Illinois Extension offers a diverse range of talent, expertise, jobs, and career paths. On any given day, our staff members may be working with volunteers in a community garden, offering a pesticide safety workshop at a local farm, facilitating a community planning session that supports business retention in rural areas, leading a food safety and preservation class with a community partner, or hosting a college-readiness fair for high school 4-Hers. The value of our work is substantial and meaningful across Illinois. The examples above show that our work takes place in many settings, and the professionalism that staff exhibit in those spaces is crucial to creating welcoming environments for our program participants and community members. In a similar breath, the workspaces that our staff occupy may affect their sense of safety and comfort in their day-to-day professional lives. Practicing psychological safety ensures that we not only support our audiences but also our staff.
What is workplace psychological safety?
Psychological safety refers to a condition in which employees feel comfortable and secure when taking interpersonal risks. When this condition is present, employees may be open to expressing ideas, asking questions, and raising concerns within the professional environment (Edmondson, 1999; Khan & Usman, 2025). In other words, it is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Psychological safety extends opportunities for mutual trust and respect among team members. It can create professional environments that help to reduce workplace isolation, exclusion, and stress.
Why does psychological safety matter?
Psychological safety is the foundation of inclusion; it enables trust, creativity, and collaboration. In a work environment that is unsafe for interpersonal risk-taking, employees may see ideas dismissed, tough conversations avoided, and nonverbal cues of disapproval (e.g., sighs and eye rolls). In addition to some blatant actions, workplace ostracism presents as a more subtle but equally damaging example of a lack of psychological safety. It occurs when individuals feel separated from their colleagues because group members ignore them, isolate them, cancel casual social gatherings, and maintain a strategic distance (Rabiul, 2024).
When psychological safety is not part of the workplace culture, it has profound negative effects on employees. Intentional and unintentional exclusion affects employee outcomes, such as increased turnover, decreased meaningfulness in one’s work, and organizational trust. This further threatens employees’ sense of belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence.
What are the benefits of workplace psychological safety?
When psychological safety is a part of the work culture, the benefits are significant.
- When employees perceive their workplace as psychologically safe, they feel encouraged to take risks, be creative, and engage in innovative behaviors at work.
- Psychological safety significantly and uniquely influences employees’ learning behaviors and performance within the workplace.
- It fosters innovative work behaviors by encouraging idea generation, advocacy, and execution, creating an environment where employees feel confident in expressing themselves without fear of negative consequences.
- It enhances problem-solving capabilities (Khan & Usman, 2025).
What are some practical applications of psychological safety at work?
It is through practicing psychological safety that we experience its benefits. Shafaei and colleagues (2024) explain that inclusive leaders create psychologically safe work environments that allow employees to contribute unique ideas and perspectives, enable group cohesion, and reduce inequities. Ongoing practical application includes:
- Making sure all team members can be heard and their contributions validated. This can be achieved by incorporating methods such as “three before me” for those who are naturally more vocal, and using this approach that rotates who speaks first.
- Fostering transparent and inclusive communication to build trust. Consistent communication between leadership and employees helps drive objectives and goals (Patterson-Stephens & Jones, 2023).
- Creating open spaces for different perspectives and professional interpersonal risk-taking. This allows staff and team members to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of punishment, ridicule, or embarrassment (Edmondson, 1999).
- Integrating psychologically safe principles into daily management styles and strategies for those in leadership roles. By incorporating preventive tactics such as promoting open communication, sharing knowledge among employees, and making fair decisions, managers can create an atmosphere of transparency and fairness, discouraging ostracism (Rabiul, 2024).
- Establishing clear and consistent psychologically safe ground rules. Implementing clear rules and regulations can serve as a deterrent to ostracism and psychologically unsafe spaces, ensuring a fair and inclusive workplace.
- Training employees to work in groups and use adaptive strategies to manage workplace disharmony.
How do we support psychological safety at Illinois Extension?
Our Extension colleagues Roxana Cejeda and Sky Holland led a recent professional development session that described several psychologically safe tools that strengthen inclusion and collaboration:
- Ask better questions
- Model vulnerability
- Create simple meeting norms
- Acknowledge efforts and growth
- Reflect before reacting
Psychological safety is not about avoiding conflict, and it is not a feel-good topic. It is about respectful work environments that drive learning, innovation, and staff retention. Learn more from our colleagues about The Courage to Collaborate: Building Psychologically Safe Teams.
Image
Unsplash | Patrick Perkins
Resource
- Cejeda, R., & Holland, S. (2026, April 28). The courage to collaborate: building psychologically safe teams [video]. Illinois Media Space.
References
- Khan, I, & Usman, M. (2025). Unleashing innovative work behavior in the workplace through leader’s cultural intelligence: Mediating role of psychological safety. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 25(3), 703-721.
- Doussard, C., Garbe, E., Morales, J., & Billion, J. (2024). Universal design for the workplace: Ethical considerations regarding the inclusion of workers with disabilities. Journal of Business Ethics, 194 (285-296).
- Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
- Patterson-Stephens, S., & Jones, T. B. (Eds.). (2023). Advancing inclusive excellence in higher education: practical approaches to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Information Age Publishing, Inc.
- Rabiul, M., K. (2024). Does one’s sense of psychological safety mitigate the link between workplace ostracism and employee vitality? Meaningful work as a boundary role. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 123, 103925, 1-9.