The Surprising Role of Leaders in Creating Safety
As leaders, you bear the responsibility of creating a ‘safe environment’ for your employees to thrive. It’s a big ask to ensure the well-being of others. Especially when most of us already struggle with responsibility for our own health and well-being.
While physical and psychological safety are commonly acknowledged, there is another dimension of safety that is often overlooked in leadership – the concept of a ‘felt sense’ of safety.
Safety as an Embodied Experience.
Safety isn’t merely an intellectual concept. It’s an embodied experience.
Consider how your body reacts when you feel threatened. You might sense that something is wrong without being able to pinpoint the exact cause.
It’s not just a thought. It’s a feeling in your body. A change in your heart rate, a shift in your breathing, an uneasy feeling in your chest or stomach.
We are quite literally ‘wired’ for safety. Our nervous system has evolved to detect threats below the conscious level of our awareness. Acting as an internal alarm system and automatically responding to perceived danger.
This amazing and complex system has kept us alive. Ensured our species could survive and adapt.
Another significant part of this primitive wiring is how we connect with others. Within our nervous system and brain are a collection of neural pathways that are responsible for our facial expressions and bodily cues.
Cues that let others know whether or not we are ‘safe’ to approach. Most of the time we are not conscious of these cues.
The Impact on Leadership Presence.
Think about someone you know. How do you feel when they enter the room?
Do they drain the air, creating a dense, heavy, fearful energy?
Or do they radiate warmth and optimism, lighting up the space?
You know how they make you feel before they say a word. You can sense whether it is ‘safe’ to engage with them or not.
This lens offers a fascinating perspective on leadership effectiveness.
Beyond words, your emotional state, posture, breath, facial expressions, and non-verbal cues all serve as powerful messengers. Silently conveying signals of threat or safety to those around you.
For instance, imagine a meeting where a leader enters with a genuine smile, open body language, and an attentive presence. Team members immediately feel at ease, contributions flow freely, and a collaborative energy fills the room. Challenges can be addressed openly and constructively.
In contrast, when a leader enters with tension, closed-off body language, and a distracted demeanour, the atmosphere can become stifling. Team members may hesitate to speak up and share their ideas. Disagreements can simmer below the surface, remaining unresolved and hindering progress.
As a leader, you have a profound influence on others through your embodied presence, shaping the emotional climate and setting the tone for interaction.
Ask yourself, “What is my nervous system automatically communicating to those around me when I walk into a room (or appear on a zoom screen!)? And more importantly, “What impact does this have?”
Whether intentional or not, do you create chaos and anxiety? Prompt shut-down and disengagement? Or do you inspire a felt sense of safety that encourages open communication, trust, and healthy resolution of conflict?
The Window of Tolerance.
In my exploration of conscious leadership and my own personal growth, I’ve delved deeply into somatic and trauma-informed work, which introduced me to the Window of Tolerance.
Originally developed by Dr. Dan Siegel M.D., this concept illustrates the ‘zone of optimal arousal’ for effective functioning in everyday life.
While initially used to understand and work with trauma in a therapeutic context, it also holds significant relevance in leadership.
The size of your window determines your capacity to tolerate intense emotional reactions and cope with the stresses and strains of everyday life.
Operating outside of your window can lead to agitation, anxiety, anger, overwhelm, and exhaustion. Triggering your default mode of survival and self-protection. Compromising and hindering your ability to be fully present, connected, and regulated.
Source: adapted from work by Dan Siegel, Peter Levine & Pat Ogden
Benefits of Being Within the Window.
Operating from within your window allows you to:
Navigate challenges effectively
Think creatively & clearly
Embrace curiosity and be open to experiences and ideas
Make better, more rational decisions
Stay grounded and engaged in the present moment
Better manage your response to stress and pressure
Stay simultaneously calm and alert
Have a general sense of energy & vitality
It also significantly influences and enhances your ability to connect with and relate to the people around you.
As a leader, when you operate from within your window, it has a deep and positive impact on all your relationships. Team dynamics and collaboration strengthen, and you are better able to cultivate a climate that invites a ‘felt sense’ of safety for everyone.
So Where Next?
To achieve true leadership mastery, it’s not enough to understand theoretical frameworks and concepts. You have to learn to master yourself.
The journey starts with self-awareness. Recognising and accepting the situations and triggers that push you outside your window.
Awareness empowers you to choose how you respond instead of reacting from a default state.
With practice, you can identify tools and strategies to self-regulate and increase your capacity to tolerate stress and pressure.
Over time, this will widen your window, allowing you to remain within it even when life throws curveballs and triggers your internal alarm system.
In Conclusion.
Creating a culture of psychological safety goes beyond the conventional ideas of safety in leadership.
By recognising the embodied experience of safety, understanding the Window of Tolerance, and embarking on a journey of self-mastery, leaders become powerful catalysts for cultivating psychological safety and unlocking the full potential of their teams and organisations.
So, let’s embrace awareness, make conscious and intentional choices, and practice the tools that bring both body and mind back into balance. By doing so, we can foster a deeper felt sense of safety in ourselves and others, shaping a workplace where everyone can thrive.
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