Knowledge Hub
What Is Psychological Safety at Work, and Why Innovation Depends on It
Team psychological safety is the shared belief that people can speak up with an idea, a question, a concern or a mistake without being embarrassed or punished for it. It is the condition for people to share ideas, admit problems and test new things, which makes it the starting point of innovation.
Authors: Shannon Phillips & Tristan Ham
This guide uses the term in the team sense that Amy Edmondson defined in 1999. It sets out what psychological safety is and what it is not, why ideas depend on it, the signs a team can observe, what leaders do each week to build it, and how it works in a team of two. Our position is brief: no psychological safety, no innovation.
On this page
01
What Is Psychological Safety
The Definition of Psychological Safety
Amy Edmondson introduced team psychological safety in a 1999 paper in Administrative Science Quarterly and defined it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”. An interpersonal risk is anything a person could be judged for: an unfinished idea, a question that reveals a gap, a concern about a plan, an admitted mistake.
It Belongs to the Team
Psychological safety describes a group. The same person can speak openly in one team and stay silent in another.
It Concerns Speaking Up
Edmondson describes it as “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up”.
It Goes Beyond Trust
Trust is what one person expects of another. In the same paper, team psychological safety “involves but goes beyond interpersonal trust”: it is what people expect from the team as a whole.
02
Common Misreadings
What Psychological Safety Is Not
The term is often read as comfort. Edmondson’s paper says the term is meant to suggest “neither a careless sense of permissiveness, nor an unrelentingly positive affect”. In 2025 she and Michaela Kerrissey returned to the subject in a Harvard Business Review article subtitled “Six misconceptions that have led organizations astray”. Our own list has five misreadings that matter to a team that wants new ideas.
It is not
Where the misreading leads
What it means in practice
Being nice
People agree in the meeting and disagree afterwards. Weak ideas pass because nobody wants to object.
People challenge the idea and respect the person. Disagreement about the work is expected.
Lower standards
Missed commitments go unmentioned, and performance drifts.
Standards stay high. People can say early that a target is at risk.
Agreement
A team that reports no conflict is usually holding it back.
Different views are heard before the decision, and the decision is then carried out.
A promise that every idea goes ahead
Being heard is confused with being approved, and a refusal feels like a punishment.
Every idea gets an answer and a reason. Many of the answers are no.
A policy or a poster
The statement is published and behavior stays the same.
It is built in daily responses to ideas, questions and mistakes.
In our programs we teach it as one rule: challenge ideas, never relationships. Conflict about the task improves the work. Conflict about the person ends the conversation.
03
Safety and Standards Together
Psychological Safety vs Accountability
Psychological safety and accountability are separate, and a team needs both. In a conversation with the NeuroLeadership Institute in 2024, Edmondson said of psychological safety: “It doesn’t mean freedom to not do my job correctly.” She describes four zones, according to how much of each a team has.
Zone
Psychological safety
Accountability
What a leader sees
Apathy zone
Low
Low
People do what is asked and no more. Little is said and little changes.
Comfort zone
High
Low
Meetings are pleasant and people speak openly, but commitments slip without consequence.
Anxiety zone
Low
High
Targets are demanding and people work hard, but they hide problems and keep new ideas to themselves.
Learning zone
High
High
People raise problems early, test ideas and hold each other to the result.
The anxiety zone is the one that stops innovation: the standards are in place and the ideas are missing. The remedy is to add safety and keep the standards.
04
No Psychological Safety, No Innovation
Psychological Safety and Innovation
We teach that people are idea machines. Every employee notices problems and thinks of improvements in an ordinary week. Whether those thoughts are spoken depends on what happened the last time someone spoke. Innovation asks three things of people, and each one is an interpersonal risk.
Sharing an Idea
An unfinished idea can be dismissed in front of colleagues. When ideas get no answer, people conclude that ideas are not wanted, and they stop offering them. See How to Respond to Employee Ideas So People Keep Sharing.
