Amy Edmondson's Research on Psychological Safety

Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, has spent over 25 years researching psychological safety. Her work has transformed how we understand team effectiveness, learning, and organisational performance. Her research is cited in Google's Project Aristotle, which found psychological safety was the #1 factor in team effectiveness.

This article explores Edmondson's foundational research, her influential frameworks, and how her findings apply to Australian workplaces today.

The Discovery: Medical Teams That Report More Errors

Edmondson's research on psychological safety began unexpectedly in the 1990s when she was studying medical teams in hospitals.

She expected to find that better-performing teams would make fewer errors. Instead, she found the opposite. The best-performing teams reported significantly more errors than poorly-performing teams.

This puzzling finding led to a crucial insight: the high-performing teams weren't making more mistakes. They were just more willing to discuss them. The difference was psychological safety.

In psychologically unsafe teams, staff hid mistakes, covered up near-misses, and avoided raising concerns about practices that might harm patients. In psychologically safe teams, errors were discussed openly, leading to learning and improvement.

Timothy Clark's 4 Stages of Psychological Safety

Building on Edmondson's work, Dr Timothy Clark developed a practical framework describing how psychological safety develops through four sequential stages. This model helps leaders understand where their team currently sits and what needs to happen next.

Stage 1: Inclusion Safety

The foundation. Team members feel accepted for who they are, regardless of background, personality, or perspective. They feel they belong.

Signs of inclusion safety:

• People are welcomed when they join
• Diversity is genuinely valued, not just tolerated
• People can be themselves without masking
• No one is excluded from conversations or decisions

Stage 2: Learner Safety

Team members feel safe to learn: ask questions, make mistakes, and admit they don't know something. This is essential for growth and development.

Signs of learner safety:

• Questions are welcomed, not dismissed
• Mistakes are treated as learning opportunities
• People ask for help without embarrassment
• Feedback is given and received constructively

Stage 3: Contributor Safety

Team members feel safe to contribute: share ideas, use their skills, and make a difference. This enables full participation and engagement.

Signs of contributor safety:

• People actively participate in discussions
• Ideas are acknowledged, even when not adopted
• People feel their work matters
• Expertise is respected regardless of hierarchy

Stage 4: Challenger Safety

The highest level. Team members feel safe to challenge the status quo, question decisions, and push back without fear of retaliation. This enables innovation and continuous improvement.

Signs of challenger safety:

• Dissent is welcomed and explored
• People challenge ideas without challenging people
• Bad news is delivered without fear
• The leader's ideas are questioned like anyone else's

The Fearless Organisation Framework

In her 2018 book "The Fearless Organization", Edmondson synthesised her research into a comprehensive framework for understanding and building psychological safety.

The learning zone

Edmondson describes four zones based on two dimensions: psychological safety (vertical axis) and accountability/standards (horizontal axis):

The goal isn't just psychological safety. It's combining psychological safety with high standards to create the learning zone where teams can both challenge each other and support risk-taking.

The silence problem

Edmondson's research with James Detert found that 85% of employees have withheld important information from their manager because they feared the consequences of speaking up.

Common forms of silence include:

• Not raising problems until they become crises
• Agreeing with decisions you think are wrong
• Not offering ideas that might be rejected
• Covering up mistakes rather than learning from them

This silence has enormous costs: failed projects, missed opportunities, preventable errors, and employee disengagement.

Google's Project Aristotle: Validating the Research

In 2012, Google launched Project Aristotle to identify what makes teams effective. After studying 180 teams over two years, they found five key factors, with psychological safety ranking first.

The five factors (in order of importance):

1. Psychological Safety — team members feel safe taking risks
2. Dependability — members reliably complete quality work
3. Structure and Clarity — clear goals, roles, and plans
4. Meaning — work is personally important to members
5. Impact — the team believes their work matters

The research surprised Google. They expected factors like team composition, individual performance, or leadership style to matter most. Instead, how team members felt about taking risks in front of each other was the strongest predictor of effectiveness.

Applying Edmondson's Research in Australian Workplaces

Edmondson's research, while conducted primarily in the US, translates well to Australian contexts. In fact, several Australian characteristics may make psychological safety even more relevant.

Cultural considerations

Australian workplace culture values directness and informality, which can support psychological safety. The "tall poppy syndrome" cuts both ways: it can discourage speaking up about successes, but may also create space for honest conversations about problems and failures.

Regulatory context

Australian work health and safety legislation increasingly recognises psychosocial hazards as workplace risks. Psychological safety directly addresses many of these hazards, making it both a performance enabler and a compliance consideration.

Industry applications

Edmondson's research has been applied across industries including:

• Healthcare — reducing medical errors through open discussion
• Mining and resources — improving safety reporting
• Financial services — encouraging risk disclosure
• Technology — enabling innovation and experimentation
• Professional services — supporting honest client conversations

Putting the Research into Practice

Understanding the research is the first step. Applying it requires deliberate leader behaviour and sustained team practice.

Learn what psychological safety is and why it matters →

See practical examples of psychological safety in action →

Learn how to build psychological safety step by step →

Explore psychological safety training options →