The Fearless Organization by Amy C. Edmondson is the foundational book on psychological safety in the workplace. Edmondson makes a powerful case: if people don’t feel safe to speak up, your organization is leaving potential on the table. Through case studies across industries, she shows how fear-based silence kills performance, learning, and innovation. The book outlines what psychological safety is (and isn’t), how to measure it, and the specific leadership behaviors that build or erode it. It’s part research, part playbook—and it belongs in every manager’s hands.
Core message: People won’t learn, grow, or contribute unless they feel safe to take interpersonal risks—and it’s your job as a leader to create those conditions.
We keep saying we want people to “bring their whole selves” to work—but how often do we actually make that safe? Today, we unpack what psychological safety looks like in practice—not in posters.
Featured Book: The Fearless Organization by Amy C. Edmondson
Big Idea / Premise: Psychological safety isn’t about being nice—it’s about being clear, curious, and committed to the truth, even when it’s messy.
Discussion Beats:
Why “it’s a safe space” isn’t enough—and how teams actually test safety
What leaders do (or don’t do) that kills trust in under 60 seconds
What Amy Edmondson means by “a learning organization”—and why that’s every manager’s job
3 signs your team isn’t safe (even if no one’s saying it out loud)
Closing Takeaway: You don’t build psychological safety by announcing it. You build it by showing people what happens when they tell you the hard stuff.
This isn’t about making people comfortable. It’s about making it safe to be real.
If you want honesty, creativity, and high performance—you need psychological safety. And you can’t delegate that. You model it.
👉 Join the next LGI SuperSession: Psychological Safety — It Starts With Me.
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