How to Create Psychological Safety on Your Team, According to Harvard‘s Amy Edmondson

As a leader, have you ever held back from sharing an idea or asking a question because you were afraid of how others would react? Have you ever stayed silent in the face of a problem or mistake, worrying that you‘d be blamed or punished for speaking up?

If so, you‘re not alone. The fear of interpersonal risk is all too common in the workplace. A recent Gallup poll found that only three in 10 U.S. workers strongly agree that their opinions count at work. And that pervasive lack of psychological safety is taking a huge toll on organizations‘ ability to innovate, adapt, and thrive.

The good news is that as a leader, you have the power to create a team culture where everyone feels safe to speak up, experiment, and challenge the status quo. And according to Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School professor and pioneer of the psychological safety concept, it‘s not only possible but imperative for 21st-century success.

I recently sat down with Professor Edmondson to learn more about why psychological safety matters so much in today‘s business environment, what holds teams back from achieving it, and most importantly, how leaders can cultivate it through their everyday words and actions.

Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation:

Psychological Safety 101

First, let‘s define the term. Psychological safety is the belief that you can speak up, ask questions, raise concerns, and pitch ideas without fear of being punished or humiliated. Edmondson describes it more formally as "a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking."

Importantly, psychological safety is not about being nice or avoiding conflict – in fact, Edmondson argues that the highest-performing teams have high levels of both psychological safety and accountability. It‘s a climate where dissent and debate are welcomed as long as they‘re in service of learning and getting to the best outcome.

According to Edmondson, there are four essential stages that teams must progress through to achieve high psychological safety and performance:

1. Inclusion safety: Members feel a sense of belonging and acceptance.
2. Learner safety: It‘s safe to ask questions, give/receive feedback, and make mistakes.
3. Contributor safety: People feel empowered to make a meaningful impact using their skills & knowledge.
4. Challenger safety: Team members can question others‘ views or suggest significant changes without fear of retribution.

The goal is to create an environment that supports progression to the highest stages, where teams can engage in truly generative thinking and boundary-pushing innovation.

Why Psychological Safety Matters More Than Ever

The need for psychological safety in organizations has never been greater. Consider a few key trends shaping the world of work:

• Growing complexity: As the business environment gets more volatile, uncertain and ambiguous (VUCA), solutions to problems are less and less likely to come from the top down. Organizations need to tap into the collective intelligence and creativity of employees at all levels to find the best path forward.

• Increased diversity: Teams are becoming more diverse across dimensions like age, ethnicity, gender, and geography. Research shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones, but only when they have high psychological safety. Without it, diversity becomes a liability rather than an asset.

• Knowledge work: More and more of the value created by businesses comes from knowledge work – tasks that require learning, analysis, problem-solving and creativity. Knowledge workers need to feel safe asking questions, brainstorming, and experimenting to do their best work.

• Faster pace of change: The accelerating rate of technological and market change means that what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. Individuals and teams need to feel safe pivoting quickly, running experiments, and challenging established ways of doing things.

Together, these trends make building a psychologically safe team culture less of a nice-to-have and more of a must-have for organizations that want to compete and win. Edmondson‘s research bears this out:

In a two-year study of 16 hospitals implementing a new technology, she found that the teams with higher psychological safety learned the technology more quickly, used it more effectively, and made fewer mistakes.

In a separate study of 51 work teams across a range of industries, Edmondson found that the teams with higher psychological safety had better performance outcomes, as rated by their managers. The psychologically safe teams also reported higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

The Risks of Low Psychological Safety

What happens when you have low psychological safety on a team? Edmondson points to three main risks:

1. Mistakes get swept under the rug: When people are afraid to admit mistakes or point out problems, small issues can quickly snowball into big failures. Think of the General Motors ignition switch scandal, where engineers were aware of a deadly defect for over a decade but were too scared to escalate it up the chain.

2. Groupthink takes hold: Without dissenting opinions, teams fall prey to confirmation bias and make poor decisions. The Challenger space shuttle disaster is a tragic example – engineers had serious safety concerns before the launch but were overridden by NASA managers intent on sticking to the schedule.

3. Innovation grinds to a halt: When the status quo goes unchallenged and experimentation is seen as too risky, organizations stagnate and get disrupted. Kodak and Blockbuster are classic cautionary tales of once-dominant companies that failed to adapt to digital technology in part because their cultures punished risk-taking.

The costs of low psychological safety are too high to ignore in today‘s fast-moving business landscape. As Edmondson puts it: "In knowledge-intensive businesses and competitive contexts, the learning and agility enabled by psychological safety is increasingly vital to success."

Building Psychological Safety as a Leader

So how can you as a leader set the stage for psychological safety on your team? Edmondson offers several evidence-based recommendations, as well as common missteps to avoid.

Do: Frame the work as a learning challenge

One of the most important things leaders can do is frame the team‘s work as an ongoing process of learning and improvement rather than a matter of mere execution. Adopt the mindset that you‘re all figuring things out together in an uncertain environment.

Edmondson advises saying things like: "This project is complex and none of us has all the answers. We‘re going to have to ask a lot of questions and rely on each other‘s expertise to solve problems." This kind of framing sets expectations that speaking up, admitting mistakes, and challenging ideas are not only acceptable but essential.

Don‘t: Let hierarchy get in the way

Research shows that people in positions of power tend to underestimate the difficulty of speaking up from below. They assume that if team members have relevant ideas or concerns, they‘ll naturally voice them – an assumption that‘s often incorrect.

To counteract this bias, leaders need to proactively invite input and make space for people at all levels to contribute. Use language like "I need your help" or "I‘m sure I‘m missing things – what am I not seeing?" to show humility and encourage participation from everyone.

Do: Respond productively to bad news

How you react when someone shares a concern, points out a mistake, or challenges your view sends a strong signal about whether psychological safety exists. If you respond with curiosity and appreciation, you reinforce that it‘s safe to speak up. If you get defensive or dismissive, you teach people to stay quiet.

Edmondson recommends using phrases like "That‘s a really good point – tell me more about what you‘re seeing" or "I appreciate you raising that issue – let‘s figure out how to solve it" to encourage more open communication on your team.

Don‘t: Punish failure

Another common leadership misstep is coming down hard on people or teams when things go wrong. While it‘s natural to want to hold someone accountable, an excessive focus on blaming and shaming has the unintended consequence of driving issues underground.

Instead, treat failures and mistakes as opportunities for learning. Conduct blameless postmortems to understand what went wrong and how to prevent similar issues in the future. Celebrate intelligent failures that provide valuable insights. Of course, repeated or malicious mistakes should be addressed, but overall, emphasize learning over punishment.

Do: Create space for new ideas

Psychological safety isn‘t just about admitting mistakes – it‘s also about feeling safe to pitch unconventional or untested ideas. To encourage more creativity and risk-taking on your team, Edmondson suggests carving out dedicated time and space for brainstorming and experimentation.

For example, you might hold regular "blue sky" sessions where people are encouraged to share their wildest ideas without fear of judgment. Or you could adopt a "yes, and" approach in meetings where the goal is to build on each other‘s suggestions rather than shoot them down. The key is to create an environment where it feels exciting and rewarding to think outside the box.

Don‘t: Expect immediate results

Building psychological safety on a team is not a quick fix – it requires ongoing effort and consistent modeling from leaders. Edmondson cautions against expecting instant trust or open communication, especially on teams with a history of low psychological safety.

Instead, focus on small wins and incremental progress. Celebrate moments when team members take interpersonal risks, even if the outcome isn‘t perfect. Keep reinforcing the message that it‘s safe to speak up and experiment. Over time, as people see that their voices are truly valued, psychological safety will become self-sustaining.

Conclusion

Creating a culture of psychological safety is one of the most important things leaders can do to help their teams perform at their best. By making it safe for everyone to speak up, experiment, and challenge the status quo, you unlock the full potential of your people to innovate, solve problems, and drive better business outcomes.

As Amy Edmondson‘s research shows, psychological safety is not a "nice to have" – it‘s a strategic imperative in a complex and rapidly changing world. Organizations that fail to create psychologically safe environments for their teams risk falling behind, while those that get it right will have a major competitive advantage.

Of course, building psychological safety is easier said than done. It requires leaders to model vulnerability, invite dissent, respond productively to failure, and make space for new ideas day in and day out. It takes time, effort and a willingness to go against the grain of traditional, top-down management approaches.

But as Edmondson argues, the payoff is more than worth it: "Psychological safety enables people to bring their full selves to work and contribute their talents and ideas in service of shared goals. It‘s not just good for individuals – it‘s good for business."

As a leader, you have the power to shape your team‘s culture and create the conditions for psychological safety to thrive. By putting Edmondson‘s insights and recommendations into practice, you‘ll be well on your way to building a fearless organization equipped to tackle the challenges of the future.