What Version of You Shows Up at Work?

How Psychological Safety Changes the Way We Behave

Written by Hector Riva-Palacio
Founder and Lead Coach at Helping Reach Potential

(10-minute read)

Think about how you behave when you feel safe with someone.

You are comfortable saying what you really think. You will admit you don’t know something. You will ask for help. You can disagree without spending the next ten minutes wondering whether you’ve said the wrong thing.

When you don’t feel safe, you become more careful.

You might hold back a concern, pretend you understand when you don’t, tell someone you’re fine when you’re not, or decide that saying nothing is easier than dealing with what might happen if you speak up.

Sometimes, something is genuinely wrong, and it affects us. But we don’t say anything because we worry about how people will react, or because we’ve convinced ourselves there’s no point — they won’t listen anyway.

That is at the heart of psychological safety.

We often talk about it as a workplace issue: whether people feel able to speak up, challenge ideas, admit mistakes or ask for help. But psychological safety isn’t something we switch on when we arrive at work and switch off when we leave.

We carry it with us between work and our personal lives.

We don’t have separate versions of ourselves

It can be tempting to think about work and home as two completely separate worlds. There is the professional version of us that turns up to work each day, and then there is everything else.

But people don’t work like that.

We might show up differently depending on who we’re with, but we’re still the same person. We might speak freely with one person, but choose our words more carefully with another because we don’t know how they will react.

The difference isn’t who we are. It’s how safe we feel.

We bring our experiences, relationships, worries, confidence and emotions with us. Someone who has spent the morning dealing with a difficult situation at home doesn’t suddenly become unaffected because they have walked into the office. Equally, someone who has spent eight hours feeling under pressure, unheard or undervalued doesn’t necessarily leave those feelings behind when they go home.

We carry things, sometimes consciously and sometimes without even realising it.

That doesn’t mean work and home should become one big, boundaryless space. They shouldn’t. Some people are very open about what is happening in their personal lives, while others prefer to keep those parts of their lives private.

Psychological safety isn’t about expecting people to share. It’s about making sure they feel safe enough to choose.

Someone might be dealing with something difficult at home and prefer to keep it entirely separate from work. Someone else might find that being able to say, “I’ve got a lot going on outside of work at the moment,” gives them the space they need to ask for some support. And, of course, there are some people who will happily tell you absolutely everything whether you asked or not — but that’s a different conversation!

The same is true when the thing affecting us is work.

Sometimes what we need to say is, “I don’t understand,” “I need some help,” or “I’m not sure I can do all of this.” It might be admitting that we’ve made a mistake, challenging an approach or asking for more support.

These are simple statements, but they can feel surprisingly difficult to say, particularly when there is a power difference or when we’re worried about how someone might perceive us. We can be very good at carrying on as though everything is fine.

What we see isn’t always the whole story

Think about someone who is normally confident, engaged and performing well. They contribute in meetings, make decisions, have good relationships with colleagues and seem to cope well with pressure.

Then something changes.

It might be something personal: a difficult relationship, financial pressure, caring responsibilities or something happening with their children. Or it might be something at work: their workload has increased, their confidence has taken a knock, their relationship with their manager has changed, or they are struggling with something they don’t know how to do.

Whatever the cause, something starts to show. They become quieter, more distracted or less patient. Their confidence seems lower. Their usual standards begin to slip.

From the outside, a manager might simply see a change in performance and start asking what has happened at work. Have they lost motivation? Are they disengaged? Do they no longer care as much?

But behaviour is only what we can see. It doesn’t always tell us what is happening underneath it.

If that person feels able to say, “I’m dealing with quite a lot outside of work at the moment, and I don’t have the same capacity I normally would,” the situation looks very different.

They might just as easily say, “I’m struggling with this piece of work and I don’t know where to start,” or “I’m worried I won’t be able to get all of this done.”

