Psychological Safety in Teams and Organisations
Psychological safety is crucial to whether employees feel able to speak their minds, ask questions, share mistakes, and contribute actively to collaboration. Safe teams collaborate more effectively — and this is the foundation for well-being, higher quality, inclusion, and greater focus on and time for the core task.
At Strain Psychology, we work with psychological safety as a concrete, professional practice that can be developed and embedded within organisations. We help leaders, teams, and occupational health and safety organisations create the conditions for psychological safety, so that collaboration, well-being, and learning can thrive. Work with psychological safety is a central part of the overall efforts in the psychosocial work environment.
Concrete tools
Digital Foundation Course in Psychological Safety
Our digital Foundation Course in Psychological Safety provides essential knowledge on how to work systematically with psychological safety in teams and organisations, and how to build a learning culture with a shared language and concrete tools that strengthen trust, openness, and collaboration in high-pressure professional environments.
Psychological safety is about what emerges between people — and is therefore not something that can be learned or practised alone. The Foundation Course in Psychological Safety consists of a series of modules conducted in work groups, that is, together with colleagues in everyday practice. Through short instructional videos, a framework is provided for shared reflection and constructive dialogue about psychological safety within the team. In this way, a common language and shared focus are created on what both the individual and the group can do to strengthen psychological safety going forward.
Learn more about Psychological Safety
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety concerns the work-related and relational conditions that determine whether people feel able to apply their professional expertise. It relates to whether employees and leaders feel that they can ask questions, express doubts, point out problems, and disagree — even under high pressure, responsibility, and risk — without negative consequences for their own position or opportunities.
Psychological safety is not something that can be commanded or imposed on others. Like the related concept of trust, it is a relational potential that exists in the interactions between group members. It is a potential that a group can earn over time through safe and trust-building actions.
Just as a plant will wither without water, psychological safety in a group will also fade without ongoing actions that foster trust and security. When concern about what others think resurfaces, it can lead to people holding back from asking for help or failing to speak up when something nearly went wrong — whether in a hospital ward, a meeting room, or a spreadsheet.
What characterises a psychologically safe work environment?
A psychologically safe environment is characterised by being experienced as both secure and safe. It is a setting where people know what is expected of them, where rules and structures are clear and consistent, and where changes are either predictable or, at the very least, communicated in advance and implemented gradually.
In psychologically safe environments, there is trust between people. Individuals interact with openness and respect, support one another in completing tasks, and treat each other properly — even when there is disagreement or pressure.
When the environment is experienced as psychologically safe, group members are able to fully draw on their knowledge and experience. This creates space for creativity, curiosity, and professional exploration — and for genuinely engaging with how the task or the world looks from others’ perspectives.
Psychological safety paves the way for innovation and development — both for the workplace and for the quality of the service or product delivered. At the same time, psychological safety is highly significant for employees, who in safe work environments experience learning, development, and actively contributing to new and improved solutions. When quality and psychological safety go hand in hand, both engagement and shared pride in collaboration are strengthened.
5 Signs of Low Psychological Safety in Teams and Organisations
Low levels of psychological safety rarely appear directly. They often manifest through behaviours that on the surface may resemble willingness to collaborate, but in practice are driven by conformity and self-protection.
Typical signs of low psychological safety in teams:
- Employees do not express their true, genuine opinions.
- Critical questions or doubts are not raised.
- Mistakes are taken personally rather than used for collective learning.
- Decisions are formally accepted, but do not receive genuine support.
- Significant energy is spent interpreting each other’s behaviour.
What does working with psychological safety involve in practice?
Psychological safety cannot be introduced as a quick fix or a one-off initiative. It is the result of sustained actions, clear structures, and attentive leadership. Sustainable work with psychological safety typically involves:
- A shared understanding of what psychological safety is — and what it is not.
- Clarity about roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority.
- Frameworks that make disagreement and doubt legitimate.
- Leadership attention to pace, workload, and priorities.
- Ongoing collective reflection on the conditions for collaboration.
Who is work on psychological safety relevant for?
Work on psychological safety is important in all organisations, and especially in workplaces where people must collaborate on complex tasks, make decisions with consequences, and handle responsibility under pressure. This is particularly true where mistakes, doubt, and uncertainty are an unavoidable part of the work — making it essential that knowledge and concerns are shared in a timely manner.
Initiatives around psychological safety are particularly relevant for:
- Leaders and leadership teams, who are responsible for structures, priorities, and decision-making authority.
- Teams and employees, who work in psychologically demanding environments.
- Occupational health and safety organisations (OHS), working with the prevention of psychological strain.
- HR and internal consultants, who support collaboration and organisational development.
- Organisations undergoing change or experiencing high workload, where psychological safety is often under strain.
Work on psychological safety is relevant across both public and private organisations — particularly where collaboration, responsibility, and strain go hand in hand.
Psychological Safety and Related Strain Phenomena
- Compassion fatigue, when emotional engagement exceeds recovery.
- Secondary traumatic stress, when the trauma of others has an impact and becomes internal wear.
- Brutalization, when unregulated strain leads to distancing and cynicism.
- Burnout, when strain becomes prolonged and meaning-bearing structures begin to break down.
These phenomena do not arise in isolation, but in the interplay between demands, organisational structures, and culture. Learn more about what it means to have a job with a high degree of emotional strain in this short video.
We collaborate with
out of 98 municipalities
68
Danish regions
5
professionals and leaders at all levels have gained knowledge of strain psychology
100000
… as well as a wide range of public and private organisations.
Selected partners include:
A team of experts
...close to your everyday reality
When you book a consultant from the Institute for Strain Psychology, you meet an engaged and experienced specialist with deep professional knowledge and a strong commitment to practice.
Our consultants communicate complex knowledge about strain psychology with clarity, presence, and professional depth — always grounded in a holistic perspective.
Newsletter
Let’s stay connected
Sign up to receive updates on professional trends, research insights, and upcoming events.
Danish