The Stages of Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999). It is the foundation for both high performing teams and high performing organizations.

Timothy R Clarke describes a conceptual model of four “stages” of psychological safety that teams can move through. These four stages are – (1) Inclusion Safety, (2) Learner Safety, (3) Contributor Safety and (4) Challenger Safety.

Despite being a linear model applied to a non-linear phenomenon, Clarke’s model can be useful to help people understand that psychological safety is not a binary “on/off” phenomenon, but a dynamic that changes throughout the team’s journey.

The first stage is INCLUSION safety. We all want to feel included. This stage means all members are included and welcomed – without discrimination because of gender, age, or sexual orientation. Members feel safe when they belong to the team. appreciated.

The second stage is LEARNER safety. This means being able to ask questions, give and receive feedback, ask for help, experiment, and make (and admit) small mistakes. This is a higher safety stage as members are open to provide feedback and ask for feedback themselves.

The third stage is CONTRIBUTOR safety. This means being able to participate and contribute ideas to the team without fear, embarrassment or ridicule. This is a more challenging state, because volunteering your own ideas can increase the psychosocial vulnerability of team members.

The fourth stages is CHALLENGER safety. This means being able to question others’ (including those in authority) ideas or suggest changes to ideas, plans, or ways of working. This is the most demanding stage of safety, as it not easy nor comfortable challenging authority.

People and teams will move through these stages in many different ways as opposed to moving through them in a linear fashion. Teams can move forwards and backwards, they may also skip stages, or move into and across different stages in different contexts, times of day, and different teams.

At increasing stages of psychological safety, however, team members become more and more happy. Very few high performing teams are unhappy, but high performing teams are not happy because they’re high performing, they’re high performing because they’re happy.