging each other, thinking creatively and speaking their mind openly then you get more open-minded teams, divergent thinking — which helps to foster creativity — and original approaches to problems. You also get teams that are more resilient and motivated.

These are all behaviours that can help companies stay ahead of their competitors.

The most anxious generation in history is joining the workforce:

54% of Generation Z (born in the mid- to late-90s) have felt anxious or nervous in the previous three months, compared with a third of Generation X (born 1965–1980) who report feeling that way

While Generation Z is more willing to talk openly about these things, they also make unhelpful career comparisons, often driven by social media, that can make them feel like everyone else is getting ahead.

Remote working hasn’t helped to ease these stresses. Some people are dealing with it in baffling ways, including by ghosting their bosses — disappearing from work without warning. Although unusual, it’s becoming more common.

With an increasingly anxious workforce — or maybe just the first that’s willing to say how they’re really feeling — what can leaders do to help create the right working environment? How can they create a workplace that is psychologically safe and encourages openness and risk taking?

Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson looked at the way hospitals handle medical errors. She found that the language used to frame a problem affects people’s reactions to it.

She told the Wall Street Journal: “If someone calls a problem a screw-up, that makes your brain say, ‘I’d better be quiet about it.’ But if it’s called an accident, you think, ‘How can we prevent it from happening again?’ Shifting employees’ attention to shared goals is what makes the difference. It raises creative juices, and makes people want to speak up.”

Bupa’s mental health team had a 300% increase in calls during the pandemic, and there is no sign of a let-up. Caroline Harper, a Mental Health Nurse Advisor at Bupa, says people often don’t recognise the true cause of their stress or anxiety. The first step she and her team regularly take is to help them identify what that is.

“Often we know we feel stressed when we start to miss our break times, or think about work all the time when we don’t need to be. We can be aware of it — yet not sure what aspects of our job are leading us to feel that way.”

A useful way to figure that out is to look at six areas of your job: demands, control, support, role, relationships and change. Broadly, this means there’s the right level of demand placed on you; you feel in control of your work and your day; you have enough support from your manager and colleagues and enough training; you don’t have conflict with anyone and feel you can talk to colleagues; you know what your work is and how it fits into the organisation; and you feel informed about change and how it affects you and feel able to give your opinion on it.

Unfortunately, in some workplaces, the signs of anxiety can often be misunderstood as commendable traits: someone is working hard, they’re always on, or are obsessively concerned about the details of their work. It’s made worse if that’s coupled with an environment that encourages you to press on and get things done. It’s a recipe for high-functioning anxiety.

Traditionally a mental health problem had to disrupt your life before it met the criteria for a diagnosis. This assumption is being challenged as more people open up about anxiety.

Amol Rajan, the newest presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, admitted he spent the night before his first programme racked with anxiety, in “a really dark place, a night of utter terror,” he said. “I worked myself up into a dreadful frenzy catastrophising about the hours ahead.” You would never have guessed; his debut the following morning was calm, in control and measured.

A world without worry is unrealistic. Some stressful moments can help us focus and drive us forward to do our best. There is, though, a silent but significant number of employees who are coping, but not comfortable. Maybe it’s because you don’t feel psychologically safe.

Ed is a Senior Consultant at Magnetic, the UK’s leading independent innovation company. This is an excerpt from our latest book Now for the tricky bit; it’s all about building stronger, happier businesses with purpose.

Magnetic help some of the world’s best-known companies solve and tackle some of the biggest issues and we’re very happy to share experiences or hear from others in the field, get in touch.