We don’t want to talk about psychological safety
Twice recently, clients have told me that they can’t stand the phrase “psychological safety”.
One was wonderfully blunt about it. “Don’t talk to us about psychological safety. We’ve heard it all before and it just makes people’s eyes roll.” The other was gentler, but the message was the same. These words made her switch off.
I found this fascinating, and maybe a bit disconcerting, because the idea behind those two words sits at the heart of almost everything I do.
It’s the phrase, not the idea of psychological safety
Thankfully, on further exploration, neither of them had any problem with the idea of psychological safety and what it means in practice. Nobody was arguing that people should feel unable to speak up, or that fear makes for better teams. It’s the label, or the language, they were reacting to, not the concept.
I wondered why the phrase grated so much and came up with a few possible reasons. To start with, the term has now been used so widely that it can sound a bit jargony, seen as a slogan or a buzzword rather than something tangible. It can feel ‘soft and fluffy’ to some, or faintly clinical to others, as though you might need a psychology degree to get it.
Unfortunately, like any term that becomes fashionable, it starts to feel like something done to a team rather than done with them.
Meeting people where they are, in their own language
One of those clients is doing some really interesting work. They want their teams to innovate, to try new ways of working, to question what’s gone before, and to take sensible risks without fear of being blamed when something doesn’t work out. They want people to feel able to challenge their leaders and each other in order to innovate and progress.
That IS psychological safety. Everything I wrote above is, or should I say requires, psychological safety. They just baulk at the term for whatever reason.
For a long time I might have gently steered them towards the “proper” term. I’ve stopped, because it isn’t usually necessary. The work is the same whether or not we use the established phrase. If a leader wants to talk about honesty, or innovation, or simply fewer nasty surprises, then those are the words we’ll use. Meeting people where they are, including using their own language, isn’t a compromise. It’s usually the fastest way to make positive progress.
What psychological safety looks like at work
Strip away the phrase psychological safety and the idea is simple enough. Can someone in your team disagree with you in a meeting without it costing them later? When a mistake is made, does the person own up to it, or bury it and hope that no one notices? When someone raises a concern, what happens next?
If you lead a team that has gone quiet, this is usually where the answer sits. Leaders tell me some version of the same thing: nobody challenges them in meetings, and the honest conversation happens in the car park afterwards rather than in the room. That silence rarely means agreement. More often it means people have worked out that speaking up costs them more than staying quiet.
These are the real tests. It’s the small moments on ordinary Tuesdays, and the way people respond when someone takes a risk by being honest.
It also rests on something even more fundamental, which is trust. In my STREETCREDS framework, the S stands for Safe and the T for Trusting, and the two are inseparable. People will only speak up when they trust that doing so is worth the risk. You can’t mandate that. You have to build it, one conversation at a time.
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Ignore the phrase if you please
I’ve stopped worrying about whether a client likes certain terms. The label matters far less than the conditions it describes. What matters is whether people can have the right conversations, in the right way, at the right time, honestly, and without fear of being punished for it.
If the words “psychological safety” make you wince, that’s OK. Ignore the phrase if it helps. Just don’t ignore what it points to, because that’s the part worth getting right.
If you suspect your team is holding back, and you’d like to talk about what might help, do get in touch.
Hi, I'm Sarah Harvey, organisational psychology consultant, team coach and founder of Savvy Conversations. I work with leaders, teams, and organisations to get to the root of what’s not working. With over 35 years’ experience across leadership, team coaching, training and mediation, and an MSc in Organisational Psychology, I help people have the right conversations, in the right way, at the right time.