Let’s Talk About Psychological Safety! For Real This Time.

By Dr. Larrisa Palmer, Organizational Psychologist & Founder of Revitala Consulting

I’ve sat in too many meetings where the air was thick with everything left unsaid. People nodding politely while silently disagreeing, withholding questions, or swallowing feedback that could’ve changed the game. As an organizational psychologist and therapist, I’ve come to recognize the invisible force at play in those rooms: the absence of psychological safety.

Coined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson (1999), psychological safety means that people feel safe to take interpersonal risks—to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and challenge ideas without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or being seen as incompetent. But let’s be honest: in real life, psychological safety is not just a definition. It’s a felt experience. You know when it’s present because you feel seen, respected, and free to be real. And you know when it’s not because your body tenses, your voice gets quieter, and your ideas stay locked inside.

What Psychological Safety Is And Isn’t

Let’s clear something up: psychological safety is not about always being nice or making people comfortable all the time. It’s not about avoiding hard conversations or lowering expectations. If anything, it creates the conditions where hard conversations can actually happen without leaving people bruised. Edmondson (2018) puts it plainly: high-performing teams are both psychologically safe and accountable. When teams only focus on harmony, they avoid conflict but miss the chance to grow. When they focus only on performance without safety, fear takes over and innovation shuts down. Psychological safety isn’t soft. It’s strong enough to hold the truth.

The Human Cost of Silence

I’ve worked with teams where silence wasn’t just a habit but it was a survival skill. People had learned that speaking up led to being labeled “difficult,” passed over for promotions, or subtly iced out of key conversations. And when silence becomes the norm, trust erodes from the inside out. One of the most overlooked truths in the workplace is this: people don’t speak up because they don’t feel safe, not because they don’t care or don’t have ideas. We often label quiet employees as disengaged, when in reality they may be calculating risk every time they consider offering a different opinion. Psychological safety isn’t about making everyone talk more. It’s about creating space where people want to.

Why Leaders Hold the Key

Here’s where it gets real: no amount of team-building activities or anonymous surveys can make up for a leader who shuts people down, even subtly. Leaders, whether they realize it or not set the tone for what’s okay. If a leader rolls their eyes when someone speaks up, ignores feedback, or punishes dissent, the message is loud and clear: it’s not safe here.

Psychological safety thrives when leaders model humility, curiosity, and vulnerability (Edmondson & Lei, 2014). That means saying things like, “I don’t know,” “What do you think?” and “Thanks for bringing that up.” It means rewarding honesty even when the message is hard to hear. It means knowing that how you respond when someone takes a risk will shape whether they ever do it again.

Three Ways to Start Building Psychological Safety

1. Model Curiosity Over Certainty - When leaders ask questions, real ones, not just rhetorical throwaways, they signal that other voices matter. Saying “Help me understand your perspective” opens far more doors than “Here’s how I see it.”

2. Respond Without Punishment - Feedback should never come with fear. If someone shares a concern and your body language stiffens or you get defensive, you teach the team that honesty has a price. Instead, thank them. Process. Then respond with care.

3. Make Repair a Habit - We all mess up. Psychological safety isn’t about being perfect, it’s about what we do next. Apologize when you misstep. Follow up. Circle back to unfinished conversations. Safety is built in the follow-through.

This Work Is Deeply Human

Psychological safety is not a checklist. It’s not a trendy buzzword. It’s the emotional infrastructure of a healthy team. When people feel safe, they stop protecting themselves and start contributing fully. And when that happens, everything changes from collaboration to creativity to culture.

At Revitala Consulting, we believe that building psychologically safe teams isn’t just good for business—it’s good for people. And people are the business.

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. Wiley.

Edmondson, A., & Lei, Z. (2014). Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 23–43.