Psychological Safety of Our Team

June 24, 2025

by Stephen T. Messenger

I asked myself, “How many times in my 25-year career have I not felt psychologically safe?” The answer was uncomfortably high.

Last week, we discussed the question: “Boss, what do you want me to do?” I posted this on LinkedIn, and the discussion was amazing! There were over 150 comments with some proponents and some opponents but all great feedback.

What I got out of the comments section was that people are more willing to take initiative when they feel supported by their boss. This caused me to revisit an article I wrote here in 2023 and ask, “Am I creating a culture where people feel safe to make things happen on their own?”

In other words, we need to create an environment of psychological safety with our people. Full stop.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is the shared belief that anyone can speak up without a risk of public humiliation or punishment. It’s when an employee feels they can take action without fearing a boss is going to crush them on the backside. It’s the confidence that a leader will act in a way that is favorable to both individuals and the group.

But it’s more than just the leader-member exchange. Psychological safety is a feeling where every participant trusts each other to the point where they’re comfortable bringing forth ideas and dialogue to the group. It’s not enough to build trust with the leader but to have it with everyone in the room.

This is sometimes challenging because two factors that must both be true:

1. Our leaders, peers, and subordinates in an organization must be accepting of any type of dialogue or idea.
2. We must feel safe enough to express those ideas.

Psychological Safety Relates to Performance Standards

I ran across the above sketchnote from Professor Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Bottom line: leaders set the tone.

I’ve thought about this often in my occupation but never conceptualized it. In my last assignment influencing thousands of people, I loved it so much I pulled this diagram out with all the senior leaders and discussed it.

The x-axis is a scale of performance standards ranging from low to high. I argue that leaders must always set the bar high and push the organization to do more than they can think or imagine. In fact, it’s the mantra of this website – The Maximum Standard.

The y-axis represents the psychological safety our team may feel, high or low, in the organization. It’s something we control.

Putting these two factors together, the matrix becomes compelling.

Low Standards and Low Psychological Safety = Apathy. In most cases, our people come in to work every day wanting to do a good job. Yet, if we set low standards and they simultaneously believe we’ll rip their head off if they do or say something they don’t like, they’re not motivated to perform. They remain silent to protect themselves from the boss.

High Standards and Low Psychological Safety – Anxiety. High standards are great. But an unsafe environment just stresses everyone out. If we’re driving our people to do more while creating an environment where they’re fearful of bringing new ideas to the table, we’re creating anxiety in our team. This may result in paralysis or at the very least frustrated employees.

Low Performance Standards and High Psychological Safety = Comfort. In this scenario, the standards are again low, but trust and safety are high. This is good and bad. Good because people like working there. Bad because there are no major gains happening. We’ll get by but not move the ball forward.

High Performance Standards and High Psychological Safety = Learning. This is where we must aim to be. Our people are held to the highest standards while being comfortable speaking up, talking about new ideas, and making progress by trying and failing.

The Learning Zone

Personally, I want to live in the Learning Zone. I want to be challenged every day by others and myself but have my mistakes overwritten by the boss. As a leader, I want to create an environment where my people are trying new things and learning everyday—not afraid to fail but willing to fail for the sake of seeking breakthroughs.

Here, people feel empowered to speak up, share concerns, and ask questions knowing they’ll be heard. They’re comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” and then go seek out the answers. They admit mistakes and learn from them, sharing lessons with the group. Finally, they live in a state where they’re not hindered by interpersonal fear and a cooperative culture thrives.

It’s About the Discussion

So how do we get there?  We have to talk about it. I recommend taking this sketchnote and having a dialogue with your leadership team. Ask where everyone is on the chart. Share thoughts about it. Talk about where you have been, where you are, and where you want to go. And let them frame the conversation while you listen.

Then let them have the same conversation with their leadership team.

This is often about cultural shift, and it won’t happen by itself. Groups typically take on the personalities of their leadership. We have to start a strategy to assess psychological safety and then cultivate it to filter down to all levels in our organization. Create safe spaces and challenge our team!

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