Wellbeing almost always comes up when we talk about psychological safety in our workshops, and for good reason. Psychological safety is, at its heart, about how people feel at work. But it’s not quite the same as wellbeing. The two are closely connected, yet they describe different parts of our experience at work.

Understanding how they differ and how they support one another can help us create workplaces that are healthier, happier and higher performing. Let’s explore how.

The Interrelationship between Psychological Safety And Wellbeing

Psychological safety, as defined by Dr Amy Edmondson, is the shared belief in a team that we won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, asking questions, raising concerns, or admitting mistakes: a belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks. To foster psychological safety, we need to collectively create a climate where everyone is able to take these interpersonal risks without having to fear negative consequences. At work, psychological safety is often used as a vehicle to improve team performance, safety, innovation, and engagement, although it has plenty of other benefits too. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also the right thing to do.

In contrast, the term ‘wellbeing’ encompasses a broader spectrum of our lives, including physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions. Definitions of wellbeing vary according to context, but generally it refers to the state of being comfortable, healthy and happy in both life and work. Improving people’s wellbeing enhances both their quality of life and their life expectancy. It also boosts their productivity, creativity, and performance at work.

Indicators of Psychological Safety and Wellbeing

Thinking about what psychological safety and wellbeing look like when we achieve them can give us more of an understanding of how they overlap and how they differ.  For instance, tangible indicators of psychological safety include people respectfully disagreeing with each other in meetings, saying “I need help with this,” or admitting “I messed up there.”

In contrast, some of the many indicators of wellbeing at work might include (and these will look different for everyone!) positive and cheerful conversations, seeing colleagues enjoying an extended lunch break together, and people taking more holidays and fewer sick days.

Can Psychological Safety Improve Wellbeing?

It seems intuitive that feeling safe to speak up at work would positively contribute to your wellbeing. After all, if you can raise issues and advocate for yourself without fear, it makes sense that you’ll feel better, in large part because you can ask for support when you need it. And a growing body of evidence supports this. For example, a 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychology focused on accountants in China found that psychological safety significantly impacts overall wellbeing. The study showed that employees in psychologically safe environments were more motivated, positive, and satisfied with their work and personal lives. The authors concluded:

“A good strategy and policy to raise employees’ perception of psychological safety will enhance their motivations, positive affectivity, and psychological wellbeing.”

Similarly, a study of New Zealand legal practices found using ethical leadership practices to build psychological safety improved multiple measures of employee wellbeing. As they put it:

“When ethical leaders create an environment where people feel safe to speak up without negative repercussions, this demonstrates to employees that they are supported and cared about, which then influences how satisfied they feel with their job and the work they do“.

And it doesn’t just apply to “work” either, the world of elite sport is beginning to conceptualise how increasing psychological safety may help improve mental health outcomes.

Psychological Safety and Wellbeing: A Virtuous Cycle

Fostering greater psychological safety is an essential foundation for wellbeing at work. 

Conversely, in environments lacking psychological safety, where people don’t feel able to speak up or ask for help, it’s likely only a matter of time before many burnout or leave. If we don’t feel psychologically safe to ask for help or admit when we’re struggling, our health and wellbeing – and potentially that of those around us – will eventually suffer.

How Psychological Safety Enhances Wellbeing

This is not an exhaustive list, but just as a starting point, psychological safety can boost wellbeing in the following ways:

1. A more enjoyable work environment: It feels better and reduces anxiety when we work somewhere that’s free from interpersonal fear.
2. Greater access to support: Psychological safety makes it easier to speak up when we’re struggling, and allows us to access the help and resources we need.
3. Improved identification of issues: It allows us to identify and address systemic and structural challenges to wellbeing.
4. Reduced blame culture: Working on psychological safety means moving away from “blame and shame” cultures and practices, which are often major contributors to stress at work.
5. Improved innovation: When we feel psychologically safer, we can be more creative; not only does this help us problem solve, it also helps us to find more fulfilment and meaning in our work.

The Flip Side: How Wellbeing Supports Psychological Safety

We tend to find that when organisations take a genuine, thoughtful approach to supporting wellbeing, it often strengthens psychological safety too. Put simply, it’s easier to build relationships and communicate well when we feel well.

Plus, meaningful wellbeing initiatives, such as like reviewing workloads and making real changes, giving everyone permission to disconnect when they’re not at work or modelling healthy boundaries, send a powerful message that people are valued.

By contrast, surface-level gestures such as employee engagement surveys that go nowhere or token “wellbeing” events risk sending the opposite message: that care is performative, and the deeper issues are going to remain unaddressed.

To sum up…

Although they aren’t the same thing, psychological safety and wellbeing are strongly connected, even interdependent. If we can build both, and know that efforts to improve one may also improve the other, we’ll create workplaces where we’re all far more likely to thrive, both personally and professionally. 

Further reading

Self-Determination Theory and Accountant Employees’ Psychological Wellbeing: The Roles of Positive Affectivity and Psychological Safety

Feeling safe to speak up: Leaders improving employee wellbeing through psychological safety

Psychological Safety and Burnout

Psychological Safety, Diversity & Inclusion

Psychological Safety in Practice

How Many Maybe’s until Empathy?

I love this piece from Will Gallego, describing the practise of simply thinking “maybe” much more, in order to understand the local rationality and context behind people’s actions and decisions – thereby building greater empathy. I also like will’s outcome bias statements, which again highlight how the phrase “should have” can be a strong indicator that we’re not taking context into account.

Failure Stories

Our friends James and Peter at Rebranding Safety talk about their own failures in this excellent podcast episode. I appreciated hearing about the plan to improve pre-shift briefs, which got sort of derailed by going into solutioning mode too early – but what was really interesting was hearing about the chap who spoke up and had a problem with the plan. Whilst it’s easy to initially assume someone is just being resistant to change or intentionally belligerent, it’s harder to cultivate curiosity, but so valuable.

Psychological Safety and Hierarchy in Operating Room Debriefing

Psychological safety is both a prerequisite for and a product of debriefing. Hierarchies and power structures can be either negative or positive forces to foster psychological safety, and this excellent open access paper dives a bit into those dynamics in operating room debriefs. 

Keynotes and Talks

I’ve had a wonderful (and rather busy) week this week, thanks to being invited to deliver two keynote talks, one at the Nursing, Midwifery and AHP Excellence Conference, and one at the Compare The Market Vibes ’24 event! No official photos available yet, so here are some I took 🙂

If you’re holding an event or conference and you’re interested in a keynote, talk, seminar or workshop, get in touch!