Creating Psychological Safety at Work

Although I’d like to think I’m experienced and qualified in my work, I firmly believe that every day is a school day.

Recently, I kept hearing the phrase psychological safety. It came up in meetings. It appeared in articles I was reading. When a term follows me around like that, I take it as a cue to explore it properly.

The more I researched, the more I realised something important: I already understood the concept. In fact, I had been consciously trying to build this kind of environment for years. I just hadn’t known there was a name for it.

I have since developed training on psychological safety at work because, unfortunately, not every organisation or leadership team can confidently say they have it.

So here is my take on psychological safety, at its simplest and most practical level.

What is psychological safety?

At its core, psychological safety at work is the belief that you can speak up without fear of humiliation, punishment or negative consequences.

It means being able to:

• Ask questions

• Admit mistakes

• Challenge ideas

• Offer a different perspective

• Raise risks early

And not feel that doing so will put your reputation or career at risk.

It does not mean:

• Avoiding challenge

• Lowering standards

• Agreeing with everyone

• Removing accountability

It means creating an environment where people feel safe enough to contribute fully.

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, who led much of the foundational research in this field, defines psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

Her early research in hospital teams found something surprising: the highest-performing teams reported more mistakes, not fewer. This was not because they were less competent. It was because they felt safe enough to report errors.

In lower-performing teams, mistakes were just as frequent. They were simply hidden.

That distinction matters.

In organisations without psychological safety, silence can look like agreement. Meetings feel smooth. Decisions move quickly. But the real conversations happen afterwards in corridors, side chats or private messages. Risks remain unspoken. Ideas are filtered. Concerns are diluted.

And performance quietly suffers.

What psychological safety looks like in practice

Earlier in my career, I held a role where colleagues were afraid to disagree, admit mistakes or challenge decisions. At the time, I could not articulate what was wrong. I just knew the atmosphere felt tense and cautious.

Looking back, it was an environment without psychological safety.

When I later stepped into senior leadership roles, I became determined to create something different. I made it explicit that people would not “get in trouble” for asking questions or raising concerns. More importantly, I reinforced that surfacing issues early was a strength, not a weakness.

In one senior leadership role, the staff satisfaction score was 47% when I arrived. Two years later, it had risen to over 90% and remained there.

With hindsight, I now recognise that we had created a psychologically safe culture. People felt heard, supported and able to speak openly.

How leaders create psychological safety

Psychological safety is rarely built through bold declarations or new policies. It is shaped in small, everyday leadership behaviours.

For example:

• Saying, “I might be wrong. What do you think?”

• Thanking someone for raising a risk instead of becoming defensive

• Responding calmly to bad news

• Noticing who has not spoken in a meeting and inviting them in

• Admitting publicly, “I got that wrong”

• Normalising asking for advice, which signals trust and respect

The opposite is also true.

Eye-rolling. Interrupting. Public “jokes” at someone’s expense. Shutting down challenge too quickly. Reacting harshly to mistakes.

These micro-behaviours send powerful signals about whether it is truly safe to contribute.

Psychological safety and power

Psychological safety does not feel the same at every level of an organisation.

Senior leaders often feel comfortable speaking freely. That comfort is not automatically shared by others.

The more authority you hold, the more impact your reactions carry. A raised eyebrow from a director can close down a conversation faster than any formal policy.

If you are in a leadership position, it is worth reflecting:

• How do I respond when challenged?

• Who speaks most in my meetings?

• Who rarely speaks?

• When did I last visibly change my mind?

Leadership behaviour is culture in action.

Does psychological safety reduce accountability?

A common concern is that focusing on psychological safety will lower standards or reduce performance.

Research suggests the opposite.

High-performing teams combine psychological safety and high expectations.

Safety without standards leads to comfort without progress. Standards without safety lead to anxiety and blame.

But when people feel safe and clear about expectations, they take intelligent risks, raise issues earlier and learn faster. Psychological safety does not remove accountability. It makes accountability possible.

You cannot improve what people are afraid to talk about.

Practical ways to build psychological safety at work

If you want to strengthen psychological safety in your organisation, the changes do not need to be dramatic.

Try:

• Starting meetings with, “What might we be missing?”

• Running short learning reviews after projects, including what did not go well

• Sharing something you learned from a recent mistake

• Thanking people explicitly for raising concerns

• Asking your team directly, “Do you feel safe to disagree with me?”

Culture is not what we write in strategy documents or values statements.

It is what people experience when something goes wrong.

If no one ever disagrees with you, that is rarely a sign that everything is working perfectly. The question is not whether your team is positive. The question is whether they feel safe enough to challenge.

A final thought

This blog only scratches the surface of what psychological safety really means, but understanding it at this level is an important first step.

Psychological safety at work is not a soft concept. It is a strategic leadership capability. It directly impacts performance, engagement, retention and organisational learning.

If you would like to explore the topic more deeply, my colleague Lou Chiu has spent years researching and working in this area, examining psychological safety at both individual and organisational levels.

She will be sharing a follow-up blog that takes a deeper dive into the theory and practice behind it.

And if you are thinking about how leadership behaviour, culture and performance connect in your organisation, we would be very happy to have that conversation.

Don’t miss out on our latest Blogs; if you haven't already, sign-up and become a member of our community here.