One of the concepts that has influenced my leadership the most is psychological safety. The research is compelling. Teams perform better when people can admit mistakes, ask for help, challenge ideas, and voice concerns without fear of embarrassment or punishment. Amy Edmondson, who introduced the concept, defines psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
In my first year as a Director of Engineering, I realized there is a misconception: Psychological safety does not mean work should feel comfortable.
Safe does not mean easy
Leadership is full of uncomfortable moments: Someone receives difficult feedback, a team gets dissolved, a project is cancelled, an organizational change affects people’s role, someone disagrees with a decision.
None of those situations feel comfortable. And they should not.
If every difficult conversation is avoided in the name of psychological safety, we don’t end up with healthy teams. We end up with unresolved problems.
Disagreement is not a breach of trust
One experience particularly challenged my thinking. A team strongly disagreed with an organizational decision. In fact, I wanted people to challenge the decision. Different perspectives usually lead to better outcomes. What surprised me was how the discussion evolved. Instead of saying,
“I disagree with this decision.”
the conversation slowly became,
“This has broken trust.”
Those statements are fundamentally different. The first invites discussion. The second almost ends it.
It made me wonder whether we sometimes use trust as shorthand for I don’t agree with this decision.
That doesn’t mean people can’t be genuinely disappointed. Some decisions are painful. Some feel unfair from an individual’s perspective. But disagreement alone is not evidence that trust has been broken.
Trust and psychological safety are different
The literature actually distinguishes between trust and psychological safety.
Trust is about another person. I trust that you are competent. I trust that your intentions are good. I trust that you will do what you said you would.
Psychological safety is about the environment. It’s the shared belief that I can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, or disagree without being punished or humiliated.
The two reinforce each other, but they are not the same thing. That distinction helped me understand something. I can trust my manager. I can feel completely safe disagreeing with them. And I can still dislike the decision they make. Those things can all be true at the same time.
The real test of psychological safety
Psychological safety is not tested when everyone agrees. It is tested when they don’t.
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Can people challenge each other without becoming personal?
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Can they lose an argument without withdrawing?
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Can they support a decision they initially disagreed with?
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Can they continue treating each other with respect after conflict?
I remember one situation where a team told me consistently they felt psychologically safe and trusted each other. When one person decided to leave the team, they treated this person in a way I would describe as bullying.
A team isn’t psychologically safe simply because people are vocal about it. It is psychologically safe when people remain respectful even when they fundamentally disagree.
Psychological safety requires accountability
I also started thinking about another misconception. Sometimes psychological safety gets interpreted as protecting people from uncomfortable situations.
But growth is uncomfortable.
Giving difficult feedback is uncomfortable.
Receiving difficult feedback is uncomfortable.
Making unpopular decisions is uncomfortable.
Healthy disagreement is uncomfortable.
Leadership is uncomfortable.
If we remove all discomfort from work, we also remove many of the situations where trust is actually built. Psychological safety doesn’t mean protecting people from difficult conversations. It means making those conversations possible.
What I believe today
Today I value psychological safety even more than I did before. But I think we should be careful how we use the term.
Psychological safety doesn’t mean everyone agrees.
It doesn’t mean every decision feels fair.
It doesn’t mean leaders avoid conflict.
And it doesn’t mean people always get their way.
It means people can disagree, challenge assumptions, admit mistakes, ask for help, and have uncomfortable conversations without fearing humiliation or retaliation.
The psychologically safest teams I have worked with often had the most difficult conversations early and would not even label themselves as a “psychologically safe” team.
References
- Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.
- Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth.