Developing Mindful Organizing in Teams: A Participation Climate is not Enough, Teams Need to Feel Safe to Challenge their Leaders

Abstract

Mindful organizing (also known as collective mindfulness) is a collective capability that allows teams to anticipate and swiftly recover from unexpected events. This collective capability is especially relevant in high-risk environments where reliability in performance is of utmost importance. In this paper, we build on current mindful organizing theory by showing how two front-line communication and participatory conditions (perceived safety for upward dissent and climate for employee engagement) interact to predict mindful organizing. We shed light on the controversy around mindful organizing’s effect on team’s subjective experience at work by showing that it leads to greater team job satisfaction and thus lowers individual turnover intentions. These relationships were tested using a time-lagged design with two data-collection points using a sample of 47 teams within the nuclear power industry.