- Across 80,000 employees, trust in leaders emerged as one of the clearest predictors of workplace well-being.
- Workplaces with weaker climates of trust and fairness report slower project rollout, higher burnout, and more turnover.
- Regular pulse and climate surveys, such as the Great Place To Work Trust Index, are emerging as critical infrastructure.
Like a lot of young women who were good with words in the world before generative AI, Claire Hastwell was put in charge of the social media channels for a company she worked for earlier in her career. “When I shared a post to the company’s Instagram channel, one of my colleagues would often make a sarcastic remark or roll their eyes. They would comment on little details, from the choice of words to the choice of images,” she recalls.
“Their constant criticism made me feel anxious and self-conscious about my work. I started questioning whether I was doing a good job. I second-guessed every post, trying to anticipate every possible criticism and making sure everything was perfect. I felt paralyzed by the fear of making a typo or facing more snide comments.”
As these small criticisms accumulated, and increasingly Claire felt like she couldn’t take any risks or be creative in her work. “I was so afraid of being criticized or judged that I started playing it safe, putting up bland and uninspired posts that wouldn’t draw attention or invite any criticism.” The more her psychological safety eroded, the more the work suffered.
What Do We Mean By Psychological Safety?
Psychological safety (or psych safety) refers to the feeling of being able to speak up, take risks, and make mistakes without fear of negative consequences. The term psychological safety was first coined by Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School. She described it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”
In 1999, while studying the rate of mistakes made by medical teams, Edmondson found that the teams that made more mistakes performed better than teams that made fewer mistakes, or at least that’s how it seemed at first. Rather, it was the teams that had a culture of openly admitting to making mistakes that had better outcomes. The other teams were making mistakes too, they just hid them.
Simon Sinek later wrote about psychological safety in the workplace in his 2014 book Leaders Eat Last. Inspired by military organizations, where leaders literally put their lives on the line, he wrote that great leadership is about making employees feel safe so they can focus on work without fear for their own survival.
Why Psych Safety Matters
Drawing on data from more than 80,000 employees across 500 organizations, the Well-being at Work Report 2025, developed by Johns Hopkins University and Great Place To Work®, that workplace climate powerfully shapes well-being, engagement and performance, with positive climates linked to higher mental health, stronger social connections and better productivity. When people feel safe to raise concerns and contribute ideas, organizations respond more quickly to change and avoid the hidden costs of burnout, turnover and low discretionary effort.
Psychological safety is increasingly a compliance and culture issue, not just a leadership preference. New psychosocial hazard regulations and the national focus on managing risks such as bullying, excessive workload and poor organizational justice reinforce that employers must actively create safe climates where people can speak up early.
Psychological Safety vs. Mental Health
Feeling psychologically safe is not the same thing as feeling psychologically healthy, although the two are closely related, says Marcus Erb, vice president of data science and innovation at Great Place To Work. Psychological health, or more commonly just mental health, refers to an individual’s overall well-being and mental state, he explains. It encompasses a range of factors, such as emotional regulation, self-esteem, resilience, and the ability to cope with stress and adversity.
“Psychological safety is one component of a psychologically healthy workplace, where employees feel supported and empowered to express their opinions and ideas without fear of retribution,” he says. “A psychologically safe workplace can contribute to better psychological health, as employees who feel safe and supported are more likely to experience less stress and anxiety and have better overall employee well-being.”
Psychological safety and psychological health share a connection, but they occupy different territories. Safety describes the external climate where team members interact. Health defines the individual’s internal mental condition. A thriving workplace relies on both elements to fuel performance and well-being.
Signs Your Workplace May Be Psychologically Unsafe
Projects take too long to roll out
The Well-being at Work Report showed that where trust is low, employees second-guess new initiatives, avoid asking for clarification and may work around processes instead of offering feedback. Workplaces with weaker climates of well-being report slower implementation and more friction as people hesitate to raise issues that might expose gaps in planning or leadership decisions.
People don’t ask questions or share ideas
When meetings are dominated by a few voices and most people stay silent, it often signals that employees do not believe their ideas will be welcomed or acted on. In Great Place To Work® data, confidence in management shows a clear linear relationship with well-being scores. Where confidence is low, people are far less likely to speak up or challenge the status quo.
