Candid
Level 4. Scores 76 to 100. Your team says what it thinks, if you really saw it.
On what you have seen, your team says what it thinks: to you, in front of each other, about mistakes, about not knowing, and about your decisions. Few teams are here and fewer leaders can honestly rate their own team here, so before anything else, count how many times you answered neither. If it is low, you have seen this. If it is high, you have assumed it, and the score is describing your hope.
Assuming it is real, the risk at this level is not the room going quiet. It is two other things. The first is that a Candid room can be candid and unkind. Directness works because people know you are on their side; a team that has learned to name problems without learning to name them warmly will be right, fast, and slowly losing its newer members.
Look at item seven. If newer or junior people are asking the naive question in front of the group, the candour is kind. If they are not, it is a room where the strong speak and the rest watch.
The second is that Candid rooms often depend on one person: you. When you are away, when you are replaced, when the team is merged with another, the safety leaves with the leader who built it. The test is whether your managers, if you have them, run rooms like this one. You can only find out by asking, or by sending them this scale.
The difference between candour and bluntness for sport is where it lands. Candour is aimed at the problem. Bluntness for sport is aimed at the person. The culture I grew up in separates the two on purpose. You talk about the problem, the blame does not land on a person, and whoever raises the flag or admits the mistake is celebrated for speaking up.
Two habits keep a Candid room warm. The first is leaving titles at the door: in the room, rank does not decide who is right, and anyone who plays rank gets called on it. The second is restraint. That is not suppression. It is balance. You can be direct without being loud and firm without being harsh. People take hard things from someone they know is on their side.
One thing to do this quarter. Send this page to whoever leads teams under you and compare scores, without commentary. Then, when the team mode ships, run it on your own team and see whether they agree with you. A Candid leader is the leader most surprised by a team result, because the confidence that the room is safe is the thing the room may not want to disturb.
Next step: a team that speaks up will tell you what is wrong with your meetings. Cost them with the meeting cost calculator, then decide which ones you would keep if you had to argue for each.
Next step
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About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Psychological Safety Scale, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.