The Emergence of Psychological Safety or its Mirage

Leaders often strive to foster psychological safety in teams, and yet it may not emerge. This study builds grounded theory on how psychological safety emerges, or not, on teams. We draw on longitudinal ethnographic data from a matched pair case study of two teams over two years, including verbatim meeting transcripts that elicit the micro-processes affecting psychological safety and interviews that elucidate team members’ interpretations. We identify an illusion initially present on both teams in which surface markers of psychological safety existed but team members nonetheless continued to avoid interpersonal risk—what we call a psychological safety mirage. This occurred because external pressures on leaders spurred them to take self-protective actions that inadvertently reinforced interpersonal risk, despite their continued efforts to invite contributions. One team was eventually able to break from this mirage through a three-phase de-risking process that facilitated psychological safety emergence: (1) collectively recognizing the underlying risk faced by team members, (2) de-risking contributions by offering opportunities to build skills, through which safety was demonstrated and reinforced, and (3) enacting psychological safety, with all team members contributing, reinforcing, and sharing in the benefits of reduced interpersonal risk. This paper advances theory on psychological safety by conceptualizing a team-level de-risking process model that facilitates its emergence and by characterizing its mirage.