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Authentic Ewe® Podcast

Can You Create Your Own Psychological Safety? with Dr Adam Dorsay

Season 3

What if psychological safety isn’t only something an organisation or leader gives you?

In this episode of the Authentic Ewe® Podcast, Penelope Aiken is joined by psychologist, executive coach and bestselling author Dr Adam Dorsay to explore connection, meaning, strengths and a different way of thinking about psychological safety.

Adam is the author of Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the 4 Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love, which explores four areas of human connection: ourselves, other people, the world around us and something greater.

Their conversation raises a question at the heart of the developing HUMAN LENS® methodology:

Have we focused so heavily on what organisations and leaders should do to create psychological safety that we’ve overlooked the importance of helping individuals understand what they need, meet some of those needs for themselves, and communicate those needs to others?

Penelope and Adam explore:


  • why psychological safety is both environmental and internal
  • the importance of locus of control when circumstances around us feel unsafe
  • why people need different things in order to feel psychologically safe
  • the relationship between safety, challenge and growth
  • why psychological safety needs to be demonstrated and practised, not simply talked about
  • how job crafting can create greater meaning and connection to work
  • intrinsic motivation versus external rewards
  • how VIA Character Strengths can help people understand what matters to them
  • why organisations may need to give people a “menu” of possibilities when asking what they need to feel safe, rather than expecting them to know immediately

It’s a conversation about giving people greater agency without removing the responsibility organisations and leaders have to create healthy, psychologically safe environments.

And it provides an important piece of the research informing HUMAN LENS® — Authentic Ewe’s developing methodology for creating workplaces where people feel safe to be their authentic selves.

Learn more about Dr Adam Dorsay:

https://dradamdorsay.com

Explore Super Psyched:

https://dradamdorsay.com/super-psyched-book-page/

Listen to Adam’s SuperPsyched podcast and learn more about his work:

https://dradamdorsay.com

Explore Authentic Ewe®:

https://www.authenticewe.com

Listen to the Authentic Ewe® Podcast:

https://shows.acast.com/authentic-ewe-podcast

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/authentic-ewe-podcast/id1835334323

Hosted by Penelope Aiken | Authentic Ewe®

HUMAN is what people need. LENS is how we create it.

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