-12.png)
‘What Is Psychological Safety?', McKinsey
Psychological safety is crucial for innovation, teamwork, and organisational success. This article highlights its role in fostering inclusive and high-performing cultures. It outlines leadership strategies to build trust, such as open dialogue, curiosity, and equitable participation. Learn how consultative, supportive, and challenging leadership styles enhance team resilience, creativity, and productivity, particularly in remote and hybrid work environments.
View resourceSummary
This article explores the critical role of ‘psychological safety’ - the absence of interpersonal fear that allows individuals to take risks, share ideas, and speak up without fear of judgment or reprisal. It emphasises the importance of psychological safety for fostering innovation, team performance, and organisational success. Key insights include:
- What is psychological safety?:
- Psychological safety enables people to speak up, admit mistakes, share creative ideas, and provide honest feedback without fear of negative repercussions.
- Teams with high psychological safety are more innovative, collaborative, and resilient.
- The benefits of psychological safety:
- It promotes inclusion, team learning, and creativity.
- Research shows it is one of the strongest predictors of team performance across industries, improving productivity, quality, and decision-making.
- Leadership’s role in psychological safety:
- Consultative leadership - inviting input and valuing diverse perspectives.
- Supportive leadership - showing concern for team members as individuals.
- Challenging leadership - encouraging teams to push boundaries and challenge assumptions while feeling supported.
- Inclusive leadership styles are particularly important for underrepresented or marginalised groups, ensuring equitable participation and trust.
- Building psychological safety through leadership development:
- Investing in leadership training helps develop key skills, such as open dialogue and active listening, situational humility and curiosity, sponsorship to enable others.
- Lasting behaviour change requires integrating these practices into day-to-day leadership work, not just one-off training sessions.
- Why it matters now more than ever:
- The rise of remote and hybrid work has amplified the need for psychological safety as trust and connection are harder to build virtually.
- Organisations that prioritise psychological safety can foster healthier, more inclusive, and higher-performing cultures.
This resource is ideal for those seeking research-backed insights into psychological safety and the leadership behaviours that enable it.
Related resources
Design for Wellbeing: A Social Enterprise Story
PlatformsThis resource showcases findings from Australian Research Council studies on Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE). It emphasises the role of social enterprises in enhancing individual and community wellbeing, particularly in disadvantaged and regional areas. The platform offers tools, insights, and strategies for social enterprises, policymakers, and ecosystem supporters to design workplaces and practices that integrate wellbeing principles, address systemic disadvantage, and foster resilience. Key focus areas include regional community wellbeing, youth health equity, and leveraging organisational design to influence positive social outcomes.
Learn more-11.png)
‘Boundaries, Burnout, and the ‘Goopification’ of Self-Care’, The Ezra Klein Show, featuring Dr. Pooja Lakshmin
PodcastsThis podcast delves into the evolution of self-care from a radical feminist concept to a commercialised wellness industry, exploring why this shift has failed to curb rising burnout rates. Featuring Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, it challenges superficial wellness trends and offers practical, values-based strategies to redefine self-care for personal and collective empowerment.
Learn more
.png)