High absenteeism
Burnout and psychological distress continues to rise, with up to 80 per cent of office workers reporting feeling burnt out due to workload and staffing pressures, and national surveys showing more workers experiencing psychological distress. In such climates, people are more likely to take unplanned leave to avoid stressful environments or unresolved conflicts, even when they are not physically unwell.
High presenteeism (including digital)
When people feel unsafe to switch off or take necessary sick leave, they remain online while exhausted or unwell, which erodes well-being and reduces the quality of their work.
High turnover
Well-being data across 500 organizations show that employees with low confidence in management and poor perceptions of fairness report significantly lower well-being. Over time, these employees are more likely to seek roles elsewhere, particularly women and younger workers who have shown sharper drops in well-being where fairness and leadership credibility are in question.
How To Build A Culture Of Psych Safety
Psychological safety develops over time as employees experience inclusion, freedom to learn, encouragement to contribute and safety to challenge. Organizations that excel in well-being treat it as part of the overall climate, spanning mental and emotional support, personal support, financial health, meaningful connections and sense of purpose, rather than a standalone program. Here are five ways managers can support psychological safety at every stage.
1. Be vulnerable
Leaders who acknowledge uncertainty, share their own learning moments and invite critique signal that it is safe for others to do the same. Statistically, organizations that normalize conversations about stress and limits, show employees that it is acceptable to say when something is not working. This kind of leadership vulnerability makes problem-solving more effective because issues surface early, before they escalate into safety incidents or resignations.
2. Be transparent
Drawing on data from more than 80,000 employees across 500 organizations, the Well-being at Work Report shows that trust in management is strongly linked to well-being, and as confidence in leaders increases, so do well-being scores. Transparent communication means sharing what is known, what is uncertain, and how decisions are being made, rather than presenting change as a closed conversation.
In organizations studied by Great Place To Work, leaders who regularly update teams on regulatory changes, economic pressures and workplace policies help reduce anxiety and speculation. When employees see a clear link between their feedback, survey results and visible actions, they are more likely to believe that speaking up is worthwhile and safe.
3. Be fair
Reviewing pay, promotion pathways, workload and access to flexibility through a fairness lens is essential to creating a psychologically safe climate where all groups feel valued. Hybrid and flexible work have also created new equity challenges. In some sectors, stricter return-to-office mandates tied to performance or reward have coincided with declining well-being scores, particularly where employees perceive these policies as inconsistent or punitive. Organizations that intentionally design fair, transparent criteria for flexibility and progression, and monitor impacts by gender, age and tenure, are better placed to maintain trust.
4. Be curious
Psychologically safe leaders actively seek out views from different cohorts and levels, rather than assuming their own experience matches everyone else’s. Research shows that senior leaders report higher well-being than frontline employees, which can create a blind spot unless leaders deliberately “level skip” to hear from those closest to the work.
Practical curiosity can look like joining toolbox talks on construction sites, ward huddles in healthcare, or stand-ups in regional branches, then following up with “you said, we did” updates so people see their input driving change. Organizations that embed curiosity structurally, using pulse surveys, mental health first aider networks and targeted support for high-pressure teams to continually learn where psychological safety needs shoring up.
5. Be reasonable
Our workplace data also highlights the impact of workload, scheduling and boundary-setting on well-being, particularly for younger workers, women and those in customer-facing roles. Employers that treat well-being as part of job design, for example, by providing stable rosters, flexible arrangements for different life stages, and explicit limits on after-hours contact, create conditions where people can meet expectations without sacrificing health.
Leading employers have introduced measures such as protected workflow (meeting free) Wednesdays, shorter work weeks, dedicated mental health leave, and explicit guidelines to manage contact across time zones so remote and hybrid teams can switch off. These reasonable expectations send a clear signal that people are not just valued for output, but for their long-term ability to thrive and contribute.
How To Measure Psychological Safety In The Workplace
Regular employee surveys are one of the most reliable ways to understand whether people feel safe to speak up and supported at work. Great Place To Work’s Trust Index™ Survey, used with more than 80,000 respondents across over 500 organizations, tracks trends in climate and psychological safety over time.
By monitoring results across dimensions such as mental and emotional support, personal support, financial health, meaningful connections and sense of purpose, and segmenting by gender, age, tenure and level, organizations can pinpoint where psychological safety is strong and where targeted action is needed. Leaders who treat this data as an ongoing conversation with employees, rather than a one-off compliance exercise, are best placed to build high-trust, psychologically safe workplaces.
