Creating the conditions for people to speak up, think clearly and contribute honestly
Have you ever sat in a meeting where everyone else seems comfortable with the direction of travel, and you are thinking: I am not sure I see it the same way?
Your internal voice goes into overdrive: Maybe I do not have enough seniority to challenge this. Maybe I am the one who’s got it wrong. Maybe I will slow things down.
So, you stay quiet.
Psychological safety is not about confidence, personality or seniority. It is about whether people believe they can raise a concern, ask a question, or offer a different perspective without fear of embarrassment, exclusion, or negative consequences.
When that belief is not there, people do not stop noticing risk. They simply stop calling it out.
When people stay quiet, early warning signs get missed. Assumptions go unchallenged. Risks tend to show up later – when they’re harder to address and more costly to reverse. Silence doesn’t remove problems; it simply delays them, often until the consequences are far greater.
Amy Edmondson explains in The Fearless Organization (Wiley, 2018) that in high-pressure, high-expertise environments, silence is rarely a lack of insight. More often, it is a rational response to uncertainty, hierarchy and experience – especially when speaking up feels as though it may carry a social or professional cost.
In complex organisations, the greatest risk is often not that people do not care, are not capable, or are unwilling to contribute. It is that they are reading the room, judging the consequences, and deciding that now is not the moment to speak.
We see this often in the organisations we work with. Not because there is a lack of talent or commitment. Just the opposite – these are intelligent, conscientious people working in demanding environments where the stakes are high, the pace is relentless, and there is a great deal to hold together at once.
Under that kind of pressure, if there is no existing culture of psychological safety, silence can easily be mistaken for alignment. In a meeting when nobody pushes back, we assume that everyone accepts and agrees with the points discussed. And yet underneath, there may be doubt, hesitation or important information that never quite makes it into the conversation.
This is where leadership plays a critical role – creating the conditions for people to think clearly, contribute honestly, and raise what needs to be raised before small concerns grow into bigger, more costly problems, or decisions that are hard to reverse.
Psychological safety is not a soft extra. It is part of how good judgement happens. And in an AI-led world where we need humans in the loop to do the critical thinking, it’s whether teams surface risks early, test assumptions properly and learn quickly when conditions change.
The starting point is not a big cultural initiative. Rather, it is found in small, consistent signals:
→ How you respond when somebody disagrees
→ Whether you invite challenge before a decision is made
→ Whether uncertainty is treated as weakness or as useful information
→ Whether people leave a meeting feeling that their honest contribution was welcomed or quietly closed down
These moments may seem minor, but teams pay attention to them. Over time, as humans, we learn what is safe to say, what is better left unsaid and whether speaking up is genuinely part of doing good work.
A big part of this is recognising that people have different communication styles. By noticing your own and others' communication styles – and adapting to them – you can build rapport quickly and align more effectively.
If leaders want better thinking, better decisions and fewer avoidable surprises, this is what they need to do.
The earlier concerns are raised, the easier they are to work with. Leaders do not need to wait for a problem to fully form before inviting challenge. In fact, by then it is often more costly, more political and harder to address. At Open Water, we know this as ‘Mind the Gap’. By asking the right questions early, we can surface the nature of the gap between the team’s current state and future desired state.
Before moving to a decision, ask: What concerns, gaps or unintended consequences do we need to name now, while there is still time to act on them?
What happens next matters. If a concern is met with defensiveness, dismissal or visible impatience, people notice. If it is met with curiosity and seriousness, they notice that too.
Instead of defending the original plan, say: I’m glad you raised that – let’s look at it properly before we move on.
In pressured environments, it is easy for a challenge to be interpreted as a lack of alignment or support. Leaders need to show that healthy challenge is not disruption for its own sake. It is part of strengthening the thinking and the outcome.
Patrick Lencioni explains how teams often avoid productive conflict due to fear or discomfort, leading to artificial harmony. He highlights that healthy teams engage in passionate, unfiltered debate around ideas to build trust and commitment.
Remind the team: Pressure-testing an idea is not resistance; it is part of doing good work well.
People are far more likely to stay quiet when they feel they must sound certain. But good judgement rarely starts with certainty. It starts with being honest about what is clear, what is still unclear and what needs further thought.
We do not need to have every answer yet, but we do need to be honest about what we know, what we do not know and what we need to test.
Leaders set the tone. When they act as though they already have the full picture, others are less likely to add to it. When they show openness, humility, and curiosity, they make contributions easier.
This is what we call ‘modelling excellence’. When leaders consciously model the behaviours they want to see – curiosity, openness, challenge without defensiveness – it accelerates learning across the team. When the entire team mirrors this strategy, it encourages shared ‘best practice’ and increases team synergy. Continuously trying to reinvent the wheel is a costly process.
Ask: What am I missing here, and what might be harder to say from where you sit?
This is how you build a culture where teams feel psychologically safe – through repeated signals that honest contribution is welcomed, useful and part of how good work gets done.
If you want better thinking, fewer avoidable surprises and stronger decisions under pressure, this is one of the most practical places to start.
Specialists in the human side of change, we partner with leading life science organisations to deliver deep change and cultural transformation.