Building Psychological Safety Through Consistent Practice: Micro-Actions That Make Belonging Real 

January Series: Teaming That Holds: Building the Infrastructure for Sustainable Leadership

Estimated read time: ~8 minutes 

Psychological Safety Is a Practice, Especially When the Work Gets Hard 

When schools and systems commit to work around change: equity, attendance, MTSS, culturally responsive practice, trauma-informed systems, or mental health, the direction may vary; one constant remains: this work surfaces tough conversations. 

• Conversations about belief. 
• Conversations about responsibility. 
• Conversations about power, bias, and ownership of next steps. 

These are not technical conversations. They are human ones. Across systems, a quiet choice emerges when the work gets hard. Teams can hold one another steady and step into complexity together, or they can begin to conserve energy by narrowing conversation and limiting risk. Progress doesn’t hinge on better ideas; it hinges on whether people feel supported enough to share them. 

Equity-centered continuous improvement requires more than a strong plan or framework. It requires a culture of vulnerability and psychological safety embedded in how teams work together, not layered on as an expectation. As Edmondson (2019) explains, psychological safety allows people to take interpersonal risks like admitting uncertainty, surfacing mistakes, and questioning assumptions without fear of shame or retaliation. 

In practice, this is rarely neat or linear. I have sat alongside teams examining disaggregated data where the pause did not come from confusion about next steps, but from something quieter: “I’m afraid of what this might reveal about my own assumptions.” That pause was not a failure. It was the moment when learning became possible. 

In other contexts, psychological safety was tested during periods of instability (leadership turnover, staff attrition, or major shifts in direction). Teams were not resisting change; they were protecting themselves from additional loss or exposure. Without safety, even well-designed systems can feel threatening. 

What shows up repeatedly is this truth: When psychological safety is present, teams stay tough in the conversations. When it is absent, people retreat, not out of defiance, but self-preservation. 

Psychological Safety: What It Is? What It Is Not? 

Psychological safety has become a familiar phrase in leadership spaces, often invoked as a value or aspiration. Teams are told they need it, meeting posters or norms often name it, or leaders share about its importance after reading about it in their latest coaching book or coming back from a recent leadership gathering. Yet many teams still struggle to speak honestly, surface disagreement, or learn openly together. 

That disconnect exists because psychological safety is often misunderstood. Psychological safety is not about being nice. It is not about avoiding discomfort, and it is certainly not created through a single statement or norm-setting exercise. 

Amy Edmondson’s research defines psychological safety as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Meaning that people can ask questions, admit uncertainty, challenge ideas, or surface concerns without fear of embarrassment, rejection, or punishment (Edmondson, 1999; 2019). This belief does not live inside any one individual. It lives between people, shaped by repeated interactions over time, both spoken and unspoken. 

In other words, psychological safety is not a feeling leaders can generate. It is a condition teams experience, built through consistent actions and unspoken signals about how people are treated when they speak, question, or disagree. 

Why Psychological Safety Matters When the Work Is Complex 

Psychological safety matters because learning, decision-making, and implementation all require people to take risks with one another. Across sectors, research shows that teams with higher psychological safety demonstrate stronger learning behaviors, better problem-solving, higher engagement, and improved performance outcomes (Frazier et al., 2017). In education, where teams routinely navigate ambiguity, competing priorities, and emotionally charged decisions, this condition becomes especially important. 

When safety is present: 

• People are more willing to surface uncertainty rather than hide it. 
• Mistakes become sources of learning rather than blame. 
• Data is examined with curiosity instead of defensiveness. 
• Disagreement becomes a resource for thinking, not a threat to belonging. 

When safety is absent: 

• Teams default to surface-level agreement. 
• Important concerns stay unspoken. 
• Decision-making becomes brittle. 
• Implementation falters, not because people lack skill, but because learning is constrained. 

This aligns with broader learning theory. Carol Dweck’s work on learning versus performance orientations reminds us that environments focused on appearing competent suppress risk-taking, while learning-oriented environments invite experimentation and growth (Dweck, 2006). Psychological safety is the condition that allows teams to stay in a learning stance, especially when the work feels uncertain. 

Psychological Safety and Trust: Distinct but Interdependent 

Psychological safety is often discussed alongside trust, and for good reason. The two are deeply connected, but they are not the same. 

Trust develops through experiences of reliability, care, and follow-through over time (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). Psychological safety is how that trust is felt in the moment, particularly when someone takes a risk. 

A team may have strong relational trust and still struggle with psychological safety if norms or power dynamics discourage challenges. Conversely, teams can begin to build psychological safety even when trust is still developing, if leaders respond consistently and constructively to appropriate risk-taking. 

In practice, safety and trust reinforce one another. Each time a team member raises a concern and is met with curiosity rather than dismissal, safety increases. Each time leaders respond to disagreement without defensiveness, trust deepens. Over time, these micro-responses shape the shared belief that “it’s safe to speak here.” 

For a deeper exploration of how psychological safety and trust intersect in real teams, we invite you to revisit Sharing the Human Experience: Building Psychological Safety and Trust Beyond the Technical Fix in the Making Champions of Change learning library. 

Norms as the Operationalization of Safety 

One of the most consistent findings across team research is that psychological safety does not emerge by accident. It is designed into team practice, most often through norms and working agreements. 

Norms are not just behavioral expectations. They are shared agreements and collective commitments about what is valued, what is protected, and how people will be treated when tension arises. 