Admitting a Problem
Most improvements begin with someone saying that something is not working. Where bad news is punished, problems are reported late, when they cost more to fix.
Testing Something New
A test can fail in public. Psychological safety is one of the five principles of Unbounded Thinking’s 2 Hour, $20 Test, next to bias for action and evidence over opinion: a small, cheap test makes it safe to be wrong early.
The research points the same way. Edmondson’s study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company found that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, which she lists as “seeking feedback, sharing information, asking for help, talking about errors, and experimenting”. Google’s Project Aristotle studied 180 of Google’s own teams and listed psychological safety first, in order of importance, among five dynamics of effective teams. What fear does to a person’s thinking is covered in Innovation Culture: The Neurobiological Bottleneck.
05
What to Look For
Psychological Safety Examples: Signs a Team Can Observe
A team can tell where it stands without a survey. Watch one ordinary week of meetings and messages, and compare what happens with the two columns below.
Where to look
When psychological safety is low
When it is present
Meetings
The same two or three people speak. Others agree, then raise their concerns afterwards in private.
Most people speak, including the newest and the most junior. Concerns are raised in the room.
Bad news
Problems reach the leader late, softened, or from someone outside the team.
Problems are reported early by the person closest to them.
Mistakes
The first question is who was responsible.
The first question is what happened and what to change.
Ideas
Ideas go to the leader in private or are not raised. Nobody knows what became of the last one.
Ideas are raised in the open, and each one receives an answer.
Disagreement
The team says it has no conflict, or the conflict is about people.
People disagree about the work, sometimes strongly, and continue to work well together.
Questions
People act as if they understand and ask a colleague later.
People say when they do not know, and ask for help.
One sign deserves particular attention. In our programs, a team that says it never disagrees is treated as a warning, because the disagreement is usually being held back.
06
For Leaders
How to Build Psychological Safety: What Leaders Do Each Week
Psychological safety comes from how leaders respond to ideas, questions and mistakes. Posters and value statements do not create it. These six habits fit into the meetings a team already holds.
Go First
Open one meeting each week by naming something you got wrong or do not know. People judge how safe it is to admit a mistake by what the leader admits.
Ask for the Problem
End each discussion by asking what could go wrong with the plan and what the team has missed, then wait for the answers. A general call for questions rarely produces any.
Answer Every Idea by an Agreed Date
Thank the person, say what was decided and why, and say what happens next. A clear no with a reason does less harm than silence. KWOKKA by UBT™ gives each idea an owner and a defined path to a decision: see idea management software.
Challenge the Idea, Never the Person
State your reservations about a proposal and your reasons, and make clear that the working relationship is not in question.
Keep Tests Small
Ask what the smallest test of an idea would be, and treat a failed test as data. When being wrong costs two hours, people are willing to try.
Invite the Quiet Voices
Notice who has not spoken, and ask for their view before giving your own. Frontline staff and new hires often see a problem first and mention it last.
Building Innovation Dream Teams is our course on psychological safety, collaboration across functions and idea flow.
07
Conflict and Team Stages
Your Team Is Not Broken. It Is Storming.
Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model of group development names four stages: forming, storming, norming and performing. In storming, differences over roles and ways of working come into the open. Conflict is at its highest, and innovation stalls here.
Storming Is a Stage
A team in conflict has reached the second stage of four. Every team passes through it. A team that appears to skip it has usually avoided the disagreement and will meet it later.
Teams Return to It
A new member, a new owner, a move or a change of direction sends a performing team back to storming. One project team can be storming inside an organization that performs well.
Psychological Safety Is the Way Through
Teams leave storming by talking about how they work together, which requires people to say what is not working. The method is plain: the whole team in one room, a whiteboard, and an agreement to work through the stage together.
The stages and their effect on innovation are set out in Innovation Culture: The Stages of Team Effectiveness.
