This HBR piece by Amy Edmondson was interesting. I’ve tried to put the key points, as I see them, below.
→ What People Get Wrong About Psychological Safety (Harvard Business Review, May 2025)
“Indeed, the research evidence that psychological safety improves performance is extensive and robust.”
“Thinking that psychological safety is about being nice or feeling comfortable is one of the most common misconceptions.”
“Safety and comfort are not synonymous. Safety is the condition of being protected from danger, harm, or injury. Comfort is a state of ease and freedom from pain.”
“Psychological safety and accountability are distinct dimensions. To decide which is more important is to impose a false dichotomy.”
“And teams fall easily into groupthink — where members don’t want to disrupt what they erroneously assume is a consensus.”
(We have tangible examples of this.)
“We can’t mandate psychological safety any more than we can mandate things like trust and motivation.”
“Anyone can call attention to the need for input or ask questions to draw others out, and anyone can respond to others in productive rather than punitive ways. By showing interest in other people’s ideas and concerns, team members can reinforce their peers’ voices and help establish a productive learning climate.”
“Good leaders build psychological safety by talking about the challenges their organization faces or the goals they want it to achieve.”
“It is not a stretch to say that the quality of our conversations determines the quality of our results.”
The article includes a rubric I found useful — “Is Your Team Having a High-Quality Conversation?” — worth a look.
“Timely input, candid feedback, and robust debate are as vital for ensuring innovation as for preventing strategic blunders. Leaders who create the kinds of teams that practice these ways of interacting will be poised to outperform those who do not.”
— Mark, 2025-04-11