Whistleblowing and Psychological Safety

Whistleblowing and Psychological Safety: Not the Same Thing

By Jade Garratt

When we explain our work to people who’ve never heard of psychological safety, they sometimes say, “Oh, like whistleblowing?”

It’s an understandable mix-up – both involve speaking up about things that concern us. But in a sense, psychological safety and whistleblowing sit at different ends of a spectrum of voice (and of course, “voice” doesn’t necessarily mean verbal). 

Whistleblowing is also a multi-disciplinary construct — studied in law, organisational psychology, ethics, HRM and public policy. Our focus here is how it relates to psychological safety, rather than offering a full typology of whistleblowing research and practice.

What whistleblowing actually means

Whistleblowing is defined differently across academia, law and practice. Common definitions — including Near & Miceli (1985) and ISO 37002 — broadly centre on the disclosure of wrongdoing or risk of wrongdoing to someone with authority to act. It’s widely recognised that we need people to blow the whistle to expose corruption, tackle crime and protect both the public and the environment. In some definitions, even everyday disclosures (‘I think this process isn’t working’) could be considered forms of whistleblowing; in this piece we are distinguishing between routine, relational voice behaviours and escalated disclosures.

Because challenging your employer can expose you to risk, the need for legal protection for whistleblowers is recognised in international law, although actual protections around the world vary. In the UK, whistleblowers are entitled to certain legal protections, provided their disclosure is (or they believe it is) in the public interest and it relates to an offence such as:

• A criminal offence
• Endangering health or safety
• Environmental damage
• Miscarriage of justice
• Covering up of wrongdoing

If an employer does not listen or respond appropriately, whistleblowing can also involve external disclosure, for example to a professional body, regulator or in some cases, the media. Workers are entitled (in the UK and Europe at least) not to be unfairly dismissed or treated detrimentally for making a protected disclosure. For some workers, independent reporting channels such as external hotlines can play an important role.

But it’s also worth noting what whistleblowing doesn’t cover. Legal protections apply only in certain circumstances; they are unlikely to extend to personal grievances, interpersonal issues or accidents, even when those have serious consequences. And they’re less likely to apply in small organisations or where the issue affects only a few people, because these are unlikely to hit the “public interest” criteria.

So while the law protects some forms of speaking up, it doesn’t, and can’t, cover them all.

So how does this connect to psychological safety?

Psychological safety is a broader and more relational concept. It’s about creating environments where people feel safe to speak up with any question, concern, idea or mistake, not just those that meet legal thresholds.

When we work on psychological safety, our goal is to make speaking up normal, or ordinary – to make it possible for people to raise small issues before they turn into big ones. These are exactly the kinds of conversations that whistleblowing law doesn’t touch – the early warnings, the weak signals of “something doesn’t feel right” and the small corrections that keep people and systems safe.

And this is where the two concepts intersect. Because the issues that lead to whistleblowing are often severe, workers frequently hold concerns for a long time before acting. Many people may try to raise their worries informally but find they are ignored, dismissed or shut down. How leaders respond in those early moments matters immensely.

Whistleblowing tends to happen when people either don’t feel safe to raise concerns sooner, or weren’t listened to when they tried. Whistleblowing is essentially a last resort – the point someone reaches after trying, and failing, to be heard. Or, worse, when they know that speaking up internally would mean risking their job, reputation or future in the organisation.

The human cost of whistleblowing

Despite the protections, whistleblowing rarely feels safe. Even a cursory search online reveals how complicated and contradictory the guidance can be: full of legal advice, caveats and cautions. Workers are urged to think carefully before proceeding, and for good reason. 

Whistleblowers often show extraordinary courage, but that courage can come at significant personal and professional cost, including strained or broken relationships, conflict, retaliation, loss of one’s job, career or severe stress.

“I work for the British people. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people.”
Katharine Gun (Iraq War whistleblower)

Psychological safety as prevention

In a psychologically safe culture, people don’t have to wait until things are catastrophic before saying something. We can raise concerns early, in ordinary conversations, challenging assumptions, questioning decisions and pointing out risks while there’s still time to act.

This might look as simple and unthreatening as someone saying:

• “I’m not sure this data looks right,” 
• “I’m worried we might be missing something here,” or 
• “This process isn’t working as we expected,” or
• “This might not be safe.”

And being thanked for raising the concern.

By contrast, whistleblowing often happens when these early signals are ignored or suppressed. When honesty feels unsafe, problems simmer beneath the surface until they become too big to ignore.

Behind many whistleblower stories are missed opportunities – moments where someone could have listened, asked a question or created space to hear things that were uncomfortable. Research also shows that many people do not initially identify themselves as whistleblowers; the label often emerges later in the process.

So while psychological safety and whistleblowing both relate to speaking up, they represent very different cultures and circumstances. One is about early, open dialogue that prevents harm. The other is an important, potentially risky (both interpersonally and career-wise) act to expose harm that’s often already been done.

Whistleblowing: a symptom of a broken system

In the academic literature, whistleblowing is often described as a form of prosocial behaviour – something organisations should actively encourage and protect. It’s framed as an act of moral courage that serves the public good and should be “encouraged and appreciated.”

But while that’s true in principle, in practice,  we know that whistleblowing tends to emerge after other, safer, avenues for voice have failed. Research shows that people don’t make the decision to blow the whistle lightly; they often wrestle with moral ambiguity, fears of retaliation, social exclusion and career damage.

So the trouble with urging organisations to “encourage” whistleblowing is that it misses the emotional and relational cost baked into that escalation. The term whistleblower still carries connotations of betrayal, disloyalty and punishment. As Aled Jones puts it, even with legal protections, “the fate of whistleblowers is characteristically bleak,” and many who speak up externally experience isolation, stress or professional exile.

That’s why, from a psychological safety perspective, whistleblowing is a symptom of system failure, not success.

A psychologically safe culture doesn’t eliminate the need for legal protections – those are essential. But it should make the need for whistleblowing pretty rare. When people can raise concerns early and be heard, we don’t need formal processes because everyday truth-telling is already supported by the culture.

If organisations want fewer whistleblowing cases, the answer likely isn’t tighter policies or more compliance training. It’s creating conditions where people can speak up before things reach that point and where concerns can be surfaced, explored and addressed without fear.

So rather than celebrating whistleblowing, we might better ask: 

What would it take to make whistleblowing unnecessary?

References

• Farooqi, S., Abid, G. and Ahmed, A. (2017) ‘How bad it is to be good: Impact of organisational ethical culture on whistleblowing (the ethical partners)’, Arab Economic and Business Journal, 12(2), pp. 69–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aebj.2017.06.001
• Durante, R. and Toker Gokce, A. (2017) ‘Organizational culture and ethics: The influence organizational and personal values have on perceptions of misconduct and the factors of whistleblowing’, in Handbook of Research on Organizational Culture and Diversity in the Modern Workforce. IGI Global. pp. 1–20. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-1049-9.ch073
• Jones, A. (2015) ‘The role of employee whistleblowing and raising concerns in an organizational learning culture – elusive and laudable?: Comment on “Cultures of silence and cultures of voice: The role of whistleblowing in healthcare organisations”’, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 5(1), pp. 67–69. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2015.182
• The right – and duty – of NHS staff to speak up. Hugh Wilkins https://www.pslhub.org/learn/culture/whistle-blowing/the-right-%E2%80%93-and-duty-%E2%80%93-of-nhs-staff-to-speak-up-r2340/

Further Reading:

Amplifying Weak Signals

PACE: Graded Assertiveness