In the previous two blog posts (part 1 & part 2), we talked about which individual and team characteristics are important for enhancing psychological safety within your organization. Now we’re moving up one more level: the organization itself. Here, comparing one organization to another isn’t always easy. A small business might have 10 teams and a flat structure, while a multinational could have five to eight extra layers. The principle stays the same, but the scale is different and the titles change. So, if you’re working to improve psychological safety in your department and it consists of five teams—great. Just revisit the previous blog posts for actions you can take at the individual and team levels, and in this post, simply swap out the word “organization” with “department” and “top management” with “director” (or whatever label suits your context). Working in a multinational? Awesome, too—just know that your top management includes more people and that you’ll have to evaluate certain features per department or division. On the plus side, finding role models should be easier!

Let’s start at the top. Everyone knows the world is changing. We could start talking about VUCA, AI, blockchain, or some other catchy acronym or tech trend. The fact is, the world is in motion, and what happens out there impacts every organization. Still, we often hope our own job remains stable. You learn your job, your tasks, and then you do them. Everyone must change—except me, right? It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but probably feels familiar.

Now, change itself isn’t necessarily good for psychological safety. We’ve written before about shared team goals and norms. In a changing organization, these evolve too—which creates risk when giving feedback or confronting conflict. When top management acknowledges the need for continuous change and communicates accordingly, it helps preserve and build psychological safety. So don’t hesitate to ask questions like, “How do you see your team goals and tasks evolving over the next few years?” This already involves people in the process of change. But that’s not enough. Safety isn’t built only at the top—it’s present throughout the organization. People need to know one another and be able to connect. If you only interact with your own team, it’s hard to broaden your sense of norms or to recognize your role within the larger system. Role models who display the right behaviors encourage others to do the same. But if there’s little cross-contact, it becomes harder to learn from those role models. And yes—it works the other way around too…

Aside from these social and communicative aspects, structural features also influence psychological safety. Shared rewards—and a sense of ownership in those—encourage knowledge sharing and mutual support. A focus on continuous improvement also contributes. It creates an expectation that people will report mistakes (which we learn from), speak their minds (more learning), resolve conflicts (still more learning), and give each other feedback (even more learning). When these expectations are embedded in systems—and over time in your culture—speaking up becomes the norm. These systems promote quicker speaking-up, which leads to a quicker sense of safety, and all the benefits that follow.

Finally, organizational support is crucial. This means that if someone shows the right behavior (admitting a mistake, giving feedback) and doesn’t get the ideal response (from peers or a manager), the organization steps in. That might be HR or a director. It also means someone showing poor behavior receives the appropriate consequence. If that kind of organizational support isn’t felt, you might kick off psychological safety, but it’ll be hard to keep it at a high level. When things get tense and real decisions need to be made, that’s when you’ll truly see whether your organization is ready (though that doesn’t say anything about your team or department specifically).

As you can see, there are things you can do at the organizational, team, and individual levels to strengthen psychological safety. But how do you actually begin?

You’ll want to combine an action plan (see our blog Step-by-Step Toward Psychological Safety at Work) with the predictors (at individual, team, and organizational levels).

• The predictors mainly focus on structural aspects like task and team characteristics, collaboration styles, and the role of leadership. Systems for continuous improvement also have a place. These adaptations prepare your teams and organization to allow psychological safety to flourish.
• The action plan, in turn, ensures that psychological safety gets off to a strong start rather than evolving slowly and organically. We’re aiming for revolution, not evolution (sorry, Darwin…), which requires specific skills, tools, and exercises.

Together, these two approaches will lead to lasting psychological safety in your team and organization. Feeling motivated to start? Or still unsure what this would look like in your context? Feel free to reach out.

Curious how to implement psychological safety in your organization?

• Register for our (free) live event ‘Psychological Safety in Practice’ via this link
• Join one of our open enrollment training programs via this link
• Or explore our full offering on psychological safety on our website