When we talk about Psychological Safety, most conversations quickly focus on the team.
And yes, the team matters. A lot.
Amy Edmondson defines Psychological Safety as:
“A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”
This definition has helped organizations around the world understand why learning, innovation, collaboration, and performance depend on people feeling safe enough to speak up.
But there is more to the story.
At the Conscious Leadership Academy, we regularly refer to Lies Wouters-Soomers’ groundbreaking work that broadens the understanding of Psychological Safety and distinguishes between three different perspectives:
1. The Individual Perspective
“I feel safe to speak up – just for myself.” – This is an individual’s personal experience of safety.
The individual perspective is influenced by mindset, past experiences, values, beliefs, and the stories everyone carries about themselves and the world. We all enter the workplace carrying an invisible backpack full of experiences, demands and expectations. Some of them strengthen our confidence. Others create inner barriers.
For example, I might hold the belief: “Making mistakes is not okay. I should always get things right.”
If this belief lives strongly within me, it can become difficult to admit mistakes, even when the people around me are supportive and encouraging. My own inner dialogue may be telling me that mistakes make me inadequate.
In that moment, the biggest threat is not the environment – the team or manager – around me. It is the judgement happening inside me.
This is why Psychological (Un-)Safety is not only something that exists around us.
It also exists within us.
2. The Team / Group Perspective
“A shared belief of the team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” – This is the perspective most people know.
It is not about me as an individual. It is about me and others, about us.
We can ask critical or even naive questions.
We can admit mistakes.
We can challenge assumptions.
We can disagree.
We can bring up difficult topics.
And we trust that the relationship(s) will remain intact without any negative consequences.
The word safe does not mean comfortable all the time.
The word risk does not mean reckless; it means leaving the comfort zone.
Psychological Safety does not mean we can say anything in any way we like.
It means we can talk about anything in a way that allows us to stay connected with one another.
Without judgement.
Without disqualification.
Without withdrawal.
Without exclusion.
A psychologically safe team can have difficult conversations while preserving dignity and belonging.
3. The Organizational Perspective
“A shared belief that the workplace is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” – This perspective extends beyond individual teams.
It includes the systems, structures, processes, leadership behaviors and reward mechanisms that shape daily work.
Organizations continuously send signals.
What gets rewarded?
What gets punished?
Who gets promoted?
How are mistakes handled?
How are concerns addressed?
What happens when someone challenges the status quo?
These signals teach people what is truly safe and what is not.
An organization may publicly encourage speaking up, while its systems or stakeholders quietly discourage it.
To encourage speaking up, organizations need to create structures that actively support openness, learning, and constructive challenge.
Psychological Safety is not created through words alone.
It is reinforced, or undermined, through everyday organizational practices.
The Three Perspectives Influence Each Other
The interesting part is that these three perspectives are deeply connected.
Yet they are not about the same thing.
You can have:
An individual who feels unsafe within a psychologically safe team.
A psychologically safe team operating within an unsafe organization.
A supportive organization where some individuals still struggle to speak up.
This distinction matters. Because it helps us avoid oversimplification.
Not every challenge is a team problem.
Not every challenge is an organizational problem.
And not every challenge is an individual problem.
Often, all three perspectives interact simultaneously.
A Relief for Leaders
When leaders first encounter these three perspectives, many experience a sense of relief.
Why?
Because they realize they are not responsible for every individual’s personal experience of safety.
Nor can they control every belief, fear, or story that a person carries.
People arrive at work with decades of experience that shape how they interpret situations.
Leaders cannot remove someone’s inner critic.
They cannot rewrite someone’s personal history.
But by asking questions and inquiring about an individual´s felt sense of safety, they increase awareness around the different aspects of safety and can identify together if and what form of support may be helpful.
By asking questions, leaders shape three important dimensions:
1. An increased self-awareness around an individual’s sense of safety.
2. The quality of relationships within the team by modelling attentiveness and support.
3. Safer conditions are being actively created within the organization.
The goal of Psychological Safety is not to make every person feel safe all the time.
The goal is to create an environment that makes speaking up, asking for help, learning, and constructive challenge more likely.
Final Thought
Perhaps Psychological Safety becomes most powerful when we stop viewing it as a single concept and start seeing it as a field of energy that is either blocked or flows freely.
A field that exists within individuals, between people, and throughout organizations.
When we pay attention to all three perspectives, we gain a more complete understanding of what helps people speak up, learn, contribute, and grow.
And we create workplaces where people do not have to choose between honesty and belonging.
Where people are enabled to perform at their best and innovate organically, and leaders know what they can and can´t influence.
