Cultivating Psychological Safety: How Leaders Can Encourage Openness About Mistakes
TL;DR: Psychological safety isn't created by slogans–it's created by leader behavior. When leaders respond to mistakes with curiosity, empathy, and support instead of punishment, people feel safer speaking up and organizations learn faster.
Using mistakes to learn and improve requires that we hear about them. But leaders can't just tell people to speak up. Telling them “It's safe” doesn't make it true. Each individual decides if they feel a level of psychological safety high enough that the potential rewards of speaking up outweigh the perceived risks.
As Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, PhD, defines in her excellent book The Fearless Organization:
“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with:
- ideas
- questions
- concerns or
- mistakes.”
Leaders can't generally declare, “We are a psychologically safe organization.” That's for each person to decide. The real question is:
“How safe does each person feel?”
Organizations that learn from mistakes share an important cultural attribute. Their culture and the way leaders behave help people decide whether they feel safe speaking up about mistakes, as discussed in Chapter Five.
The connections are clear. Leaders who openly share their mistakes create an environment where others feel safe and willing to do the same. When an employee admits a mistake, they quickly learn how well their organization tolerates it or, better yet, welcomes it. Does their leader punish or thank them for speaking up? When their candor is rewarded with help rather than abuse, people are more willing to admit mistakes, leading to greater learning and better performance.
Using the word “reward” might seem strange in the context of a mistake. That doesn't mean paying a cash bonus for making or finding mistakes. Leaders must reward speaking up or, at the very least, avoid actions that appear punitive.
Words like “embrace” or “cherish” strike a better tone. We can embrace the person (figuratively, perhaps) and remind them we know the mistake was, by definition, unintentional. We can react constructively. Most likely, an employee involved in a mistake already feels terrible. Employees deserve kindness and empathy, whether the mistake was an unintended “slip” or an intentional decision that turned out to be a mistake.
That was an excerpt from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation — please learn more and consider buying the book via my website, Amazon, or other retailers in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, or audiobook. Available now also through Apple Books and other eBook platforms.
Where Psychological Safety Is Actually Built
Psychological safety isn't built through statements or slogans–it's built through moments. How leaders respond when a mistake is raised, a concern is voiced, or an uncomfortable truth surfaces is what determines whether people will speak up again.
When leaders respond with curiosity instead of blame, empathy instead of judgment, and learning instead of punishment, they send a powerful signal: it's safe to be honest here. Over time, those signals compound into trust. And trust is what allows organizations to learn faster, improve more consistently, and perform at a higher level.
If you want people to speak up about mistakes, risks, and opportunities, the work starts with leadership behavior–especially when things go wrong. That's where psychological safety becomes real.
Make it safe to learn from mistakes
In The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, I share stories and practical steps for leaders who want people to admit mistakes, learn from them, and prevent them from happening again. It received the 2025 Shingo Publication Award.