Effective teams attend to both: 

• Procedural norms (how meetings run, how decisions are made, how information is shared), and 

• Behavioral norms (how people engage with one another, especially during disagreement or uncertainty). 

When norms are explicit and revisited, they reduce ambiguity. When they are modeled and upheld, they protect psychological safety. When they are ignored or inconsistently enforced, predictability, and thus, safety erodes.  

Reflect: Teams often have norms listed on their agenda or meeting documents. Can you name your team’s norms or collective commitments? Does your team share the same understanding of how those practices show up in your meeting space? 

Importantly, norms are not static. As work evolves, roles shift, or context changes, teams must revisit and refine how they work together. Safety is not preserved through perfection, it's protected and maintained in repair. When tension is felt, naming misalignments and adjusting practice without shame can allow a team to realign the work to their purpose, be more able to leverage their teaming structures to uphold the team’s responsibilities, and reach higher levels of performance. 

Micro-Actions That Signal Safety 

Psychological safety is built through small, repeated actions. Daily actions, leading indicators, that can often be so ordinary they go unnoticed until they are missing. All the practices below can be observed as a leading indicator of teaming success if chosen as a focus fidelity indicator for a leader as a personal reflection or team-based probe. 

Across teams navigating complex work, several micro-actions consistently signal safety: 

• Structured participation: Practices like round-robin sharing or written reflection before discussion allow for distributed voice and reduce dominance. They signal that every perspective matters, not just the loudest or most senior. 

• Naming uncertainty: When leaders model phrases like “I’m not sure,” “I may be missing something,” or “Let’s test this assumption,” they normalize learning over performance. 
  • I remember clearly a leader in a coaching conversation who paused and said, “I’m confused… I thought we had to…” At the time, I interpreted her discomfort as resistance. Years later, I recognize how often she used language like this, not to deflect or blame, but to think out loud with honesty and care. 

• Inviting dissent or barrier checks: Naming questions like “What might we be overlooking?” or “Who sees this differently?” sets the expectation that challenge belongs here. Change work involves disagreement, uncertainty, and multiple perspectives. The purpose of shared team spaces is not consensus at all costs, but thoughtful disagreement that strengthens plans and clarifies direction before engaging a wider audience. 

• Acknowledging power dynamics: Naming roles, authority, or positional influence helps teams speak more honestly. Power shows up in who speaks first, who hesitates, and whose ideas move forward. Leaders reduce that pressure by naming where decisions ultimately sit, clarifying when input is shaping versus deciding, and intentionally inviting perspectives that may feel less influential. This helps teams surface thinking early, before silence is misread as agreement. 

• Responding to risk with curiosity: When someone raises a concern, names uncertainty, or challenges a direction, the immediate response teaches the team what is truly safe. Curiosity, modeled by pausing, asking clarifying questions, and staying open, signals that thinking out loud is valued. Rushing to defend, explain, or resolve teaches teams to stay quiet next time. Over time, these small responses shape whether people continue to engage or quietly withdraw. More about how this can show up in last year’s learning entry: Showing Up with Gratitude: Beyond the Celebrations

None of these actions are dramatic. Yet together, they build a foundational practice of a psychologically safe team. 

Healthy Conflict as Evidence of Safety 

One of the clearest indicators of psychological safety is not harmony, it is productive conflict. In safe teams, disagreement is not suppressed or rushed to resolution. Instead, it is explored with respect. People challenge ideas without attacking identity. Teams stay engaged even when perspectives diverge. This aligns with Edmondson’s work on learning teams and with research in organizational psychology showing that teams capable of constructive conflict demonstrate higher-quality decision-making and stronger implementation over time (Salas et al., 2018). 

When teams avoid conflict, it is rarely because everyone agrees. More often, it is because the cost of speaking feels too high. Psychological safety lowers that cost. 

Reflect. Connect. Grow. 

Reflect: When someone takes a risk on your team (e.g. asks a hard question, names uncertainty, or challenges an assumption), how is it typically received? 

Connect: Where do you notice silence, hesitation, or surface-level agreement across teams or roles? What might be signaling a need for increased psychological safety in the system? 

Grow: What is one small, repeatable practice that could strengthen psychological safety without adding more to people’s plates? 

Looking Ahead 

Psychological safety does not stand alone. It is reinforced (or undermined) by clarity, roles, routines, and shared purpose. In the next learning entry, we will explore how teams revisit and refine norms without shame, and how reflection itself becomes a form of care. Our new Learning Community Leader will be adding her experience and reflection to the space in next week’s knowledge drop! 

In times of change, teams do not need perfection. They need conditions that allow people to stay engaged, speak honestly, and learn together. Psychological safety, when practiced daily, makes that possible. 

References 

Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. 

Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley. 

Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113–165. 

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. 

Salas, E., Reyes, D. L., & McDaniel, S. H. (2018). The science of teamwork: Progress, reflections, and the road ahead. American Psychologist, 73(4), 593–600. 

A Note from the Making Champions of Change Team 

This series is shaped by Dr. Morgan Goering, who works alongside educational leaders and teams to build sustainable systems through clarity, trust, and shared purpose. Her work centers on helping teams move beyond meetings toward meaningful, human‑centered collaboration, especially in times of change. This series reflects the collective learning that emerges when leaders, educators, and coaches engage deeply with the work together.