Barriers to Psychological Safety

There are many team-level, organisation-level and broader barriers to speaking up, including (most significantly) steep power gradients, cultural norms (organisational or otherwise), and others. But in this research we wanted to examine the experiential barriers to speaking up at work, at an individually perceived level. 

We had an incredible response to this survey, where we asked:

“Based on your experience, which three of the following do you feel are the biggest barriers to speaking up at work – whether with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes?”
-with 12 options to select from:

• I might be punished or face negative consequences .
• It might make me seem stupid or less competent.
• I should already know this.
• It might damage my reputation or credibility.
• I might be seen as a troublemaker.
• It might create more work for me or others.
• No one else seems to think this is a problem.
• It’s not my place to say / someone else should raise it.
• People might laugh or mock me.
• I don’t think it will make a difference anyway.
• I don’t know how to say it clearly.
• There’s no time or space for these conversations.

These were randomised for each respondent. We also provided a free-text field where respondents could provide other suggestions and insights. The total number of completed (in full) responses was 138, with 86 respondents (62%) also providing free text responses.

The biggest barriers to speaking up in the workplace

This is fascinating. To be honest, we weren’t expecting the top answer to be “I don’t think it will make a difference anyway.” It’s also interesting to note that whilst there are clearly some most popular choices, the spread of options is reasonably linear, and we should remember that because each person picked only three, even the “lower‑ranked” fears still reflect someone’s deepest concern.

Every barrier (even those ranked 10–12) made it into some people’s top three. Here’s the ranking:

Key takeaway: The gradual taper from 43% down to 12% (with everyone’s barrier in someone’s top three) demonstrates a very wide breadth of concerns. 

What this primarily tells us is that single, generic, cookie-cutter approaches to psychological safety that focus only on certain consequences will leave pockets of silence intact, often for those who are already least represented and heard.

Having mapped what people fear, let’s explore how those fears reinforce each other.

Co-occurrence of Barriers to Speaking Up

There are clearly some patterns and co-occurrences – barriers appear to reinforce each other. The Jaccard index measures overlap as the number of respondents selecting both fears divided by everyone selecting either fear. It tells us how tightly two barriers cluster together.

These Jaccard linkages tell us that addressing only ‘punishment’ without tackling ‘stigma’ or ‘futility’, for example, leaves an important gap.

• Punishment & Troublemaker (0.325): Of everyone worried about either punitive consequences or being labeled a troublemaker, 32.5% picked both – suggesting a strong linkage.
• Punishment & Futility (0.270): 27.0% of those concerned about being punished for speaking up also doubted their voice would make a difference.
• Troublemaker & Futility (0.242): Almost a quarter of those fearing the stigma of being labelled as a troublemaker also felt that speaking up may be pointless.
• Lower but still interesting Jaccard values (of 0.171 and 0.145) show that concerns about one’s reputation sometimes connect to needs for conformity.

So what?: People possess multiple simultaneous fears and concerns about speaking up. Addressing one without the other may leave people remaining psychologically unsafe.

Archetypes of Barriers to Speaking Up

Numbers alone don’t capture the nuance of psychological safety in practice, so here we’ll explore how anonymity, relationship risk, and cultural norms amplify or aggregate these barriers. We analysed the clusters of each person’s top three answers, revealing three key archetypes:

Mapping Barriers to Approaches

Thinking about our top-ten ways to foster psychological safety, here we connect these approaches to the three archetypes, showing which approaches are likely to be most effective for each archetype.

• Fear‑Averse Archetype (61%): Over half in this largest group fear retribution and stigma, with many also doubting the impact of speaking up. They may benefit from reducing power gradients and addressing problematic behaviour in the group. Combine this with strong safety signals, such as explicit non‑retaliation policies, truly anonymous channels, and visible leader endorsement of speaking up. Fears of retribution, stigma, and futility appear together, so we need to both reassure and demonstrate results – Say “thank you,” share follow‑up actions, and showcase success stories.
• Competence‑Anxious (56%): More than half of us worry about appearing incompetent, and a third feel we should already know the answer. In our work with teams, these people are often more experienced and qualified – showing that just because we’ve been in a team or role for a longer time, doesn’t mean we’re necessarily psychologically safer in every dimension. This group may benefit most from more explicit group norms (such as team charters), greater facilitation, as well as improved clarity around when speaking up is in scope. Admitting mistakes and running learning exercises such as retrospectives and learning teams would be beneficial for this group, building feedback loops where voice demonstrably leads to learning, closing the “did it matter?” gap.
• Cynical-Conformist (67%): Two‑thirds doubt that speaking up changes anything and also see few peers doing so. They may need social proof – things like demonstrations of impact, success stories, peer and leader champions, and clear metrics showing that voice leads to action. Embracing different ways of speaking up (non-verbal, asynchronous, etc) and acknowledging different needs around eye contact, body language and other differences are also likely to be very important for this archetype. 
  

Priority Practices to Consider 

It’s important to note that these groupings are not discrete – each of us is likely to overlap multiple archetypes, and represent different archetypes in different teams, times, or contexts.

A Qualitative Analysis of Barriers to Speaking Up

Beyond ticking boxes, over 50% of respondents took us up on the free‑text field to describe other barriers in their own words. A thematic analysis surfaced additional concerns that layer on top of the quantitative findings:

First, anonymity and confidentiality cropped up repeatedly. Many feared that an “anonymous” report could easily be traced back to them, particularly in small groups. Those who voiced anonymity concerns also tended to doubt the impact and benefit of speaking up. There was also some skepticism that any concern would be heard, let alone acted upon. 

Another powerful theme was emotional labour and relationship risk. Multiple respondents warned of “burning bridges” or career damage if they spoke up. For them, raising a concern was seen as a gamble with work relationships and career trajectory. This anxiety co-occurred with the quantitative cluster around “troublemaker” and “reputation” fears, highlighting that social costs are as significant (if not more so) as formal punishment.

Beyond personal risk, some respondents were concerned with scope and legitimacy. Concerns that it’s not within their remit or scope to speak up, treading on someone’s toes, or overstepping the mark, spoke to uncertainty about where boundaries and expectations lie. In our survey, everyone who raised scope confusion also worried they “should already know” the answer, linking this self‑doubt to role‑clarity anxieties.

A cultural theme also emerged around norms of silence. Many people described workplace cultures where complaining feels taboo, or just not having a speak up culture. Processes, practices and “speak up” mechanisms are easily undermined by social proof that dissent is frowned upon.

These themes and narratives illuminate the lived experience behind the three archetypes. The Fear‑Averse group focus heavily on punishment, anonymity and trust concerns; the Competence‑Anxious face uncertainty, scope and relationship risks; and the Cynical-Conformist are tired of cultural silence and past disappointments. 

Psychological safety doesn’t look the same to everyone. 

There is no one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach to creating environments where people feel safe to speak up in the way that works for them. However, understanding these themes and archetypes can help us to refine and prioritise the interventions that are likely to have the greatest impact. Which of these archetypes appear in your teams and organisation? 

Addendum

Since publishing this data, members of our psychological safety community have run similar research in their own teams and organisations, and the same patterns have emerged in teams ranging from European and US to South Asian and Indian contexts.

And the fabulous Roberto Ferraro has created this wonderful illustration inspired by our research too!