Why Psychological Safety at Work Is Important

When individuals don't feel accepted in the workplace, their stress increases, their motivation worsens, and their health suffers. In fact, a 2024 survey by Headspace found that 77% of employees said that work stress had negatively impacted their physical health. That's why it's critical that businesses support the psychological safety of their employees.

But what is psychological safety? Originally defined by Professor of Organizational Behavior at Boston University, William Kahn, psychological safety is “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” According to a McKinsey survey, 89% of employees believe that psychological safety in the workplace is essential. For businesses that want to succeed in the long term, psychological safety should be a major organizational priority.

Why Psychological Safety Matters

As a business leader, creating psychological safety is a key part of accountability. Done properly, it enables you to set fair expectations and, in turn, get the best from your people. Simultaneously, psychological safety makes it easier for people to question the status quo. Freedom of opinions is essential if you want to develop new business ideas, stand out from your competitors, and attract the best talent.

This is true across all levels of organization, as highlighted by an example from Amy Edmondson, a Harvard professor. In 2003, the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in seven fatalities. Weeks prior to the disaster, one employee did have concerns, but didn't feel able to speak up. This tragedy led to the formation of the NASA Safety Culture program.

While the individuals involved may not have been able to change the final outcome, it could have been enough to stall the launch or bring attention to the space shuttle’s shortcomings. That’s why creating a psychologically safe work environment where every employee feels able to contribute is so important.

The key to creating the right environment for teams to excel involves balancing psychological safety and accountability (as shown in the image below). When this happens, your team will be more able to contribute freely, promoting better mental health and enabling them to strive for excellence without fear of repercussions.

The Risk of Burnout When Triggered in the Workplace

When we experience stress in the workplace, our brain triggers its fight-or-flight response. Acute stress shuts down our ability to think strategically and shifts our behavior from reasonable and rational to primal and reactive. Without the appropriate safeguards in place, the risk of burnout increases dramatically.

The most common triggers of our stress response at work include:

• Unrealistic deadlines

• Lack of mutual respect

• Unfair treatment from managers or peers

• Not feeling heard

• Work going unappreciated

It’s especially important for people leaders to be aware of these triggers. How you respond in any given situation determines whether your employees feel safe. Psychological safety doesn’t work if only a few team members are comfortable sharing their opinion—freedom of opinion needs to be unanimous.

What Are the 4 Stages of Psychological Safety?

According to the organizational anthropologist Timothy R. Clark, there are four stages of psychological safety: inclusion, learner, contributor, and challenger. This proposed model builds a baseline of trust across a company, gradually creating a safe workplace where employees feel able to challenge the ideas of others.

As with any framework, these stages shouldn’t be viewed as rigid. Rather than applying them as a fixed sequence, it’s important to acknowledge that different teams may move between stages differently. That flexibility in approach, in turn, encourages further inclusion. The framework progresses as follows:

1. Inclusion Safety 

The first stage of psychological safety, inclusion safety, focuses on fostering a sense of belonging regardless of factors like gender, race, religion, and age. Creating an environment where everyone feels included and people’s differences are celebrated is foundational to building trust. If employees are afraid of being discriminated against because of certain aspects of their identity, they won’t perform at their best. A strong diversity and inclusion initiative should be the first step in building psychological safety.

2. Learner Safety

Providing employees with the space to make mistakes and learn from them is a key part of promoting an environment of psychological safety. In order to learn, individuals must be able to ask questions, give and receive feedback, and get things wrong without the threat of negative consequences. By enabling employees to ask questions freely without negative repercussions, you empower them to innovate and undergo personal growth.

3. Contributor Safety 

When an individual feels they can learn without fear of negative judgment, they may be more inclined to participate in dialogue at the workplace. Greater autonomy is created, along with an increase in employee engagement. Typically, contributor safety occurs when an individual rises to the occasion in their role, is an active team member, and performs at a certain level. While a lot of this is on the employee to participate and perform well, their people leader should also support their autonomy.

4. Challenger Safety 

The final stage of psychological safety is challenger safety. Once employees have been given the freedom to learn from their mistakes and contribute to discussions openly, they can then challenge each other’s ideas. By encouraging people to question the status quo, in a respectful way, you enable a culture of constructive feedback. In turn, you embolden employees to innovate, generate new ideas, and push your organization forever forward.

How to Develop Psychological Safety

Many organizations pay lip service to psychological safety, but what practical steps can businesses actually take to foster it? First and foremost, team leaders need to take responsibility for explaining and demonstrating the behaviors they expect from their team—but the responsibility is not theirs alone. In fact, any employee can take it upon themselves to be more inquisitive, speak up when they disagree, and acknowledge mistakes when they happen. Here are a handful of ways in which senior leaders can promote a culture of psychological safety:

1. Frame the Work as a Learning Problem

Above all else, employees value honesty. By being open about the reality that people leaders won’t always have the answers, and neither will their employees, you relieve a great deal of pressure. When employers frame work as a learning opportunity, instead of something that needs to be executed, it gives people greater freedom to ask questions and brainstorm new solutions.

2. Model Curiosity and Ask Lots of Questions

One of the best ways to get other people asking questions is to ask more of them at a leadership level. For example, say someone in your team is explaining an internal process and you see a way to make the process more efficient. Instead of staying quiet, ask questions and make suggestions. When someone opens the floor to conversation, other people on the team are more likely to raise their hand as well—especially if they didn’t want to be the first to speak up.

3. Acknowledge Your Own Fallibility

It’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be able to resolve every problem your business faces, which is why you need to make sure the other people on your team know that. It can be as simple as telling people: “I may miss something—I need to hear from you.” Acknowledging your own flaws creates a psychologically safe environment for your team members, and showing humility demonstrates your leadership capabilities.

4. Make Small Changes at Every Level

Change takes time, so it’s important to start small when creating a feeling of psychological safety. Here are a few more everyday actions you can take to create a psychologically safe workplace:

• Encourage people to speak up: Certain people in your team might be more vocal than others—don’t let them dominate the conversation. You can do this by asking for an opinion from quieter team members, especially if they have specific expertise to offer. However, this shouldn’t come at the cost of making people uncomfortable. Provide multiple avenues for employees to speak up, such as a confidential employee survey platform.

• Watch out for negative behavior: Negative comments from one employee to another like “That won’t work,” or “That’s a stupid suggestion,” need to be dealt with at the source. If appropriate, intervene on an employee’s behalf—but make sure they feel empowered in the process. Teams need to foster a feeling of belonging, and negative comments hinder that massively. As a leader, it is important to demonstrate that speaking to other colleagues in this way won’t be tolerated.

• Acknowledge those who take a risk: Show your appreciation for members of the team that offer new ideas, own up to a mistake, or ask a challenging question. Each of these actions will act as a positive signal to others on the team, and help reinforce positive behaviors.

Measuring psychological safety at a company can be hard, yet it is key to understanding how employees feel at the workplace. Confidential surveys allow individuals to freely speak their mind and be more transparent with senior leaders. Read more about how Workday Peakon Employee Voice can help you be proactive about the psychological safety of your employees. 

This article has been updated since it was first published in August 2018.