TL;DR: Psychological safety isn’t about comfort—it’s about creating the conditions where people can speak up, solve problems, and improve systems.
Psychological safety is the foundation of learning, quality, and continuous improvement. When people fear blame, embarrassment, or punishment, problems stay hidden and improvement stalls. When people feel safe to speak up, organizations learn faster and perform better.
These posts explore psychological safety through a Lean leadership lens—connecting daily behaviors, system design, mistake response, and respect for people. Drawing from healthcare, manufacturing, aviation, and executive leadership, this archive focuses on how leaders create (or destroy) the conditions for honest dialogue, problem solving, and sustainable improvement.
What’s the difference between a mistake and an error? When people search “mistake vs error,” they’re usually asking whether the two words mean different things — or whether one implies more blame than the other. Short answer: In most contexts,…
This is a Chat GPT / Dall-E generated image: It’s silly, right? I’ve never seen a sign like this in an operating room. And I’m not advocating for them. It’s not the right approach for quality and patient safety. If…
Research by Ethan Burris shows that the top two reasons employees choose to keep quiet in the workplace are: 1️⃣ Futility2️⃣ Fear Fear of getting in trouble is a big problem. But there are also many workplaces where people say,…
tl;dr: Steve Spear’s “See, Solve, Share” model assumes people will raise problems, but in most organizations, fear and futility keep them quiet — which is why the model works better as “See, Share, Solve, Share,” with psychological safety as the…
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace…
Vulnerability, Candor, and Psychological Safety at Work Does it really feel good to be “vulnerable” at work? A lot of leaders talk about vulnerability as if it’s automatically healthy or desirable. But for many employees, being vulnerable doesn’t feel empowering…
Recently, I’ve heard an idea a few times that I’d like to share and discuss in this post. As I’m writing this, I can’t remember who to cite. That’s my mistake. I’ll happily correct the post if I remember or…
It’s 9 p.m. in an operating room, just before the last procedure of a long day that had been full of delays. A nurse sees that the surgeon is about to make an incision without first stopping for the expected…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make…
TL;DR: Continuous improvement only takes root when psychological safety and problem-solving exist together. Leaders who replace blame with learning unlock better performance, innovation, and results. “At least two of the major things that are required for continuous improvement to take…
TL;DR: Claims that workplaces can have “too much” psychological safety are based on a flawed definition. Psychological safety doesn’t eliminate accountability–it enables speaking up, learning, and better performance. Thanks to Timothy R. Clark and Junior Clark for this excellent episode…
TL;DR: A true culture of learning doesn’t fear mistakes–it learns from them. Drawing inspiration from Toyota’s mindset, this post explores how psychological safety and problem-solving discipline are essential to preventing repeated errors and building continuous improvement into the DNA of…