What is psychological safety at work? Here’s how to start creating it

Have you ever questioned your boss’s decisions in your own mind, but felt it was safer to just not say anything out loud? Unfortunately, far too many workplaces have a culture where that sentiment is common. It can result in mistakes that should have been prevented, lost opportunities, and an overall lack of new and original ideas. The antidote is to build a psychologically safe workplace, which can make an incredible impact on teams reaching their goals (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023).

“Psychological safety” has become a catchphrase. Those unfamiliar with the term often think about protecting workers’ mental health or protecting workers from psychological harm to ensure a psychologically healthy workplace, just as “physical safety” means protecting workers’ bodily health. But psychological safety is one component of a psychologically healthy workplace. It is a specific, targeted concept critical for innovation and success.

Psychological safety develops over time. When it exists, members of a team can be themselves, and they share the belief they can take appropriate risks, and they can and should:

• admit and discuss mistakes,
• openly address problems and tough issues,
• seek help and feedback, 
• trust that no one on the team is out to get them, and 
• trust that they are a valued member of the team.

For example, when an employee makes the decision to pose difficult questions to their boss about a tough issue, there is a risk the questions may be misperceived as a personal attack or as unproductive, which depending on the leader and the team could put the worker’s job or reputation in jeopardy.

Amy Edmondson, PhD, the Novartis professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School and author of The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growthopens in new window, says, “Leaders must prioritize a culture of learning and innovation for team members to be comfortable speaking up, taking risks, and sharing information. This does not happen by default. It emerges with effort and curiosity and care. When achieved, the result is a more creative, innovative, and successful team and organization.”

You can measure where your team stands by asking them the following questions in an anonymous survey:

• If you make a mistake on this team, will it be held against you?
• Are the members of this team able to bring up problems and tough issues?
• Do members on this team sometimes reject other members for being different?
• Is it safe to take a risk on this team?
• Is it difficult to ask other members of this team for help?
• Would anyone on the team deliberately act in a way that undermines efforts?
• Working with members of this team, are unique skills and talents valued and utilized?

Robert Sutton, PhD Stanford professor, organizational psychologist, and co-author of The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harderopens in new window, says “A good test is, who are the stars in your workplace? Are they the people who stifle, frighten, and blame their colleagues? Or do they promote learning and drive out fear by talking openly about their own mistakes and gently but candidly pointing out others’ failures and mistakes, and talking about what we can all learn together from such troubles? When people talk about their own mistakes, rather than point out others' missteps, that suggests your workplace is psychologically safe." 

Here are some great examples to begin building this culture:

Leaders can

• Celebrate learning from mistakes and build “lessons learned” debriefing sessions into every project.
• Lead by example to show how to raise problems and tough issues for discussion in a constructive, nonjudgmental manner.
• Encourage all team members to raise problems or tough issues that may be on their minds.
• Applaud thoughtful risk taking and demonstrate it yourself.
• Publicly recognize and celebrate the unique skills and talents brought by each member of the teams you lead.

Organizations can

• Train leaders and managers on concrete steps for fostering psychological safety.
• Examine the organization to see if there are unnecessary hierarchies, chains-of-command, or professional boundaries that discourage communication from front-line workers to upper management.
• Provide ways to recognize and celebrate employees’ unique skills and talents in organization-wide communications.
• Repeatedly emphasize that the organization will not tolerate any employee deliberately undermining the efforts of another employee. 

Employees can

• Focus on finding solutions with questions like “what can we all do to help solve this problem?”
• Ask others for their opinions—with questions like “I’d love to get your feedback on that idea.”
• Actively listen to the ideas shared by your colleagues and ask respectful questions.
• Extend kindness and respect when team members share ideas even if you disagree with them.
• Provide feedback in a respectful, thoughtful way.

Beth M. Schwartz, PhD, associate director in the Office of Applied Psychology at APA, noted “Through psychological safety we can find out what each member of a team has to offer. It allows us to learn what smart and talented team members really bring to the table, and ultimately, leads to more productive organizations.”

Much more can be found in Edmondson’s many publications, including her two books The Fearless Organization and Right Kind of Wrong.