The Six Myths of Psychological Safety
After two decades in the spotlight, psychological safety has reached that awkward phase where it’s simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. It’s a concept everyone references but often misapplies or unknowingly weaponizes because they don’t know how to define psychological safety.
Yet, we need this type of safety now more than ever. With AI reshaping roles overnight and teams spread across living rooms and time zones, we’re navigating bumpy terrain without a clear map to go by.
In Harvard Business Review’s latest cover story, Amy Edmondson and Michaela Kerrissey cut through the noise about psychological safety at work and its definition.1 Their insights confirmed what we’ve observed in our own work: that psychological safety is the hard-earned foundation that makes everything else possible.
Six Myths that Mask the True Meaning of Psychological Safety
Below we will walk you through
- a summary of each of the six myths Edmondson and Kerrissey identified,
- how we’ve seen it play out in the real world, and
- six concrete steps you can implement today to deepen psych safety in your own organization.
Let’s dive right in!
The Six Myths
1. Psychological Safety ≠ “Being Nice”
The most persistent myth about psychological safety equates it with perpetual harmony and “good vibes only” environments. As Edmondson and Kerrissey explain, this misinterpretation fundamentally misses the point. They highlight how “nice” in this context becomes code for “don’t say what you really think (unless it happens to be nice),” which is the exact opposite of vulnerability, honesty, and transparency in dialogue. True mental safety prioritizes clarity and candor over temporary comfort, where people can speak up without fear of humiliation or rejection.
In our work with teams, we’ve witnessed firsthand how “nice” cultures breed what Patrick Lencioni calls “artificial harmony,” the surface-level pleasantness that masks underlying tensions and ultimately accelerates the spiral of negativity. This type of harmony actually undermines the very psychology of safety you are trying to build. Teams fixated on being nice often produce work that’s merely nice—not exceptional. Real transformation happens when teams distinguish between challenging ideas (which is necessary) and challenging someone’s character or worth (which erodes trust).
Take Your Next Step
The next time you feel compelled to challenge someone’s idea, go beyond that psychological safety definition of “nice” and add in a touch of care. Simply preface your challenge with a genuine statement about what you care about. For example, if you want to challenge an idea you think will create confusion, it might sound like this: “What I value most is transparency in our decision-making processes. My concern with the current proposal is that it might create confusion about how resources are allocated. Could we add a section on the criteria we’re using?” This simple practice shifts the conversation from personal judgment to shared values. When teams separate challenging ideas from challenging someone’s worth, they build the psychological safety needed for both rigorous debate and profound respect.
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2. Psychological Safety ≠ Getting Your Way
“You’re not supporting my idea—that makes me feel psychologically unsafe.”
Edmondson and Kerrissey point out that some employees confuse having a voice with winning every vote. They believe that if their idea is challenged or not implemented, the environment must be unsafe. But that is not the psychological safety definition we know. As the authors clarify, mental safety ensures that your voice will be heard without retaliation or embarrassment, but it doesn’t guarantee your approach will be chosen. Even in the healthiest environments, leaders must make difficult calls, and sometimes that means saying no to good ideas for strategic reasons.
In our experience working with teams across various organizations, we’ve found that unclear decision-making processes are often the real culprit behind this myth. When team members don’t know who’s deciding what (and how), they frequently default to believing decisions will emerge through consensus, only to feel personally rejected when that doesn’t happen. This misalignment—between expecting collective agreement and the reality of how decisions actually get made—creates unnecessary tension that erodes trust and inhibits the candid exchange of ideas that drives innovation.
Take Your Next Step
Begin discussions by explicitly stating the decision-making process: “I’d love your input on this product roadmap. I’ll be weighing everyone’s perspectives before making the final decision next week.” Or: “We’ll be deciding this by consensus, so we need everyone’s agreement before moving forward.” This small act of clarity creates freedom—team members can speak openly without the pressure of imagining their idea must “win” to be valued. Note how this also serves you. When you clearly state your decision process, you free yourself from the burden of having your decisions misinterpreted as personal rejections or power plays.
3. Psychological Safety ≠ Job Security
When Google laid off twelve thousand employees in early 2023, many critics argued this violated the company’s commitment to psychological safety. What these critics missed—as Edmondson and Kerrissey point out—is that psychological safety means you can critique leadership without fear of retaliation. It doesn’t mean your role is permanent. In fact, the Google employee who publicly questioned the decision during a town hall demonstrated the meaning of psychological safety: they felt secure enough to speak truth to power in a high-stakes moment.
Our work with organizations navigating difficult transitions has shown that treating psych safety as job security ultimately undermines both—creating cultures where people avoid speaking up about their concerns and leaders hesitate to address performance issues. What increases psychological safety is regularly and vulnerably checking in to make sure everyone is on the same page, and if not, they have the space to voice their concerns without feeling brushed aside.
