What Leaders Often Miss About Psychological Safety

At a time when layoffs, economic uncertainty, rapid technological change, and workplace anxiety dominate headlines, many organizations are rediscovering the importance of psychological safety. Yet despite widespread agreement that employees should feel safe speaking up, asking questions, challenging assumptions, and sharing ideas, many leaders struggle to create environments where those behaviors consistently occur.

Few people have spent more time examining that gap than Minette Norman. A former technology executive who led global technical teams before becoming a leadership consultant and keynote speaker, Norman has devoted years to helping organizations build cultures where trust, candor, and innovation can thrive.

With Karolin Helbig, she’s co-author of the best-selling The Psychological Safety Playbook and its new follow-up, The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers.

During our recent conversation, she argued that psychological safety is not a workplace luxury. In today's environment, it’s essential to organizational performance.

Norman defines psychological safety as “a belief that you can ask a question, you can ask for help, you can disagree with someone else, and you know that you will not be embarrassed, marginalized, or punished.”

That belief becomes especially important during periods of uncertainty. According to Norman, fear changes how people behave at work. Employees worried about layoffs, organizational upheaval, or emerging technologies often retreat into self-protection. They keep their heads down rather than share ideas that might attract scrutiny.

“When we're in fear, we are not at our best,” she said.

One of the biggest misconceptions leaders make, she believes, is treating psychological safety as a separate initiative rather than integrating it into daily work. “We tend to think, ‘Let's invest in team culture when we have time,’” Norman said. “What I try to get people to understand is that this work is not off to the side. It's actually how we do everyday work.”

While many executives publicly endorse psychological safety, Norman says consistent implementation remains elusive because leaders often underestimate the level of self-awareness required.

“The ‘how to do it’ every day really does take a commitment and a consistency,” she said.

Leaders move quickly, face constant pressure, and often fail to recognize how their responses affect others. A poorly handled question, a defensive reaction, or an impatient remark can undermine trust that took months to build. According to Norman, leaders frequently have good intentions but fall back on instinctive behaviors when challenged.

“Our brain is trying to do its work of keeping us safe and alive,” she explained. “When we feel that we're being attacked or we're being challenged or we're being questioned, we get defensive.”

The encouraging news, she said, is that those habits can change.

Norman openly describes herself as a case study in behavioral transformation. Earlier in her career, she often reacted defensively or aggressively when challenged. Over time, she learned a simple practice that became one of her most valuable leadership tools: pausing.

“The pause is one of the most powerful leadership tools that is so, so underutilized,” she said.

Rather than reacting immediately, she learned to take a breath, pause briefly, or even take a sip of water before responding. That moment creates enough space to move from defensiveness to curiosity.

To illustrate the power of the pause, Norman pointed to a well-known moment involving Steve Jobs. During an Apple developers conference, an audience member bluntly told Jobs that he did not know what he was talking about. Rather than firing back, Jobs paused for several seconds before responding calmly.

“If Steve Jobs could do that, and he was known for having a very difficult reputation, we can all do it,” Norman said.

Another challenge facing leaders is the temptation to seek quick fixes. Many announce that their organizations are safe places to speak up and assume employees will immediately believe them.

Norman disagrees.

“What you get is cynicism because people don't believe it until they have witnessed it,” she said.

Employees watch how leaders respond when someone disagrees, admits a mistake, asks a difficult question, or challenges a popular idea. Trust develops through observation and repetition, not declarations.

“People are watching you,” Norman said. “They're watching your behavior, they're watching your response and your reactions, they're watching what you ignore and what you tolerate.”

That visibility extends beyond managers. Norman emphasized that psychological safety is everyone's responsibility.

“You as an individual contributor have more influence than you think on how others are experiencing work,” she said.

Simple actions—listening carefully, protecting colleagues from interruptions, encouraging quieter voices, or offering constructive feedback—can shape a team's culture regardless of job title.

Norman is particularly passionate about one deceptively simple question: “What am I missing?”

The question works because it acknowledges limitations and invites perspectives that might otherwise remain hidden.

“When I say, ‘What am I missing?’ I'm inviting those perspectives,” she said. “That's the first step to creating this invitation to be honest and to share your ideas.”

She shared an example in which leaders assumed employees were already speaking candidly. After experimenting with asking “What am I missing?” in meetings, they discovered that people who rarely spoke up began contributing important ideas that challenged prevailing assumptions.

That willingness to seek alternative viewpoints also helps combat confirmation bias and groupthink. Rather than asking, “Does that sound good?”—which subtly encourages agreement—Norman recommends questions that invite dissent and exploration.

She also advocates replacing “yes, but” with “yes, and,” a concept borrowed from improvisational theater. While “yes, but” often shuts ideas down, “yes, and” keeps possibilities alive long enough for creativity to emerge.

The shift may sound small, but Norman witnessed dramatic changes in team dynamics after introducing the practice. Discussions became more collaborative, more innovative, and more enjoyable.

“Let's share all those wild ideas,” she said.

Perhaps the most powerful lesson Norman has learned comes from stories of courage. One executive she described publicly reversed a major decision after an employee challenged it with new information. The leader initially feared appearing weak. Instead, the opposite occurred.

“They gained huge respect,” Norman said.

The experience reinforced a principle she now teaches frequently: changing your mind in light of better information is not weakness. It is leadership courage.

When asked to identify the single most important foundation of psychological safety, Norman returned to a theme that surfaced repeatedly throughout our discussion.

“The bedrock principle of creating psychological safety is how we listen,” she said. “When people feel heard, they feel valued, they feel that they matter.”

Many leadership discussions focus on strategy, vision, execution, and results. Norman's message is that none of those outcomes can be fully realized if people don’t feel safe contributing their best thinking. Psychological safety is not built through slogans, surveys, or speeches. It emerges through thousands of everyday interactions—moments when leaders listen instead of react, invite instead of assume, and remain curious instead of defensive.

The organizations that thrive amid uncertainty may ultimately be the ones whose leaders consistently ask a simple question: “What am I missing?”