Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Psychological safety
A shared belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, such as admitting error, asking questions and challenging. It is one of the strongest predictors of team performance. It is independent of standards, and it is different from comfort or an absence of conflict.
Where the standard develops it
- CC-1Psychological safety and productive conflictSafe to speak, expected to disagree, committed once decided.
Related terms
- Accountability without fear
- Clear ownership and honest consequences for patterns of unaccountability, combined with real safety for honest error.
- Blameless postmortem
- An incident review that asks how the system allowed the failure and what to change, rather than who to blame.
- Costly moment
- A situation in which a stated value and the pressure of the moment point in different directions, and people are watching the decision.
- Learning zone
- The combination of high psychological safety and high standards.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Psychological safety. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.psychological-safety). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/psychological-safety