Have you ever felt completely at ease and safe in a group or community? That sense of being able to show up as yourself without fear of being judged or ridiculed? If so, then you already know how valuable psychological safety can be.
The level of psychological safety in your organisation plays a key role in how employees engage and contribute to the success of their team. But strengthening psychological safety takes a shared effort from everyone on the team. This article gives you the essential knowledge you need to understand the concept, the history, the dynamics and the actions that help build psychological safety at work.
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety describes an environment where people feel safe to speak openly about concerns, share ideas, ask questions and give honest feedback.
The level of psychological safety in a group reflects how willing team members are to contribute without fear of being punished, dismissed or sanctioned. This is a key factor in your team’s long-term success.
Unlike trust, which is often defined between individuals, psychological safety exists in a group or space where people come together to solve a task. That means the level of safety can shift depending on who’s in the room at any given time. It also means that when psychological safety is high, the team gains access to the kinds of input that lead to better solutions. Within the boundaries of task delivery, team members are able to ask questions, express doubts, offer critical feedback, disagree and introduce new perspectives – if psychological safety is present.
Not sure whether your team has psychological safety? In this video, Morten from Feedwork breaks down what it looks like in real life when teams collaborate (danish).
The concept of psychological safety is relatively new and emerged from Amy C. Edmondson’s research on trust in teams during the 1990s. Her work initially focused on the healthcare sector, where she set out to explore how trust among team members influenced their performance, error rates and treatment outcomes.
During the studies, researchers made a surprising discovery when they analysed which medical teams reported the highest number of treatment errors in hospitals.
Take a guess: Which teams do you think reported the most errors?
- Teams with high trust
- Teams with low trust
The unexpected answer was: 1. Teams with high trust.
At first, the research team was baffled. Had there been a mistake in the data processing? Were the results mixed up? But the key turned out to lie in the word “reported”. Teams with low trust were simply less likely to report errors – or to feel safe doing so – compared to teams with high trust.
So while the study couldn’t conclude which teams actually made more mistakes, it strongly suggested that higher trust leads to a greater willingness to speak openly and learn from errors.
In contrast, when psychological safety is low, people are more likely to hold back their thoughts for fear of coming across as negative or offending others.
Benefits: Why invest in psychological safety?
It might seem obvious that there are more benefits than drawbacks to investing in psychological safety. But what specific advantages can you expect from putting focus on it?
Research shows that teams with strong psychological safety:
- Achieve better results
- Experience higher engagement and motivation
- Have lower employee turnover
- Learn and grow from mistakes instead of hiding them
- Leverage diversity as a strength rather than a source of conflict
- Are more innovative and willing to experiment
In other words, working with psychological safety provides clear benefits – and with a focused approach, it can take your organisation a long way.
Before we dive into how to get started, let’s look more closely at some of the most significant advantages of psychological safety. These are based on practical experience, expert input and international research.
- A stronger learning environment
In a study of nurses in Belgian hospitals, researchers found that teams with high psychological safety made fewer mistakes and were more likely to report them in order to learn – even though all teams agreed on the importance of reporting. This pattern has been seen in multiple studies.
Another way psychological safety supports learning is by reducing reliance on “workarounds”. A workaround is the quick fix you come up with to solve today’s problem without addressing the underlying issue. In strong learning cultures, people are encouraged to solve problems at the root so everyone benefits in the long term.
Workarounds often occur when people do not feel safe speaking up or challenging existing routines. When psychological safety is high, team members are more likely to voice the real issues rather than applying temporary fixes.
- Higher performance
Across a wide range of studies using different methods, in different industries and regions, the results are consistent: teams with high psychological safety outperform comparable teams with low safety. This has been documented in studies by Edmondson (1999), Baer & Frese (2003) and others.
A key finding is that psychological safety becomes especially critical in teams working with process improvement or innovation – where collaboration, sharing ideas and challenging norms are essential. In contrast, it’s less critical in highly repetitive or routine work.
- Greater employee engagement
When we talk about engagement, we mean more than just job satisfaction. Engagement is about how passionate people feel about their work and how committed they are to the organisation.
Engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile – and psychological safety has been shown to be a predictor of engagement, particularly when it supports strong relationships within the team.
If you feel that you'd like a helping hand getting started in a safe and supportive space, we’re here to help you move forward. There are several ways we can support you.
You can benefit from a free masterclass on psychological safety (danish). You’ll find the digital learning journey on psychological safety here.
Challenges and Barriers to Creating Psychological Safety
Many leaders and teams want more psychological safety but find it difficult to put into practice.
