As a coach, it’s critical for me to quickly build trust or, put another way, a sense of psychological safety with clients. Honestly, it’s been a strength I developed during my time as a manager and leader. I’ve realized this skill is based on using language to create psychological safety by strategically asking questions.
Here’s an example of how to create psychological safety through language:
In a weekly one on one – instead of asking, “What are you struggling with or what challenges are you having?” ask, “We just finished a really tough month, everyone is facing significant challenges, including me, and I’d love to hear yours.” this normalizes everyone having significant challenges and creates psychological safety by allowing the other person to feel comfortable sharing challenging emotions. Whereas before, they might have been reluctant to share.
Flipping the question around like this helps the other person go from thinking, “I’m the only one who seems to be struggling with these things, and I can’t let anyone know that I’m the only one.” to “Oh, I’m not the only one who’s struggling with significant challenges, and it’s ok to open up and discuss these things with my team or boss. Maybe they could help me.”
Or you can do this in a meeting: Instead of asking, “Does anyone have any questions or concerns?” instead, ask, “What we’re facing here as a team is incredibly tough. I’ll admit, I’m finding this really challenging. I’d love to anyone’s questions or concerns that you might be struggling with.”
The foundation of using language to create psychological safety is – Breakthroughs don’t begin with an intelligent answer. They begin with an insightful question that elicits breakthrough answers by putting people at ease to have honest, open, and trusting conversations.