08
Teams of Two to Ten
Psychological Safety in a Small Team
Most guides to psychological safety are written for large organizations with a human resources function and an annual survey. The teams in Google’s study ranged from three to fifty people, with a median of nine. The idea applies equally to a team of two.
A Team of Two Is Still a Team
Two partners, or an owner and a first employee, must each be able to tell the other that something is not working. With no third person to raise the matter, silence lasts longer.
The Owner Is in Every Conversation
In a small business, the person who decides pay and hours also hears every idea. The owner’s first reaction to an idea or a mistake sets the rule for everyone.
Nothing Is Anonymous
A survey of six people identifies its authors. Small teams learn where they stand from the signs above and from direct conversation.
One Hire Changes the Team
A third or a tenth person returns the team to storming. Agree in that person’s first week how the team raises ideas and disagreements.
Small teams also have an advantage: a leader of five people can change how ideas are answered within a week.
09
Next Steps
Find Out Where Your Organization Stands
The signs above describe one team. To see the pattern across departments, ask the people who work in them.
One Person’s First Look
The free Innovation Readiness Snapshot takes about five minutes and gives one person a first view of how ready the organization is to turn ideas into results.
The Whole Organization
The Innovation Readiness Assessment asks staff across your organization about four areas, including People: capability, mindset and permission to contribute.
A Shared Language
In our innovation workshops, each participant works through an idea of their own, and the team leaves with one method and one vocabulary for raising and testing ideas.
The Wider Culture
Innovation Culture explains how psychological safety, a clear path from idea to decision and different ways of thinking work together.
10
Questions About Psychological Safety at Work
What is psychological safety at work?
Psychological safety at work is the shared belief that people on a team can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes without being embarrassed or punished. Amy Edmondson defined team psychological safety in 1999 as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”.
Is psychological safety the same as psychological health and safety?
No. Team psychological safety concerns speaking up in a team. Psychological health and safety concerns the protection of workers’ mental health. In Canada, the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace is a voluntary standard, launched in 2013, for promoting mental health and preventing psychological harm at work. In Australia, regulators such as SafeWork NSW publish codes of practice on managing psychosocial hazards at work. This page covers the team meaning only.
What is the difference between psychological safety and trust?
Trust is what one person expects of another. Psychological safety is what people expect from the whole team when they speak up. Edmondson wrote that team psychological safety “involves but goes beyond interpersonal trust”.
Does psychological safety mean lower standards?
No. Psychological safety and accountability are separate, and strong teams have both. Edmondson calls high safety with high accountability the learning zone. High accountability with low safety is the anxiety zone, where people work hard and keep problems and ideas to themselves.
How do you build psychological safety in a team?
Leaders build it through repeated responses: admitting their own mistakes first, asking for problems, answering every idea by an agreed date, challenging ideas without criticizing people, keeping tests small and asking quiet team members for their view.
What are the signs of low psychological safety?
The same few people speak in meetings, concerns are raised afterwards in private, problems reach the leader late, mistakes lead to a search for blame, ideas receive no answer, and the team says it never disagrees.
How do you measure psychological safety?
Researchers use surveys: Edmondson’s 1999 paper includes the seven-item scale she used. A survey needs enough respondents to stay anonymous, so small teams rely on observable signs. The Innovation Readiness Assessment asks staff across an organization about permission to contribute as part of its People area.
Why is psychological safety important for innovation?
Innovation depends on people sharing unfinished ideas, admitting problems and running tests that may fail. Each is a risk taken in front of colleagues. Where that risk is punished or ignored, people stay silent, and the organization loses ideas it already has.
About the author
Shannon Phillips
Co-Founder and Innovation Strategist
Designs structured innovation systems for enterprise organizations and helps leadership teams set priorities that reflect how the organization operates.
About the author
Tristan Ham
Co-Founder and Lead Facilitator
Leads the delivery of innovation programs for enterprise and public sector teams and helps groups align on priorities and reach decisions.
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