- Overestimating psychological safety
One of the most common barriers is that leaders overestimate how psychologically safe their team members actually feel. Unconscious exclusion mechanisms, lack of involvement, and perceived favoritism can quickly undermine trust within the team.
- Unclear communication
Communication style can also become a barrier – for instance, when criticism is delivered without respect or when mistakes are met with sarcasm or silence. This creates uncertainty and causes employees to hold back rather than contribute.
- Misunderstanding the concept
Some also misunderstand psychological safety as the absence of discomfort. In reality, it is about being able to speak up – even about difficult topics – without fear of negative consequences.
Creating psychological safety requires consistent effort and a conscious culture where both leaders and employees take responsibility.
Your responsibility as a leader
The leader of a team carries a particular responsibility for fostering psychological safety. Due to the leader’s position and influence, it is critical that they lead by example. The leader’s behaviour sets the tone and is often mirrored by the rest of the team.
As a role model, the leader must also ensure that the team’s ground rules are respected – this helps protect the psychological safety of the group from breakdowns or uncertainty. It requires self-awareness and active effort to maintain and strengthen the team’s sense of safety. Recognizing leadership can be a valuable approach here.
Beyond the responsibility, the leader should also have a natural interest in building psychological safety – because it is a crucial foundation for success. We support leaders in developing their mindset and learning capacity, so new methods can be translated into meaningful practice.
Employees are better equipped to succeed and solve their tasks when working in an environment with high psychological safety.
The Four Stages of Psychological Safety
When talking about psychological safety, it is almost impossible not to mention the book The Four Stages of Psychological Safety by Dr. Timothy R. Clark. The book outlines a conceptual model consisting of four stages that teams typically progress through – from Stage 1 to Stage 4.
Here are the four stages:
- Inclusion Safety
We all want to feel included and a sense of belonging. As human beings, we need to be accepted by a group before we can expect to be heard. At its core, the first stage is about feeling comfortable being present. Inclusion safety means that all team members are welcomed without discrimination based on gender, age, social background, sexual orientation, or any other factor.
- Learning Safety
The second stage is learner safety – the ability to ask questions, give and receive feedback, experiment, and make mistakes. At this stage, team members openly request feedback and provide it to one another. The willingness to share that you are in a learning process, and to acknowledge that your skills or performance can be improved, is a hallmark of this phase.
- Contribution Safety
Contribution safety is about team members’ ability to share their own ideas in an environment where they feel safe from potential embarrassment or ridicule. This stage can be complex, as offering ideas involves vulnerability. Sharing your thoughts exposes you to criticism, which can feel risky. In a culture where contributor safety is strong, team members are encouraged to speak up because they know their input is valued and will not be met with negativity.
- Challenge Safety
At this stage, team members feel comfortable challenging existing ideas, including those from leadership. They feel empowered to suggest meaningful changes to current plans, concepts, or workflows. Challenger safety is essential for innovation, as it encourages critical thinking and constructive feedback. It is not just about questioning the status quo, but about proposing improvements and new approaches. In teams with high challenger safety, members feel emboldened to think creatively and push for better solutions.
8 Tips to Strengthen Psychological Safety in Your Team
Fortunately, there are many concrete actions you can take to build an environment that supports psychological safety. Below, we have listed several practical tips with descriptions to help you get started.
As you can probably tell, it's difficult to strengthen psychological safety in your team without involving the leader. But at the same time, the leader cannot build psychological safety alone – it requires collaboration to succeed.
Free Mini Masterclass on Psychological Safety
Looking for a place to start? Psychological safety is an ongoing process that requires time, patience and insight. Our free mini masterclass is a concentrated, experience-based introduction to psychological safety – built on years of practical work with large organisations.
In just 37 minutes, you'll get:
- A clear definition and nuanced understanding of psychological safety
- The 3 most useful tools that the leaders we work with return to again and again
- The most common pitfalls leaders fall into – and how to avoid them
After watching the masterclass, you'll be ready to start creating real change in your team.
Get access to the free mini masterclass here (danish).
Workshops and Leadership Training on Psychological Safety
When working to increase psychological safety in your organisation, there are many important aspects to consider: What behaviours do you show each other? How do you communicate? How is your work structured? Do you create space for everyone to contribute?
We can support you in addressing all of these questions. You can read more about what a psychological safety journey could look like for your team [here].
If you want to dive deeper into psychological safety, visit our knowledge section where you’ll find resources, tools and articles on everything related to the topic – including how to strengthen mental health in the workplace.
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