The Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment (PSLA) is a set of free resources. It helps organizations and leaders assess and address strategies impacting psychological health and safety (PHS). It’s based on the requirement for competent leadership as described in the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the National Standard).
Leaders complete a self-assessment to identify positive strategies they’re currently using consistently. It also shares strategies they could implement to promote PHS.
- Organization-wide approach. The assessment can be assigned to all or select leaders. This would be done by an administrator authorized by the organization.
- Individual leader approach. Individual leaders can confidentially take the assessment for their own learning and development.
- Employee feedback. The optional employee feedback version obtains perspectives from the leader's direct reports. This shows whether the employees are aware of these strategies being applied. It provides an opportunity for team discussion to help build a shared understanding.
This isn’t a personality or character assessment. It focuses only on how much strategies known to support psychologically safe work are being applied.
The Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment is meant to be part of continual improvement in leaders. It can be accessed as many times as desired.
Leadership strategies known to support psychological health and safety
Psychologically safe leader resources are based on the requirement for competent leadership in the National Standard. These evidence-based tools were made by Dr. Joti Samra, R.Psych. and her MyWorkplaceHealth.com team. They also had support from the Workplace Strategies for Mental Health team.
It contains statements ranked by the leader, sharing how much they use these strategies. Each strategy can be tailored for unique work needs or situations. This can include remote or safety-sensitive work.
The assessment can be assigned to leaders by an administrator authorized by your organization. Leaders can also use the assessment for their personal and confidential learning and development.
Organizations can use these free resources as tools and training. This will help support psychologically safe leadership. The PSLA helps with specific strategies and clear direction.
The PSLA is meant to be part of leaders’ ongoing improvement and can be used as many times as desired. The leader self-assessment and employee feedback version take about 20 minutes to complete.
Leaders self-assess against these strategies
Leaders complete a self-assessment that helps identify positive strategies they’re currently using. The tool will share both strategies and free resources that support action. When applied, these are known to support a psychologically safer workplace.
This is a self-assessment and leaders could potentially mark themselves perfect on each strategy. Let leaders know their employees will later give feedback on the same strategies. For this reason, results will be most helpful if leaders are honest about which strategies they do only some of the time. This will flag potential opportunities for improvement before the employee feedback is collected.
There’s no medical or health information collected. The PSLA is focused only on strategies known to support a psychologically safer work environment.
Employees can share their perception of leadership strategies
The optional employee feedback version obtains perspectives from the leader's direct reports. This shows whether the employees are aware of these strategies being applied. It provides an opportunity for team discussion to help build a shared understanding. Employee perspectives could differ from the leader because of:
- A work incident like violence or harassment
- Changes in team dynamic
- Current conflict
- Current organizational changes that are difficult for employees
- Personal health or family issues that impact judgment or observations
- A previous leader who wasn’t psychologically safe
- Work overload
- Lack of clarity about demands
- Fear or anxiety about job retention
- Lack of awareness about what the leader does in confidence
This isn’t a personality or character assessment. It focuses only on how much strategies known to support psychologically safe work are being applied.
Action plans are developed for continual improvement
Free resources are provided. These assist individual leaders or organizations to take action towards psychologically safer leadership.
- Psychologically safe leader personal action planning
- Psychologically safe leader organizational action planning
Confidentiality
The PSLA is hosted on the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety website. They protect the confidentiality of the data entered and only share aggregate information. This information is used to improve this resource.
When the PSLA is administered by the employer, they’ll be able to see a leader’s PSLA results.
For leaders who sign up for and complete their own assessment, their information remains confidential.