The leader doesn’t necessarily need to fix either situation. They just need to understand what is actually happening.

And that information is only available when the relationship makes honesty possible.

Psychological safety is more than speaking up

Psychological safety is often associated with Harvard professor Amy Edmondson’s research into whether people feel safe enough to take interpersonal risks at work. Those risks aren’t always dramatic. They can be as simple as asking a question, admitting a mistake, challenging an idea or saying that you need help.

It is an important distinction because psychological safety isn’t the same as comfort.

Someone can feel psychologically safe and still feel uncomfortable speaking up. They might still worry about what someone will think. They might still have a difficult conversation.

The difference is that they believe they can do it without being humiliated, punished or diminished for being honest.

That is why psychological safety shows up in the smaller moments that happen every day.

Asking a question because you don’t understand something. Admitting you’ve never done something before. Asking for help rather than spending hours pretending you know what you’re doing. Saying you’ve made a mistake before someone else discovers it. Telling your manager that the workload has become unrealistic, or that you’re not confident about something you’re being asked to take on.

It is also being able to disagree.

None of these things mean someone is weak. Often, they show that someone cares enough to want to get something right, recognises a problem and trusts the relationship enough to be honest about it.

But admitting that we don’t know, have got something wrong or need somebody else’s help can make us feel vulnerable.

So somewhere in the background, we make a calculation:

Is it safer to say something, or safer to stay quiet?

Our answer to that question is shaped by experience.

Creating the conditions for people to speak

People learn what they can say, who they can say it to and what happens when they do. And they learn it through experience.

We don’t necessarily show up in the same way with everyone. The way we communicate with someone depends on who they are, the relationship we have with them, how much we trust them and how safe we feel being ourselves.

Trust is built over time, through what happens in the small moments.

That is why an open-door policy, on its own, isn’t enough.

A leader might genuinely believe they are approachable, while someone in their team is still reluctant to say, “I don’t understand,” “I need some help,” or “I don’t agree.” They may be perfectly comfortable coming to you with a practical question, but less comfortable admitting that they are struggling.

And we can’t assume that everyone who needs help will be confident enough to ask for it.

Sometimes leadership means noticing that someone seems different and creating an opportunity for them to talk. A regular one-to-one can be more than a conversation about objectives, deadlines and performance. It can be a chance to ask how someone is doing generally, and then give them enough space to answer.

That doesn’t mean expecting people to share their personal lives or turning managers into counsellors. Some people will want to keep things private, and that is their choice.

It means making it clear that if something is affecting them, at work or outside of it, they can raise it without being judged for it.

And then comes the part that matters most: what happens when they do?

Someone tells you they don’t understand something. Someone challenges a decision. Someone admits they have made a mistake or says they have too much on.

You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to remove accountability or solve every problem.

But your response will tell them whether being honest with you was a good decision.

A defensive response, a dismissive comment or a change in tone might seem insignificant in the moment, but people remember how it felt to speak up. The next time, they may think twice.

And the same is true in reverse. A leader needs to be able to trust their team too. If someone repeatedly doesn’t follow through, avoids difficult conversations or isn’t honest about what is happening, that can affect the relationship from the other side.

Trust works both ways. But once it’s damaged, it can take time to rebuild.

That’s why psychological safety isn’t created by one good conversation. It’s built through the pattern of what happens afterwards.

Psychological safety is built in those moments.

The more power you have, the more this matters

There is another reason leaders need to pay attention to this.

The person with the most power in a relationship isn’t always the best judge of how safe the other person feels.

A senior leader can genuinely believe they have created an open culture. They can invite challenge, ask for feedback and believe they are approachable. But the person sitting across the table may still be weighing up what it might mean to disagree.

That is why a lack of challenge shouldn’t automatically be interpreted as agreement, and a quiet team shouldn’t automatically be interpreted as a happy one.

Sometimes people are quiet because everything is fine.

