• Mar 5, 2025 • Read in ~5 mins
— By Dr. Sandip Roy.Every company, and relationship, needs psychological safety to innovate, grow, and thrive.
A psychologically safe place lets people take risks and say what they think, without the fear of being criticized for expressing their ideas.
“Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” — Amy C. Edmundson
It is the feeling of “safety” in such environments that helps people feel accepted and valued, not threatened and silenced. Everyone on the team feels secure enough to express vulnerably.
As Adam Grant says,
“Psychological safety is not about withholding criticism. It’s about enabling people to speak up without fear. The goal is not to lower our standards. It’s to replace knee-jerk reactions with open-minded consideration. All ideas are welcome. Not all views are equally valid.”
Characteristics of Psychological Safety
Anyone operating in a psychologically safe climate has the following characteristics:
- Members of the team respect each other’s abilities.
- Members are interested in one another as people.
- They believe their teammates have positive intentions.
- They are not rejected for being themselves or stating what they think.
Why Is Psychological Safety Important?
Psychological safety allows people to take risks, challenge assumptions, make mistakes, and learn.
A psychologically safe workplace provides employees with a sense of worth and belonging, as well as a feeling that they are being listened to. It also allows employees to be their authentic selves during the workday without fear of judgment or ridicule.
Deng, H., et al. (2019) found (Slacking Off in Comfort: A Dual-Pathway Model for Psychological Safety Climate) that psychological safety linked positively to group learning behavior and voice through reduced group average fear of failure.
Higher levels of psychological safety allow individuals within teams to use lateral thinking in their ideating process and communicate freely with each other. This is possible because they are not afraid to make mistakes or appear idiotic to say what’s really on their minds.
It also makes people feel more secure about making speedier, if riskier, decisions.
How To Have Psychological Safety For Happier Employees?
The following steps can help increase psychological safety in the workplace:
- Sense of Control — The employee should have a sense of control over their work environment, along with control over what tasks are completed during office hours.
- Meaningful Work — They should feel that the work they are doing is personally meaningful, whether it be through the work itself or through the consequences of that work.
- Understanding — They can understand the perspectives of others to be better to understand oneself’s own feelings.
- Shared Vision — They share the company vision and values, including a fair knowledge of how the company fosters psychological safety.
- Recognition — The higher-ups may offer rewards for people who exemplify and help further the values of independent thinking, risk-taking, sharing of responsibilities.
- Open Communication — Every level of leadership must help create an open dialogue, letting people talk freely about any issues, and foster a culture of trust with employees, and show concern for their well-being and autonomy.
- Empathy Training — Bosses should show treat employees with empathy, and teach employees how to develop empathy towards others, and replace criticism with constructive feedback.
History of Psychological Safety
The notion of “psychological safety” was introduced by organizational researchers Schein and Bennis in the 1960s, to address the need for trust and mutual respect in the workplace.
William Kahn in the 1990s reignited the idea. Kahn showed that psychological safety enables people to “employ or express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally”.
Earlier, in 1982, the American statistician and engineer William Deming argued that creating an environment where team members feel safe to take risks is crucial to fostering creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. He wrote:
“Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”
Is There A Downside To Psychological Safety?
Psychological safety is not an all-pervasive solution to organizational performance over time. It may reduce a group’s average work motivation.
After a three-year-long study (When is Psychological Safety Helpful in Organizations?) in NYC public schools, Monica Higgins (2020) found psychological safety negatively impacted performance over time.
She and her team concluded that schools performed best over time when teachers reported working in environments with relatively “low” psychological safety and “high” felt accountability.
The psychologically safe environment in schools backfires because it allows for distraction from the task at hand. Furthermore, freely expressed complaints pile up over time, creating a negative self-feeding cycle.
Final Words
Psychological safety instills a sense of trust in the members that the group will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up.
So, it is crucial to include this while formulating company policies, so that teams can work together without fear.
√ Also Read: 7 Steps To Break/Build A Habit Using Psychology
√ Please share it with someone if you found this helpful.