Even among people with similar beliefs, a smooth, uniform pivot to a new understanding of safety requires diligent, competent, well-intentioned leadership. According to Eric Scott Geller, a psychologist at Virginia Tech who has studied safety for more than 40 years, the best way to get lots of people to adopt new safety precautions is to be explicit and consistent about what they are and why they’re important, and then demonstrate examples of people adhering to them repeatedly over time.

—Amanda Mull, The Atlantic

Does the image above elicit any strong emotions? I am willing to bet that it does. Even prior to the pandemic, many people who saw a person in PPE may have remembered unpleasant hospital visits, poor health, or faceless administrators. By now, however, no one can look at this and come away with a neutral impression.

I’ve written previously about the importance of employees feeling safe coming to work, particularly as the pandemic continues to spread. Generally, I like to distinguish between physical and social safety at work, and I often think that the latter gets lost as organizations rapidly adjust to regulations required to keep workers physically healthy. However, achieving a physically safe workplace involves more than simply implementing measures that guide bodies through space; it demands a recognition of the emotional dynamics that undergird perceptions of safety.

In a recent Atlantic article, Amanda Mull examines the power of perceived safety, which often does not reflect actual safety. Some of us may wonder why people resist wearing masks, for example, at a time when virtually every medical expert recommends wearing one in public, especially indoors. But, as Mull points out, if you associate the image of people wearing masks with a dystopian, fearful world, you will not feel safe, regardless of how effective that strategy is in reality.

We could easily politicize this tendency, but I would prefer to look at it with a more universal lens. As the quote above notes, the susceptibility to perceptions over reality can even divide people with identical political beliefs. In this era of COVID-19, we have all experienced the awkwardness among friends and family as we negotiate preconditions of safety in situations that are normally loving and natural.

Dinners, birthdays, weddings, and other occasions have become fraught with uncertainty as people negotiate safety measures amid concerns about negatively impacting relationships. Should we be six feet apart, or has newer information on the range of droplets determined that we should actually be more than fifteen apart? Should we dine together outdoors, or should we avoid gathering for meals altogether, because they require lowering masks in order to eat and drink? The spontaneity we value in friendships can be lost to hypervigilance, and at times, it feels downright silly to mark locations as if we were assigning positions for characters in a play.

All of this awkwardness carries into the work environment as well. However, the workplace has two advantages over our more casual interactions: Existing leadership can insist on new protocols, and workers are more responsive within the organizational hierarchy than a family member or friend would be in an unstructured social setting. Still, workers are not blindly submissive—they need to understand action items clearly and trust in the rationale and thoughtful implementation. As safety expert Eric Scott Geller puts it, “the best way to get lots of people to adopt new safety precautions is to be explicit and consistent about what they are and why they’re important.”

Despite politicization and our evolving understanding of the virus, the general safety guidelines have remained remarkably consistent: Wear masks, keep distance, avoid unnecessary contact, and clean areas of contact regularly. The bigger problem involves the perceptions around these basic measures. Wearing a mask, as we have learned this year, can make many people feel muzzled and confined. It can lead them to prefer environments without masks, even though they run a far greater risk there.

We have a great opportunity in the business world not only to set a healthy example but also to reposition safety measures in a more benign light. Through Geller’s prescription above, leaders can remove any stigma associated with such measures: We wear masks to practice consideration, to help ourselves and others, not because we’re intimidated into submission. Achieving the safest possible workplace may require more compassion for those who are initially opposed to masks and social distancing, understanding their reluctance rather than dismissing their reactions as foolish or simply political. We all feel at least a little bit uncomfortable in these temporary conditions the world requires, even if our responses differ.

In addition to clarity about safety measures, Geller recommends that we “demonstrate examples of people adhering to them repeatedly over time.” If you lead an organization with multiple branches, you can normalize the changes by highlighting locations that have successfully, enthusiastically, and consistently followed protocols. Perhaps share their experiences going through this process with the rest of the organization. Resistant employees may find solace and a new resolve by observing or reading about another branch’s successful adaptation.

As humans, we must not only be safe but also feel safe. Thus, implementing safety measures represents only half of a leader’s job. The other half involves helping relieve workers of the anxieties and dread that pandemic precautions inevitably evoke. We all feel some degree of unsettling emotion under stress, and we all have strategies to combat those feelings. Sometimes the strategies are ill-advised, but the more leadership compassionately encourages workers, the safer we will all truly be.