The Field Guide › Article
A corrective to the field's overemphasis on the speaking-up side of psychological safety. The crux of PS is less about what people say and more about how their words are received, and how they predict they will be received: you can tell people to speak up endlessly, but if your past responses, present responses, or anticipated responses involve punishing, blaming or humiliating them, they won't. And 'punishment' need not be overt — not yelling or a disciplinary meeting, but something subtler and sometimes just as frightening: disapproval that leads to being overlooked, reputational damage, social ostracisation within the team. This places the onus on the listener, not the speaker. It can be uncomfortable to accept, especially when people stay quiet for reasons rooted in how they were treated elsewhere, long before us — which is precisely why how we act now ripples outward beyond the immediate interaction. The article presses on self-awareness: it's easy to assume we're already approachable, but how many of us have never fired off a snappy email, shown irritation at a 'should-know-this' question, or been passive-aggressive when criticised? Our reactions when tired, distracted or overwhelmed matter as much as our good-day responses, and unconscious bias shapes how we receive others whether we intend it or not. Drawing on Bennis ('becoming a leader is similar to becoming a fully integrated human being') and Frankl ('between stimulus and response there is a space'), it frames the work as ongoing and never finished: reflecting on our behaviour, asking for and listening to feedback, narrowing the gap between intention and impact, and apologising and repairing when we get it wrong.