An article by Graciela Meibar, Leadership Coach at BenchStrength Coaching

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Competitive advantage no longer comes solely from strategy, technology, or capital. Increasingly, it comes from something far more human and far more fragile: psychological safety.

Psychological safety determines whether people speak up or stay silent, whether risks are surfaced early or discovered too late, and whether organizations learn faster than the challenges they face. For executives and senior leaders, this is not a cultural “nice to have.” It is a core operating condition for performance, resilience, and trust. And, psychological safety should not be owned by a few; it is a capability that everyone can practice.

Psychological safety, as defined by Amy Edmondson, is a shared belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking without fear of embarrassment or retribution: asking questions, offering ideas, admitting mistakes, or challenging assumptions.

At an enterprise level, this translates into very concrete outcomes:

• Better decisions because dissenting views are voiced
• Fewer costly surprises because risks surface earlier
• Faster learning because mistakes are examined, not hidden
• Higher engagement because people bring their full thinking and not just compliance

Google’s multi-year Project Aristotle reinforced this reality: psychological safety was the single most important factor distinguishing high-performing teams from others. It was more predictive than talent, experience, or structure.

In our coaching work with executives at BenchStrength Coaching®, we see the same pattern: when leaders improve psychological safety, teams surface risks earlier, make better decisions, and execute faster because people stop self-censoring.

The Hidden Cost in Silence

Organizations rarely fail because people don’t know what’s wrong. They fail because people don’t feel safe saying it. Low psychological safety creates:

• Blind spots at senior levels
• Innovation slowdowns as ideas go unspoken
• Cultural erosion driven by fear and disengagement
• Increased operational, ethical, and reputational risk

When people self-censor, leaders often misinterpret silence as alignment when in reality, it is often self-protection: “I don’t want to be embarrassed so I stay quiet.”

The Impact of Psychological Safety

I often reflect on how fortunate I have been in my life and career, not because barriers didn’t exist, but because there were people who chose to look beyond them. I grew up as an immigrant. I spoke with an accent. My parents worked hard, but they were not equipped to navigate the educational system or guide me toward college. By many measures, I could easily have been overlooked.

Instead, a high school counselor saw something else. She focused not on my limitations, but on my abilities and potential. She asked questions. She encouraged me to apply to college and offered guidance that my family could not provide. She did this not out of charity, but out of belief. That single act altered the trajectory of my life.

Throughout my career, others did the same. They saw my personal experiences not as “different” in a diminishing way, but as different and equally valuable. They saw them as sources of perspective, resilience, and insight. They listened when I spoke. They invited my thoughts. They made it safe for me to contribute before I had the confidence or credentials to fully claim my voice.

At the time, none of this was labeled psychological safety. The term had not yet entered leadership vocabulary. And yet, that is exactly what those individuals were practicing.

They created environments where I did not have to hide who I was to belong. Where I could take interpersonal risks by speaking up, asking questions, and stretching beyond what I knew without fear of being diminished.

Looking back, I realized something important: psychological safety is often invisible to those who already have it and life-changing for those who don’t.

Psychological safety is not a leader-only job. While senior leaders set the tone, psychological safety is created or eroded through everyday interactions at all levels of the organization. Titles matter less than behavior.

How You Can Act as a Catalyst

We can all be catalysts for psychological safety through intention, not authority:

• Ask better questions: Curiosity creates safety. Questions like “Help me understand your thinking” or “What might we be missing?” invite contribution rather than defensiveness. Don’t dismiss something because you don’t understand it or because it doesn’t fit the current thinking.
• Normalize learning over perfection: Reframe mistakes as data instead of failure to encourage transparency and faster improvement. Saying “Here’s what I learned” signals that growth matters more than image.
• Make space for voices that are quieter or less powerful: Invite input, redirect interruptions, and acknowledge ideas to shift who feels included in the conversation.
• Respond thoughtfully when someone speaks up: How ideas are received matters as much as whether they are shared. Respectful listening builds safety. Dismissal shuts it down instantly.
• Model humility and openness: Admitting uncertainty or changing one’s mind signals that speaking honestly is valued even at senior levels.

Psychological safety does not lower standards, it raises them. When people feel safe, accountability increases, conversations become more honest, and execution improves.

The real opportunity for leaders is building environments where everyone can be a catalyst for psychological safety, turning it into a cultural norm.

The organizations that thrive will be those where people at every level feel safe enough to think, speak, and contribute fully.

A 10-Minute Executive Practice (Try This in Your Next Meeting)

• Ask one safety-building question: “What might we be missing?”
• Invite the dissenting view: “If you disagreed with this plan, what would you worry about?”
• Reward the risk: When someone names a risk or mistake, respond with: “Thank you for saying that early.”
• Close the loop: Ask, “What is one thing we will do differently because of what we just heard?”

Psychological safety isn’t built through big statements. It’s built (or broken) in the small moments where someone decides whether it’s worth the risk to speak honestly.

In our coaching work with leaders, we’ve found this is one of the simplest performance levers to pull: create room for truth, reward early risk-sharing, and make it normal to name what’s uncomfortable before it becomes expensive.

What’s one question you can ask this week that makes it safer for someone to tell you what you actually need to know?