Psychological Safety: Creating Teams Where People Can Speak Up

Psychological safety is a term coined by Amy Edmondson, author of The Fearless Organization. At its core, psychological safety describes an environment where people feel safe to speak up, ask for help, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of being blamed or rejected.

In this episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I explore why psychological safety is such a foundational condition for effective teamwork.

Psychological safety as a conversation starter. I first discussed psychological safety with my team when sharing Google's work on Project Aristotle, which identified psychological safety as the most important factor in high-performing teams. What made it powerful was not the conclusion itself, but the conversations it enabled. Psychological safety gave us a shared language to talk about fear and risk, mistakes and learning, inclusion and respect.

Beyond safety as comfort. Psychological safety is sometimes misunderstood as being "nice" or avoiding challenge. In reality, it enables honest feedback, learning from mistakes, healthy disagreement, and shared responsibility. Without psychological safety, teams tend to hide problems, avoid risks, and limit their contribution.

Psychological safety is not something you install. It is something you practice — through everyday interactions and leadership choices.