In Episode 6 of Season 2, it's just the two of us again - Juliet and Susan - exploring the relationship between psychological safety, risk and growth.

We know that humans learn and grow best when they are, and feel, safe. We also know that in order to grow, we need to stretch beyond comfort, and into activities, areas, mindsets that don't feel easy at all. Doing so carries risk, of course, but without that stretch into areas with risk, we can't develop our skills, our leadership, ourselves.

In this episode Juliet describes a three-ring 'target': the center is your comfort zone and where you experience the most psychological safety. The outer ring represents the full-on flight or flight danger zone, where showing up is so far beyond our skills and self-concept that we are likely to be rendered immobile and/or fail. (Always? No. But it's still a good conceptual model.) So it's the middle ring, the one between the comfort zone and the danger zone that is the most generative and fruitful for risk taking, stretching and ultimately, personal and professional growth.

We didn't explore this but we know that people are notoriously poor judges of both what they can handle, and what they can't, usually blending a mix of both under- and over-estimating capacity. In another episode, we'll explore how we learn to know, and to trust ourselves in moments where we are being stretched, where there's risk, and where we are likely to expand and grow.

We enjoyed our discussion together, and doing these "duo" episodes, so we'll continue to pepper them in along with episodes with guests.

Thank you for listening - we're so glad you're here. If you don't subscribe to the Podcast yet, please do. We'd hate for you to miss an episode!

And if you've enjoyed this or any other episodes, please leave us a 5 star review so others can find us as well.

Secrets of the C-Suite is both a podcast AND a leadership consultancy. You can learn more about our offerings here.

You can reach Juliet directly at [email protected], and follow her on socials:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Her website is www.JulietClothier.com

You can reach Susan directly at [email protected], and follow her on socials:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Her website is www.SusanASutherland.com