The power of psychological safety in customer success

No team can thrive without psychological safety. It’s the foundation that allows individuals to speak up, share ideas, and take risks without fear of humiliation or punishment. When psychological safety is present, teams collaborate more effectively, creativity flourishes, and individuals feel empowered to do their best work.

Yet, psychological safety is often overlooked. From hesitant employees afraid to challenge the status quo, to leaders unknowingly shutting down open dialogue, the absence of psychological safety can quietly erode a team’s potential.

For something so crucial, it begs the question: what exactly is psychological safety, and how can we cultivate it within our teams?

In this guide, we’re going to cover:

What psychological safety is and why it matters
The link between psychological safety and high-performing teams
How leaders can foster psychological safety in customer success
Practical strategies for building a psychologically safe workplace
The impact of psychological safety on customer relationships

The power of psychological safety

The definition of psychological safety is the belief that one can speak up, take risks, and offer ideas without fear of punishment or humiliation. I think we all want that.

It’s easy to notice when you have it, and just as easy to notice when you don’t. When you’re in a psychologically safe environment, you can ask questions freely, dig into things deeper, and, most importantly, bring out the best in yourself and others.

Psychological safety as a concept was brought to light in the 1990s by Dr. Amy Edmondson. While working in hospitals, she studied error rates among high-performing teams. Initially, the data was puzzling – high-performing teams reported more mistakes than low-performing ones. Her first reaction was concern, wondering how she could make sense of these results.

But as she and her research assistants dug deeper, they discovered something crucial: those teams weren’t actually making more mistakes – they were just more willing to report them and learn from them.

In psychologically safe teams, individuals weren’t afraid to speak up. In a hospital setting, that meant that if a nurse saw a dosage that seemed off, they felt comfortable questioning the doctor rather than fearing backlash. Without that safety, mistakes went unreported, and outcomes worsened. This realization drove Edmondson’s passion for psychological safety, and she has since shared countless insights on the subject.

A key takeaway from her research is that the willingness to be open and vulnerable is the secret to high-performing teamwork. But let’s be honest: vulnerability is uncomfortable. It’s not easy to put yourself out there, even in a professional setting.

Understanding your brain and psychological safety

For a bit of context, I grew up as the "high potential" child whose parents measured everything against my IQ, which, in turn, created expectations that shaped my self-perception.

For years, I mistakenly believed that my fast-paced, chaotic thinking was simply part of being intelligent – until a friend's simple observation challenged this assumption: "You can have a high IQ and not have a chaotic brain."

It wasn't until watching my five-year-old struggle during pandemic homeschooling that I recognized familiar patterns and sought diagnosis – not for myself initially, but to understand her better.

Learning I had ADHD suddenly clarified lifelong patterns, like my university exam results that puzzled my father: struggling with simple questions most students answered correctly while excelling at complex problems few could solve.

Finding (and losing) psychological safety at work

My professional awakening came when I joined a company where I experienced true psychological safety for the first time. In this environment, my quirks were valued rather than criticized. I could fully be myself, leading to my best work and a genuine sense of belonging. I couldn't stop telling everyone about this "professional fairyland."

But when that psychological safety later disappeared, the contrast made its importance crystal clear. This sparked my passion for understanding why psychological safety matters so deeply – not just for individual well-being, but for team and organizational success.

My typical ADHD hyperfocus kicked in, driving me to research everything about psychological safety and leading to the insights I hold today: psychological safety isn't optional – it's transformative for individuals, teams, and entire organizations.

Why psychological safety matters in customer success

So, why am I talking about psychological safety in the context of customer success? To me, the core of customer success is learning, sharing, and advocating. We are constantly learning from our peers, our colleagues, and, most importantly, our customers.

Think about your customer interactions. If a customer doesn’t feel psychologically safe with you, they’re not going to open up. We’ve all had meetings where customers give one-word answers, and by the end, it’s clear that something is off.

Without trust, they won’t share their real concerns, and that limits our ability to help them. But when customers feel safe enough to be honest, everything changes. They tell you what’s going wrong, and that allows you to step in with real solutions– whether it’s offering advice, introducing them to an expert, or simply providing reassurance.

This principle applies internally as well. High-performing teams fail fast and learn together. Think about your own work environment – if you find yourself messaging a colleague through a different app instead of openly discussing things on your company platform, ask yourself why. Do you feel safe enough to be your full self at work?

Psychological safety isn’t easy to build, and it’s even harder to sustain. But it’s worth it. In the next section, I’ll share some practical steps you can take to foster psychological safety within your teams and customer relationships.

The challenge of vulnerability and leadership

So... it's hard. I'm not going to tell you it's easy – it's not. That word "vulnerability" means opening yourself up to risk. And one of the hardest things about being vulnerable is that those who aren’t opening up are often the most fearful. They can also be the quickest to attack.

It’s not easy, but if you start to embrace vulnerability, you will begin to see changes – even if only in some people in your organization. It starts small, but it spreads.

Another critical element of psychological safety is emotional regulation. Your team, like everyone else, has feelings. Feelings are not bad; they’re part of being human. Working with emotions, rather than against them, leads to stronger teams and better productivity.

But this doesn’t mean taking on the role of a therapist – work-related emotions should stay in the workplace. Otherwise, you’ll burn out.

The last key factor is consistency. Psychological safety isn’t something you check off on a form and file away in an HR document you never look at again. It requires ongoing effort. It’s easy to close yourself off when others aren’t being open, so you need to constantly check in with yourself.

Leading by example is the most effective way to cultivate psychological safety in your team.

Building psychological safety within your team

To get started, learn about your team. Understand their stories, their communication styles, and what gives them energy. If one team member is incredibly productive in the morning but spends their afternoons on admin tasks, don’t force them into a different routine.

If they’re happy and productive, let them work in a way that suits them. Avoid putting everyone in the same box – let people be their own shape.

Sharing your own story encourages others to do the same. Vulnerability breeds connection, and leading by example is the best way to encourage openness in your team.

Emotional regulation starts with you. Transparency is key – no one respects a leader who is robotic and devoid of personality. Think about the leaders you've respected most. Chances are, they showed their human side while maintaining professionalism. It’s okay to say, "This process is frustrating," or "This isn’t working for me." You don’t have to be relentlessly positive all the time.

Finally, always come back to the mission. If a group is getting lost in too many emotions or distractions, refocus them on the goal. What are we here to do? When everyone aligns on that, it becomes easier to work together productively.

At the end of the day, your employees want to succeed. They wouldn’t be working for you if they didn’t. Creating a psychologically safe environment helps everyone stay aligned, engaged, and ready to bring their best selves to work.

Making psychological safety practical

So I’ve shared a lot about the hows and whys, and it might feel overwhelming. You might be thinking, "I’m just one person, and there are so many people in my team that are shut down." This is where the idea of "safe enough" comes in.

Think of it like "good enough" parenting. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, something new comes along to challenge you. You can’t do everything perfectly, but you can do your best.

Think about psychological safety as "safe enough." Make sure your team members know they can reach out and that you are there for them. Create open channels of communication – this is where you start.

There’s no gold star for doing it perfectly; no one will ever get there. But it’s a scale you can work towards to improve how your teams function together.

The change starts with you

To round things off, I know that psychological safety leads to happier customers, happier colleagues, and a happier self. When you work in a place where you can be yourself and are appreciated for it, it makes all the difference.

And when you don’t? Oh, we’ve all been there.

So my call to action for you is to start thinking about it. Catch yourself. Consider how you present yourself to your team and how you interact across teams. Think about how you can share a little more of yourself to build trust and contribute to creating a magical workplace.