Sometimes they are quiet because they have learned that speaking up doesn’t change anything, or that it comes with a cost.

The difference isn’t always visible.

For leaders, that means paying attention not just to what people say, but to what they might not be saying.

Are people asking for help when they need it? Are they comfortable telling you when something isn’t working? Do they challenge your thinking, or do they tend to agree? When someone does raise a concern, do you make space for it, even when it is inconvenient?

You don’t need every answer to be yes.

But if the answer is consistently no, it’s worth asking yourself why.

Because psychological safety isn’t about creating a team where everyone agrees with you.

It is about creating one where people feel able to tell you when they don’t.

What we carry between work and home

The same principles exist outside the workplace.

Someone who has learned that speaking up in a relationship leads to conflict may become more cautious about expressing disagreement elsewhere. Someone who has repeatedly been dismissed when asking for help may find it difficult to ask for support at work. Equally, someone who has experienced a workplace where mistakes were punished may become more guarded in other relationships.

Our experiences shape what we expect from other people, even when we don’t consciously make that connection.

That is why psychological safety matters beyond the workplace. Not because work and personal life should become one, but because the person experiencing both is the same person.

When we feel safe, we are often more open, more confident and more willing to engage. We can ask better questions, have more honest conversations and be more willing to admit when something isn’t working.

Those qualities don’t stay neatly within one part of our lives.

So, what does safety actually change?

Perhaps psychological safety isn’t something an organisation simply has or doesn’t have.

It’s something we experience in our relationships.

It can change depending on who we are with, what we are being asked to do and what has happened between us before. It can be strengthened by a leader who listens well, asks rather than assumes and responds thoughtfully when someone says something difficult. It can also be weakened by a series of small interactions that tell someone it would be easier to keep things to themselves.

And because we don’t have separate versions of ourselves, those experiences don’t necessarily stay neatly where they happened.

We carry confidence with us. We carry uncertainty. We carry the feeling of being heard, and sometimes the memory of not being heard.

That doesn’t mean work and home need to become one. It doesn’t mean leaders need to know everything about the people they manage. It doesn’t mean every difficult experience needs to become a conversation at work.

It means recognising that the person sitting in front of you is human, wherever they have come from that day.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply whether people feel psychologically safe.

Perhaps it is:

What do the people around you feel able to tell you?

And, more importantly:

What happens when they do?

Because helping people reach their potential isn’t just about giving them the skills, opportunities or autonomy to succeed.

Sometimes it starts with creating relationships where they feel able to be honest about what they need along the way.

How HRP can help

Creating psychological safety isn’t something that can be solved with a single workshop or a new leadership policy. It is built through the everyday behaviours, conversations and relationships that shape how people experience their leaders.

At HRP, we work with leaders to understand what sits beneath behaviour, recognise the impact of their own leadership style and develop the confidence to have better conversations — particularly when those conversations feel uncomfortable.

We use a range of Strengthscope® psychometric tools to help individuals and teams understand themselves and each other more deeply, including Strengthscope®, Strengthscope360®, Psychological Safety® and Resilience®.

Combined with coaching and leadership development, these tools can give leaders and teams greater insight into their strengths, how they are experienced by others, how safe people feel to speak openly and how they respond to pressure.

This can help create the conditions where people feel able to ask for help, challenge thinking, admit when something isn’t working and take responsibility without feeling that honesty will be held against them.

Because when people feel able to speak honestly, leaders have a better chance of understanding what their people really need — and creating the environment in which they can reach their potential.

What could help you move forward?

Maybe you want to develop your own leadership skills. Maybe your team needs support. Or perhaps you’re not quite sure what would make the biggest difference yet.

Tell us what you’re looking to change or improve, and we’ll help you find the right next step — whether that’s exploring the HRP Growth Hub or talking to one of our team: HRP Growth Hub™

For a limited time, you’ll also receive complimentary access to the HRP Growth Hub™ when you sign up.