How to Ensure Your Managers Build - Not Break - Psychological Safety

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1. What is Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is a shared belief among team members that the group is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It empowers individuals to speak up, ask questions and admit mistakes without fear of humiliation or retribution. This openness fosters trust, encourages innovation and cultivates a culture of continuous learning.

The concept was popularised by Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School. Since then, research consistently shows that psychological safety is the cornerstone of effective teams. It’s not just a feel-good factor; it’s a measurable driver of team and organisational success.

2. The Impact on Team Performance

3. The Manager’s Impact on Psychological Safety

Managers are at the forefront of creating and maintaining psychological safety within their teams. Their daily interactions, responses to challenges and leadership styles directly influence their team’s experience at work.

In a large randomised controlled trial involving over 1,000 teams, simply encouraging managers to hold more one-to-one meetings (and to vary their focus toward employees’ individual needs) led to measurable increases in team psychological safety. (Castro et al 2022). Conversely, when managers are emotionally exhausted, they are more likely to withdraw into laissez-faire leadership. This directly undermines psychological safety across their teams. (Groulx at al 2024)

4. What You Can Do Now

• If managers can make or break psychological safety, it is imperative that they are set up for success. That means focusing on 4 layers: insight, skills, systems and resilience.

A. Insight – help managers see their impacts

Managers often underestimate the extent to which their words and actions shape team climate. Building awareness is the first step to change.

• Psychometric Assessments: Assessments can provide insights into a manager’s workplace mindset and behaviours.
• Team Pulses: Enable direct feedback from the team on key indicators of psychological safety.
• Identify Development Areas: Use the data to pinpoint behaviours that may hinder psychological safety.

B. Skills – build management habits that stick

Awareness alone isn’t enough — managers also need to develop core people-management skills. As you plan your manager development consider the following key skills that support psychological safety:

• Providing effective feedback
• Taking a coaching approach
• Holding wellbeing conversations
• Creating an inclusive team
• Handling conflict constructively
• Managing change

C. Systems – align signals so psychological safety sticks

Even skilled managers struggle if wider systems send mixed signals. Aligning processes and role modelling at senior levels makes psychological safety easier to sustain.

• Process Design: Audit key policies (e.g. appraisal, promotion, recognition) to ensure they support psychological safety.
• Team Routines: Provide templates and norms for key team routines such as meetings, decision-making and feedback.
• Senior Leadership Influence: Use data and stories to show the business case for role-modelling psychological safety at the top.

D. Resilience – support managers’ wellbeing

Managers under sustained strain are less able to foster safety. Protecting their wellbeing and resilience ensures they have the bandwidth to lead well.

• Resilience Assessments: Help managers understand their own resilience with assessments like Wraw
• Resilience Training: Equip managers with resilience training to build their physical, psychological and social resilience.

Author Bio: Sandra Ordel is a Senior Business Psychologist specialising in workforce resilience and neuropsychology. She supports organisations worldwide to build resilient teams and cultures of healthy performance.