Effective Listening Increases Your Psychological Safety and Creativity

The domino effect of an effective listener

I planned to share some broad insights from research into listening and communication. But I discovered one study which I knew you would enjoy in depth. It explores the relationships between listening, creativity and psychological safety.

Listening Leads to Increased Creativity

Dotan R. Castro and his team explored how a supervisor, manager or leader can use listening to impact psychological safety and increase creativity.

The central claim of this research study is the domino effect of listening on psychological safety and creativity.

We argue that listening instils psychological safety in individuals, which makes them feel free to think creatively and express their ideas, and in the end, will increase their creativity.

Here are their three hypotheses:

1. Supervisor’s listening is positively associated with subordinate’s psychological safety
2. Psychological safety is positively related to creativity.
3. The effect of a supervisor’s listening on an employee’s creativity is mediated by the employee’s psychological safety.

The team worked with over 700 participants and used a range of creative fluency, listening and psychological safety surveys and tests.