Safety Leadership and Neuroception
How the Polyvagal Theory Enhance Workplace Safety, Engagement, and Performance
As engineering leaders, we put much effort into building technical solutions that solve customer problems. But all we do starts with people - how we manage them and what environment we create to make them feel empowered.
In today’s article, I would like to explore people management from a different angle. For that, I invited my dear wife, Iga Stanek, a psychologist and psychotherapist currently undergoing certification by PVI USA.
Iga will share how to build a safe workplace for your teammates that boosts engagement and team performance. Her hints are based on the latest physiopsychological research and the Polyvagal Theory. Below is the original article from Iga.
Here, you can find a PDF cheat sheet summarizing this article.
You may be wondering what all this talk about safety means. Fear not—I'm not here to lecture you on employment law or safety regulations. Nor do I assume that you, as someone who manages others, would resort to mobbing or other harmful tactics. On the contrary, I believe that if you're reading this, you're interested in learning how to nurture the mental health and safety of your colleagues. Let's focus on that for the next few minutes.
Have you ever considered what it means to feel safe at work? How do you define safety? From a physiopsychological perspective, safety is a sensed experience—it's a state of security (physical, social, emotional) that fosters engagement and participation. We detect safety cues through neuroception, a term introduced by Stephen Porges in 2009, which I believe every leader should be familiar with.
Polyvagal Theory (PVT), developed by American psychologist and neuroscientist Stephen Porges, suggests that our autonomic state acts as a mediator, guiding us from vulnerability in threatening situations to accessibility in supportive environments, aided by safety cues and appropriate social support.
In simpler terms, neuroception engages the resources of the Autonomous Nervous System (ANS) and regulatory systems based on the presence or absence of safety. It serves as our internal “safety radar,” operating subconsciously to continually assess our environment through:
Internal Check (Inside): Am I safe? Do I have what I need?
Interpersonal Check (Between): Am I safe? Am I seen, liked, understood, supported?
Environmental Check (Outside): Am I safe here? Do I belong here?
Safety is not just a concept but an embodied state, fundamental to regulation.
Why is this important? As a leader, your goal is to introduce as many safety cues as possible to your teams. The more people you work with, the greater the challenge to create and maintain this safety-oriented neuroception.
"Safety is the foundation of adaptive human capacity and the basis of engaged human activity." - T. Stackhouse, 2022
Understanding and fostering a Neuroception of Safety is critical for your team’s engagement, performance, and access to neural resources and co-regulation. A skilled leader recognizes their role in influencing the team's sense of safety or threat.
The nervous system evaluates risks outside our conscious awareness. From a Polyvagal perspective, threat responses disrupt normal function, indicating that not only the actions but also the manner of actions matter.
According to Dr. Porges, two elements are needed to create proper neuroception:
Removing threats and their indicators in both physical and emotional realms.
Introducing signals of safety.
So, how do you implement this? Here are six basic strategies to make you and your team feel well, safe, and productive:
Clarity - nothing can disrupt the relationship between a leader and an employee more than a lack of clarity and transparency regarding the principles of cooperation, i.e., the scope of duties, the rules of basic remuneration as well as all allowances, bonuses, the employee's development path - the requirements that they must meet to get promoted, etc. Nothing similarly affects the employee's sense of safety - clarity in these issues is the absolute foundation on which we can build the rest, including our expectations as a leader. Your transparency in this area is the first cue of safety you can give to your people.
Predictability - it has a lot in common with its predecessor regarding the work environment and its rules. It should equally apply to you as a person leading others. I bet you don't feel safe around someone who can burst out of the blue, raise his voice at others, and quickly switch from one emotional state to another. Be predictable in the best sense of the word - let others know what to expect from you - calmness, stability, attentive and cordial attitude.
Belonging - a good leader knows how powerful the feeling of belonging to a team is and how much it influences the work atmosphere and effectiveness. They can recognize people in the team who have a special talent for building a community - do you know that person who brings cupcakes to the office for no reason, is the first to know the details of employee events, is liked by everyone because they can find a common language with literally everyone? If so - guard this treasure like the eye in your head and let it bloom, because it does a lot of difficult and necessary work, which is integrating the team and cultivating relationships within. Even if in their “technical role” they are an “average” employee in your opinion. Their (and others') role in the team is much broader.
Flexibility and sensitivity - while sitting in a cafe and writing this text for you, I accidentally overheard a conversation - probably of some team leader - with his superiors or colleagues from the same level. He was talking about an employee he had recently hired who was on a probationary period but needed time off due to the death of his cat. Everything was fine in his narrative until the words were said: "I told him that I understand that it's hard for him, BUT crying at work is not welcome and that he still has to prove himself, because he is still on a probation period and his absence doesn't help him in this case...."
From the business side, I understand where this statement comes from. At the same time, this message does not help either the leader who is worried about the team's results and goals or the employee immersed in enough sadness and chaos. This is not a message that could pull him out of this chaos and back to a sense of safety, and this is what (from the perspective of the polyvagal theory) we, as leaders, should care about the most. Only by experiencing safety in relationships and teams can we invest our energy in work, being creative and effective. Writing about being vulnerable, I would like to share with you a quote by Brené Brown, which, in my opinion, well summarizes the situation described above and how much influence the fate of an individual has on the life of the entire group or team:
Because we are hardwired to belong, exclusion will always create suffering—and not just for the excluded. Injustice eventually corrodes everyone’s sense of safety and well-being.
Co-regulation - ongoing relationships based on mutual regulation, trust, and exchange characterize the safest (at the same time one of the most effective) teams, regardless of the industry. But, to be able to influence others soothingly - you must first master the art of self-regulation, which is one of the key soft skills in today's leader's work; unfortunately, often underestimated and not even noticed or included in training plans drafted by HR departments. Remember - you are your coworkers' biggest source of safety or threat.
A sensory-friendly environment - the last thing that may seem to some a mere whim, to others - trivial, but it is impossible not to mention it in the context of employees' mental health and designing a safe work space. You could write a separate article on this subject, so here I will share only one quite universal rule - the more stimuli (visual, sounds, smells, sensory, etc.) attack your employees, the worse the conditions it creates for the so-called deep work. Check what you can do as a leader to remove these sensory obstacles.
For the Ambitious - “Safe Environment Plus”
If you want to go even a step further and devote more time to your self-development, remember this trinity:
Your voice - it is important not only what you say, but also HOW you say it. The pace of speech (fast/slow) and the tone (low/high) can make a huge difference in communicating what you care about.
Your gestures (face, body) - as a psychotherapist, I know how difficult it can sometimes be to maintain a neutral facial expression or control body reflexes (have you ever caught yourself nervously shaking your foot, tapping your fingers on the countertop, or having your eyebrows shoot up dangerously high in response to words of your interlocutor? So you know what I mean). Our facial expressions and the whole body are a powerful source of information (and safety) for other people about what is currently happening in us at the level of thoughts and emotions.
Your intention and commitment are two things that the sooner your teammates read correctly, the easier it will be for you to build an effective and fulfilled team.
Finally, I wish you good luck and I leave you with the thought that guided me in writing this article. I hope that it will stay with you for a long time as a guide on your path to becoming a better leader:
“If you want to improve the world, start by making people feel safer."
- Stephen Porges
Thanks for reading!
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