Take Your Next Step
Establish an emotional backpack check-in. Begin team meetings with a brief moment for people to share what they’re carrying emotionally, using a simple metaphor like “My backpack is heavy today with concerns about our deadline.” or “I’m coming into today feeling light because I just finished a major project!” This structured ritual creates space for team members to be seen more fully, making it easier to separate challenging work realities from personal worth, especially during difficult organizational transitions where a lack of job security may be at the forefront of someone’s mind.
4. Psychological Safety ≠ Low Standards
When it comes to performance, leaders often picture a slider with “accountability” on one end and “psychological safety” on the other, convinced they must sacrifice one to have the other. Edmondson’s research completely debunks this false interpretation. As she illustrates, world-class performance requires both—the candor to surface errors quickly and the ambition to fix them.
Teams with low safety and high accountability experience fear-driven cultures, while those with high safety and low accountability fall into comfort-driven mediocrity. We’ve seen this play out within our own work with companies. Team members transform when they simultaneously foster honesty and excellence. The most successful teams we’ve worked with hold both high standards and deep care as non-negotiable values, refusing to sacrifice either for the sake of the other.
Take Your Next Step
To maintain both psychological safety and accountability, implement “committed actions” into your meeting structures. At the end of meetings, capture specific “who, what, and when” commitments, and when reviewing them in subsequent meetings, address any unmet commitments with curiosity. The goal is to balance clear accountability with psychological safety by focusing on the commitment rather than attacking the person’s character. When someone hasn’t met a commitment, try asking: “What support do you need to keep moving forward?” This practice creates the foundation for both honest feedback and continuous improvement.
5. Psychological Safety ≠ Policy
Rhode Island’s 2024 bill proposing a “Workplace Psychological Safety Act” highlights a tempting shortcut: write a policy, avoid the hard work. But as Edmondson and Kerrissey note, safety is built interaction by interaction, not through HR handbooks. They define psychological safety through three leadership practices that can’t be legislated: honest messaging, modeling vulnerability, and mentoring others.
One of our favorite metaphors captures this perfectly: psychological safety is like learning to surf. You can read about surfing for years, but until you get wet, fall off, and climb back on—repeatedly—you won’t develop the muscle memory required to stay upright on the board. Our work with teams has consistently shown that transformation happens not through lofty policy statements but through deliberate practice in everyday interactions.
Take Your Next Step
To build that muscle of psychological safety, we recommend the simple practice of a “do-over.” When you notice a moment where psychological safety has been compromised—perhaps you dismissed an idea or awkwardly met someone’s vulnerability with silence—you don’t have to bulldoze through the moment. Instead, offer a do-over: “Could I get a do-over on that?” Then, reframe your action or dialogue into what you intended to convey with care. This simple phrase of a “do-over” creates immediate opportunity for practice while lightening the emotional mood of the room, transforming psychological safety from an abstract policy into a lived, embodied experience.
6. Psychological Safety ≠ Exclusive
“Psychological safety must begin with leadership first.”
While leaders and executives certainly influence psychological safety, Edmondson and Kerrissey’s studies reveal something surprising: psychological safety varies dramatically between teams under the same roof of leadership. This means that a manager or a team member can cultivate a microclimate of safety regardless of organizational headwinds. You don’t need to wait for a company-wide transformation to start building psychological safety where you are.
One of our core principles is “psychological safety begins with you.” We’ve found that when someone is willing to work on their relationship to their own self-judgment, they become less judgmental of others and thereby more psychologically safe to be around. The same is true of any developmental work. When someone is willing to work on their own relationship to trust or respect, they become more trustworthy and respectful of others. This principle has guided our experiences with teams across organizational hierarchies, showcasing that psychological safety can be cultivated at any level.
Take Your Next Step
Try examining your own relationship to judgment. When you feel yourself triggered by someone’s actions and feel a judgment toward them rising, pull back and breathe. Insert a little space between the stimulus and your response. Let yourself sit in that second or two seconds or three without becoming reactive. See how that small space you’ve inserted into the moment helps to shift your response. When you willingly step into developing your own relationship with concepts like judgment or respect, you create permission for others to do the same. This small act of courage often catalyzes profound shifts in psychological safety for the entire team culture.
Final Thoughts
Which of these six myths surprised you most?
Sit with that surprise for a moment—it’s pointing you toward your next breakthrough in building psychological safety. The good news is that if you’ve made it this far, you’ve already begun the work of reimagining psychological safety in your world. 🙏
Edmondson and Kerrissey’s six myth-busters offer a chance to reset our collective understanding of how to define psychological safety. The invitation now is to lean in: make your next conversation one full of courage, care, accountability, and candor.
Ultimately, you want to build trust with every interaction you step into. When that happens, performance naturally follows, not because it’s demanded, but because it’s what humans naturally do when they truly trust one another.
1. Amy C. Edmondson and Michaela J. Kerrissey, “What People Get Wrong About Psychological Safety,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 2025, https://hbr.org/2025/05/what-people-get-wrong-about-psychological-safety.
Image credits | The hero image and do-over illustration were created by Round Table Companies with AI (ChatGPT) and further edited. The psychological safety definition image was created by Round Table Companies.
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