Psychological Safety at Work: What Is Psychological Safety?

Psychological safety is the ability to share your ideas, opinions, concerns, and mistakes without fear of negative consequences such as shame or ridicule. In a work environment, team psychological safety encourages interpersonal risk-taking, where team members can contribute ideas, participate in decision-making, provide feedback, and comfortably express themselves within the group.

MIT professors Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis first explored the idea of psychological safety in relation to organizational challenges in the 1960s. The concept underwent a revival in the 1990s when Boston University Professor William Kahn revived discussion of psychological safety in the context of summer camp. In 1999, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson published a well-known paper exploring the connection between psychological safety and team performance. Edmonson’s work brought psychological safety out of academia and into the mainstream business world.

Psychological safety at work can have a sizable effect on teamwork and team success by reducing the feeling of personal risk. The importance of psychological safety goes beyond mental health care or merely feeling like a part of a team. A psychologically safe workplace:

• Allows the group to learn from individual mistakes: Feeling safe enough to share when you’ve made a mistake means everyone gets to learn from the error. It also encourages others to share their mistakes and builds interpersonal trust, improving team climate and fostering acceptance that mistakes happen and are necessary to improve.
  
• Boosts employee engagement: When you feel psychologically safe, it is easier to participate in group efforts such as idea generation, problem-solving, and project collaboration. More engagement leads to high-performing teams. Check out designers Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia’s tips for creative collaboration.
• Encourages inclusivity: Psychologically safe workplaces naturally support diversity by making every team member feel like an equal participant. DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts can feel like lip service without psychological safety.
• Improves stress: Psychologically safe environments can improve mental health by easing the stress of having to prove yourself every time you speak. Less stress on the job means increased productivity, a sense of well-being, and a genuine desire to contribute to the team’s success. Learn more about stress management from Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program.
• Increases team innovation: Innovation requires creative thinking to fuel idea generation. When inspiration strikes, the workplace culture must feel safe for you to want to share it with the group. If there’s a chance of ridicule or humiliation, there’s a lack of psychological safety, and the idea will never see the light of day. Learn more about why business innovation is crucial for success.

In his book, The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, Dr. Timothy Clark presents a stage-by-stage model that groups can use to increase their level of psychological safety and create safe teams where all members feel comfortable enough to contribute. The four stages are:

1. 1. Inclusion safety: According to Dr. Clark, human beings have a fundamental need to connect with others and feel like they belong. In this first stage of psychological safety, you learn to feel safe as a group member, exactly as you are. This stage isn’t about having great ideas; it’s about feeling comfortable being present with your team. You feel included and accepted as a valued team member without fear of embarrassment or rejection.
2. 2. Learner safety: Once you feel like you’re a part of the team, you feel safe to learn. Learning occurs when team members can openly ask for help, ask questions, experiment, make mistakes, and give and receive feedback. Learning leads to growth.
3. 3. Contributor safety: The third stage happens when you feel safe enough to contribute your unique skills and ideas and make a difference to the group. You can apply what you’ve learned and share your best efforts. Sharing creates a feedback loop that promotes leadership development since the more your contributions are encouraged, the more confidence and competence you gain.
4. 4. Challenger safety: In the final stage, you feel safe enough to speak up and challenge the status quo to improve team effectiveness. You can suggest changes or express concerns safely, which allows for discussion and discovery of new and better ways to achieve goals.

Here are some actions you can take to create a psychologically safe workplace.

• Be an active listener. Active listening conveys that you hear the person talking and understand the idea they’re trying to express. Active listening involves letting go of self-awareness and putting all your attention on the speaker without preparing a rebuttal in your mind. Reflect on the speaker’s message, focus on retention, ask for clarification if you need it, and don’t interrupt with counterarguments.
• Encourage respect. If you spot an employee displaying offensive behaviors or speaking in a way that threatens the team’s sense of psychological safety, don’t ignore it. Intervene and remind them how important the shared belief in psychological safety is to employee experience and the success of an effective team.
• Initiate open conversations. You can model curiosity at work by asking your team members their thoughts and opinions. Respect that they bring their expertise to the table, and even if their ideas run counter to yours, the conversation alone will go a long way to making them feel safe to express themselves. Learn how to ask for feedback to create a culture of active participation.
• Treat mistakes as learning opportunities. Mistakes are going to happen. In a psychologically safe environment, it’s important to avoid blaming or making anyone on your work team feel ashamed. Instead, concentrate on team learning by discussing the mistake as a group, focusing on what knowledge the team can gain from the mistake and how to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
• Lead by example. To create an environment of psychological safety, everyone in the workplace—including senior management and team leaders—needs to be on board. If you’re in a management position, it’s vital to acknowledge your fallibility when you’ve made a mistake, so team members feel it’s safe to have a misstep. Be open to communication, ask for feedback, and actively listen to the opinions of others.

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