5 Ways Leaders Can Build and Promote Psychological Safety Within Your Workplace

Have you ever been on a team where you felt fully supported and appreciated? An environment where you knew that it was okay to make mistakes and were encouraged to grow, entrusted by leadership to take healthy risks and reach new levels?  

When employees feel seen, heard, and valued at work, we see dramatic increases in innovation, reliability, performance, profitability, and employee retention. To reap these benefits, employees must feel psychologically safe.  

Psychological safety, a term coined by Dr. Amy Edmondson, is “the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” Psychological safety is top of mind for many leaders now more than ever as we see more companies emphasizing the importance of an environment that prioritizes feelings of inclusion and belonging at work. Still, creating a truly psychologically safe environment takes intentionality and a concerted effort to embody strategies that promote this type of work atmosphere.  

“When employees feel seen, heard, and valued at work, we see dramatic increases in innovation, reliability, performance, profitability, and employee retention.”

Consider the following techniques and approaches to take your leadership to the next level by fostering psychological safety:  

1. Embrace Transparency  

The importance of workplace and leadership transparency is often preached, but much less often practiced.  

Transparency refers to demonstrating thoughtful, honest, and authentic communication as a leader, offering insights into decision-making, policy decisions, performance feedback, and other aspects of business and everyday work culture that make people feel included in an organization’s overall vision and everyday practices. Transparency is a cornerstone of psychological safety, because when people are not given clear and comprehensive answers or information, and are instead met with vagueness and opacity, this leads to confusion, anxiety, and mistrust of leadership. Transparency facilitates necessary trust between employees and their leaders, inducing psychological safety. 

Build an environment in which employees are equipped with the knowledge and clarity they need to do their jobs effectively. This means being specific and measured about the company’s goals, purpose, and mission and how each employee fits into achieving those aims.  

Research shows that 71% of employees felt their managers did not spend sufficient time explaining goals, and 50% of employees cited lack of company-wide transparency as holding back their company. 

“Transparency is a cornerstone of psychological safety, because when people are not given clear and comprehensive answers or information, and are instead met with vagueness and opacity, this leads to confusion, anxiety, and mistrust of leadership.”

To create psychological safety, create visibility around where your company is at, and what its goals are for the future. Further, set clear expectations to ensure each employee knows what is required of them within their role to achieve those goals. This makes employees feel valued, like they belong, and that they are working toward a shared goal.  

Transparency requires action, too – meaning that with these common goals in mind, leaders must ensure that all employees are equipped with the necessary tools and resources that will allow them to be successful and meet the competencies, goals, and expectations associated with their position.  

2. Practice Empathy 

Overwhelmingly, people think of empathy as a personality trait—something you either naturally possess or lack. However, research shows that empathy is a skill that can be practiced, exercised, and improved over time.  

Empathy is the ability to interpret the emotions, needs, and thoughts of others, and to leverage this ability to take meaningful action that allows us to connect with the people around us in an authentic manner. At its most basic level, demonstrating empathy means recognizing and honoring the unique experiences, opinions, and perspectives of others. Practicing empathy facilitates psychological safety as it invites human-ness to be central to workplace relationships. It’s easy to get caught up in the bottom line, or the long to-do list in front of you. By reminding yourself to practice empathy daily, you draw your focus back to the people around you. 

“At its most basic level, demonstrating empathy means recognizing and honoring the unique experiences, opinions, and perspectives of others.”

Leaders can promote psychological safety by leaning into empathy through acknowledging and appreciating the varied lived experiences of their diverse teams. In practice, this looks like actively listening to others at the workplace – focusing on what the person is saying or asking of you before responding, and validating their feelings, perspectives, and beliefs in a respectful and open-minded way. Research has shown that demonstrating empathy leads to increased work performance, improved leadership skills, and more effective communication.   

3. Demonstrate Vulnerability 

Contrary to popular belief, being vulnerable does not mean you have to share your deepest, most personal secrets and let it all hang out. It means letting your guard down, putting pretenses aside and being yourself.  

Being vulnerable as a leader involves a change in mindset that enables you to see through the eyes of the people you lead. By doing so, you invite them to become the drivers of the conversation. The result is that people become more involved and invested. 

By creating a more open, communicative work environment through their own vulnerability, leaders are then able to discover problems faster, and people are more likely to bring issues forward and admit to mistakes if they are less afraid of doing so.  Vulnerability stimulates collaboration, learning and growth rather than fear, cover-up and blame.  

“Being vulnerable as a leader involves a change in mindset that enables you to see through the eyes of the people you lead.”

A recent Gallup survey reported that 70% of employees are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at work and even just one simple act of demonstrating vulnerability can promote a space where your employees want to participate and be an active part of the team. 

Create space on your team to share feelings and experiences, whether they relate to work, life, or the parts in between. Let your team know how you’re feeling, even if the answer is less than stellar. Be open to talking about how you personally are impacted by various events and happenings, small or large. Allow yourself to let your guard down around your team and give them the space and the time to be open back – and you’ll start to see that by not only allowing for vulnerability but demonstrating it, you can create a space where your employees feel psychologically safe and are able to be their best selves at work.  

 4. Destigmatize Failure 

We all make mistakes, yet it’s something that feels so personal and detrimental every time it happens. Why? Why are we creating environments, especially at work, where people are scared to make even the smallest of errors?  

To create an environment where people feel psychologically safe, it’s important that leaders take extra measures to destigmatize failure and let your employees know that it’s okay to make mistakes.  

One aspect of destigmatizing failure comes with trust. Employees feel safer when they feel like their leaders are on “their side,” and that they will be treated fairly and with respect and setbacks won’t be followed with negative consequences. Making it safe to fail is crucial because learning happens through experimentation, and experimentation often results in failure. In your organization, make it okay to fail. As a leader, share with your employees how you’ve failed, big and small. Keep the conversation open and the learning ongoing, and your employees (and your company, too) will start to reap the benefits. 

“Employees feel safer when they feel like their leaders are on “their side,” and that they will be treated fairly and with respect and setbacks won’t be followed with negative consequences.”

 5. Show Appreciation 

Let your employees know you value them. While that may sound simple, it can be so often overlooked. We can easily find ourselves in a mode of thinking “of course they know they’re appreciated”, but that isn’t enough to make your employees feel their value.  

Team recognition can’t remain an assumption – in fact, 44% of employees switch jobs because of not getting adequate recognition for their efforts, while 63% of employees who feel recognized are unlikely to look for a new job. 

Showing appreciation matters. Create clear moments where you celebrate each other’s work and individual skills. Express gratitude to your teammate that helped you finish that big project last week; ask your coworker about the marathon that they ran over the weekend; make time during your team meetings to highlight the achievements of that week. You can even show appreciation by allowing for flexibility in your workdays like moving a meeting if your coworker needs to pick their child up from school early. Showcasing, validating, and spreading appreciation for all the impactful work your team is doing is a great way to build trust and show everyone their work and contributions are valued and respected. 

“We can easily find ourselves in a mode of thinking “of course they know they’re appreciated”, but that isn’t enough to make your employees feel their value. ”

While the term psychological safety is a sought-after buzz word, it’s clear that actually achieving a truly psychologically safe environment takes effort, practice, and patience, and is more difficult than it seems on the surface. Engage thoughtfully with these five strategies to ensure that you are consistently working towards improving psychological safety in your workplace.  

Psychological safety is not achieved overnight, nor is it guaranteed to stick around once it’s felt. Creating a psychologically safe work environment is an ongoing, long-term commitment to embracing and living by the above strategies to ensure your employees feel seen at work each and every day.