What Is The Definition Of Psychological Safety

The definition of psychological safety is narrower than the way the phrase is often used. It is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. Interpersonal risk means the everyday exposure of asking a question, admitting an error, disagreeing or raising a concern.

Three misreadings cause most of the confusion.

• It is not comfort. A psychologically safe team can be demanding and can hold hard conversations. What it does not do is punish people for having them.
• It is not the absence of accountability. High safety with low standards is complacency. The point is to be able to raise a problem, not to avoid consequences for performance.
• It is not a personality trait. It belongs to the team, which is why the same person is candid in one team and silent in another.

Getting the definition right matters, because measuring or training the wrong thing produces a comfortable team that still does not tell you what is going wrong.

Safe Work Australia covers the separate work health and safety duty. This is general information rather than legal advice.

See Sentrient’s psychological safety training course and workplace compliance courses.