“Psych safety — is it really a thing?” the chairman of a public board once asked me as we prepared for a meeting.  

A staff member had just relayed to him that a board member objected to the new seating plan. That’s because she was now placed next to a male board member who often criticized her comments in meetings and was openly condescending to her in other ways. She wanted to switch seats because she didn’t feel psychologically safe next to this individual.   

Her request was totally reasonable, regardless of how you define psychological safety.

In the United States, the “big three” experts in psychological safety define it as follows:   

• “The ability to speak up in a work environment without the fear of being humiliated or penalized.” – Amy Edmondson, PhD, the Harvard Business professor who’s the most well-known for popularizing this concept in The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (2019).

• “Being rewarded for your vulnerability while interacting with other humans.” – Tim Clark, PhD, the CEO of LeaderFactor as well as the author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: How to Build a High-Performance Culture, which is the 2nd edition, revised and expanded and with a new subtitle (2026).

• “The opposite of anxiety” defines psych safety. – Paul Zak, PhD, the Claremont Graduate University Professor as well as the author of several books, including Immersion, Immersion, The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness and whose research has connected psychological safety to the release of oxytocin, the hormone that promotes trust and social bonding. (With his app SIX, you’re able to measure your own psych safety through your smartwatch or another other device linked to your smart phone.)   

After I told the board chair that yes, psychological safety is real and then defined it for him, he still seemed doubtful about the need for changing seats. But with pressure from the staff member and me, the board chair agreed. And the new seating arrangement avoided any apparent problems with psych safety during the meeting.  

(Tapping my understanding of neuroscience, I resisted telling the board chair that I had personally met all three of these experts over the years and vouched for them and their body of work. As my late great-aunt instinctively knew when she advised me to never intentionally seek new problems, SCARF status threat from him–and who knows what else, based on how the brain responds to uncomfortable social situations.)   

These memories came rushing back as I watched the August 18 webinar The Business Case for Psychological Safety.  Tim Clark hosted the webinar on the eve of the release of the second edition of his book, pictured above.  

Besides celebrating the new edition, the webinar shared new research on the business case for psychological safety. This information is especially helpful and enlightening due to two aspects of psychological safety. For example:   

• On the one hand, individuals and organizations need to have psychological safety to flourish.   
•  On the other hand, if speaking up feels more like acting courageously rather than rationally, individuals may censor themselves to protect themselves. Who wants the words they speak to bring them rejection, dismissal, or punishment?    

As a result, we’ve got to be more intentional about viewing psychological safety as a necessary precondition for productive human interaction. Without psych safety, individuals can feel too vulnerable or too armored to be able to feel safe to participate, according to Clark’s description.   

The psychological safety research over the past 20 years supports the need for psychological safety. Plus, its existence correlates significantly with 10 organizational outcomes. Yes, correlation isn’t causation. Yet, if a measure of correlation is high enough (.30 or more), it shows a critical threshold and is having an impact. These 10 outcomes are all beyond the critical threshold, which means that better business results come from having psych safety.   

These 10 outcomes in alphabetical order are:  

• Engagement 
• Inclusion 
• Innovation 
• Learning agility 
• Mental health and wellness 
• Physical safety 
• Productivity 
• Resilience 
• Retention  
• Team performance  

By the way, if you like delving into research, the book’s appendix in the second edition also explains the empirical validation of Clark’s 4 stage model—1) inclusion; 2) learner; 3) contributor; and 4) challenger. This model progresses from feeling included, then feeling safe to learn, safe to contribute, and safe to challenge the status quo without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished.  

Another helpful and practical point about Clark’s definition of psychological safety: Clark continues to maintain that innovation requires high intellectual friction and low social friction. That’s why psychological safety is so valuable among team members, especially those inventing and improving.   

In closing, remember that psych safety is a must have, not just a nice to have. And besides helping everyone be candid with each other, psych safety has other benefits too, which Zak has shown with his research. Your brain basically works better when you’re feeling psychologically safe. When you’re anxious, which means you could also be tired, hungry or cranky in addition to feeling unsafe, your brain is using significant metabolic energy. This hurts your ability to focus and remember.  

When you’re calm and comfortable, you have more available bandwidth to think clearly. This helps you pay attention, concentrate, learn from others, and cooperate better with them too.   

So let’s all make an effort to provide psychological safety for each other!