Ask Dr. AJ: On Psychological Safety in STEM and How to Talk to your Imposter Monster
- AJ Lauer
- 20 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Q: I keep hearing people say we need to work toward “psychological safety” at work. What does that actually mean and look like?
Dr. Amy Edmondson, foremost expert on psych safety says this:
“Leaders must prioritize a culture of learning and innovation for team members to be comfortable speaking up, taking risks, and sharing information. This does not happen by default. It emerges with effort and curiosity and care. When achieved, the result is a more creative, innovative, and successful team and organization.”
What it means is that team members feel safe to be themselves (all identities are included), ask questions, make mistakes, and take risks such as challenging others on the team. They know they can do these things without risk to their employment or work opportunities.
Here are some examples of what that might look like in a STEM context:
Ana realizes that there is an error in her supervisor’s research plan. When Ana brings up the issue, her supervisor takes the feedback and thanks Ana for keeping the team from moving in the wrong direction.
Matt accidentally sends a huge job to the supercomputer three times at once. It consumes the machine’s workload, preventing anyone else from sending jobs through. The team helps him troubleshoot the issue, and then conducts a retrospective so they can all learn from the mistake.
The team is planning an off-site retreat, but the leading dates fall over one of Samira’s religious holidays. Samira feels comfortable bringing up the conflict, knowing the team will respect her need to be in community on those days.
Q: What does a conversation with our Imposter Monster look like?
That will somewhat depend upon your relationship with your Monster! Borscht is quite sassy, so our conversations are pretty playful. Yours may be more serious, or could be longer or shorter depending upon how verbose y’all are.
But the basics of it should be the same:
1. Hear your Monster Notice that they are there and acknowledge them
2. Get curious Wonder about why they have shown up and what they are trying to accomplish
3. Do a reality check and rebalance expectations Let yourself take in the full picture of what is going on - not just a fear-based reality
4. Redefine the relationship Help your Monster (and thus yourself!) change how they are thinking about you from a negative or scary way to something more positive
5. Choose your next action Work together to find a more constructive way to handle the situation in the future
6. Close the conversation Thank your Monster for what they were trying to do, and say goodbye for now
I’ve created a sample Imposter Monster Conversation Script that will walk you through the specifics of how to do this.
New to the Imposter Monsters concept? Learn more here.