70% of American’s Don’t Feel Psychologically Safe at Work
In a 2009 Nationwide Survey conducted on 1568 employees, 70% of employees reported feeling negative work relationships, interpersonal conflicts, lack of peer support, and social isolation.

Psychological safety is a concept defined by a person’s ability to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career. In psychologically safe teams, employees feel accepted and respected. So what is going on in our work environment where people aren’t feeling supported emotionally?
Social Scientist Matthew Lieberman has pointed out that our need for connection is just as fundamental as our need for food and water.
In another 2014 Global Workforce Study, out of 32,000 employees, 76% did not feel engaged nor supported in their work environment on a daily basis.
Point blank, it seems that people aren’t feeling supported emotionally at where they work. Their Mental Health is an issue and they are craving resources to feel safe and supported. As a former tech worker, I’ve encountered many situations in corporate settings where amongst all the great perks of unlimited time off, free catered lunches and shuttled rides, I felt like something deep inside was missing. A genuine connection with my coworkers and leaders. One scenario which lead me to I personally reaching out to my CEO on how we could improve employee morale and boost productivity by increasing our human connection baseline with our team members.
So how can we help more people feel psychological safety?
I would like to outline 3 scientifically proven strategies which can boost psychological safety that we are going to explore:
- Mindfulness
- Emotional Intelligence
- Compassion
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of being fundamentally present in our activities. It is simply tuning into ourselves by becoming fully aware of our thought patterns and processing them in a nonjudgmental way.

According to the Harvard Business Review: “Mindfulness should no longer be considered a “nice-to-have” for executives. It’s a “must-have”. Some benefits are:
- Focus
- The calmness of the Mind
- Strengthens Emotional Intelligence
- Neuroplasticity (Increases Grey Matter)
Grey Matter is responsible for Muscle Control, Sensory Perception, Decision Making & Self-Control. 95% of all oxygen that goes into the brain goes into the grey matter. (Luders et al 2009)
5. Increases activity in the ACC (Anterior Cinculate Cortex)
Allows you to have better regulation over your emotions.
6. Becoming a Better Leader
7. Researched Benefits of Mindfulness Include:
- Increasing Autoimmune Support in the Body (Black & Slavich, 2016)
- Increases Positive Reappraisal (Garland et al. 2007)
- Makes foods more enjoyable (Hong et al., 2011)
- Develops healthier eating habits (Shiv & Nowlis, 2004)
- Generates feelings of compassion (Lutz et al., 2008)
- It is Contagious (Bartel & Saavedra, 2010)
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is characterized by our ability to hold space for others and nurture their psychological and emotional development in such a way that they feel supported and nurtured. It’s a sign of great leadership and one that is very important to help our employees feel heard and respected.

Signs of emotional intelligence include:
- Creating Empathic Communication
Empathic communication is the tool to repair the rupture. It allows us to stay connected both to ourselves and others while inviting us to continue building relationships in the workplace. This skillset helps infuse your conversations with action. It also helps bridge unmet needs by standing in a place of “seeking to understand, before needing to be understood”, as Stephen Covey’s 5th habit states in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
- Empathic communication can immediately create a place of safety and belonging for everyone involved.
- Creating Trust
In early 2017, Atlassian launched its playbook Great Teamwork. Data from this publication shows that team dysfunction is still dominated by a lack of trust.
- 78% of teams don’t fully trust their teammates
- 86% don’t fully trust a new teammate to adapt to changing situations.
- Paul Zak who is a neuro-economist has noted in his article The Neuroscience of Trust that compared with people at low-trust companies, those at high-trust companies report:
- 74% less stress
- 106% more energy at work
- 50% higher productivity
- 13% fewer sick days
- 76% more engagement
- 40% less burnout
- Brene Brown defines ‘trust’ as choosing to make something important to us, vulnerable to the actions of someone else.” She outlines how to build trust through her acronym, BRAVING:
B — Boundaries: Be clear in holding them and respecting them.
R — Reliability: I can only trust you if you say you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do. Over and over and over again. Get clear on your limitations. Don’t take on too much to come up short and not deliver on your commitments.
A — Accountability: When you make a mistake, apologize for it and make amends. I can only trust you if I am allowed to own it, apologize and make amends.
V — Vault: What I share with you, you will hold in confidence. What you share with me, I will hold in confidence. Sometimes, we share things that are not ours to share in order to hotwire connection with a friend. Our closeness is built on talking bad about people.
I — Integrity: Act from a place of courage over comfort, right over ease, and practice, not just profess values.
N — Non-judgment: I can struggle fall apart and ask for help without judgment.
G — Generosity: Assume and then check-in.
Creating Empathy
Marshall Rosenberg is an American psychologist and author who defines empathy as, “a humble attitude of genuine respect and concern for the well-being of others.”
Psychologist Daniel Goleman breaks down empathy into 3 types:
Cognitive, Affective & Compassionate Empathy.
- Cognitive empathy is, “Simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a negotiation or in motivating people. A study at the University of Birmingham found, for example, that managers who are good at perspective-taking were able to move workers to give their best efforts.”
- Affective empathy is “When you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious. This emotional contagion, social neuroscience tells us, depends in large part on the mirror neuron system. Emotional empathy makes someone well-attuned to another person’s inner emotional world, a plus in any of a wide range of callings, from sales to nursing — let alone for any parent or lover.”
- Compassionate empathy is “when we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.”
This third type of empathy is key. And the main ingredient in allyship.
Information source credit on here goes to Rajkumari who helps executives create more inclusive cultures and work environments.
Compassion

Compassion is broken down into 2 forms; “self compassion & compassion towards others”. The more capacity we have to be compassionate towards ourselves, the deeper capacity we’ll have to be compassionate towards others.
A study conducted by University of New South Wales reported that Compassionate leaders consistently boosted:
- Employee Productivity
- Employee Morale
- Bottom Line Profitability
- More Engaged Employees
- Satisfied Customers
- Healthier Community
- Greater Shareholder Return
There are 3 Pillars of Compassionate Leadership That are Created:
1.Cognitive Understanding
“You understand your teams’ problems”
2. Affective (Emotional) Understanding
“Your team understands that you feel what they feel”
3. A Motivational Connection
“Your teams professional & personal development is part of your agenda”
The main idea behind all three concepts of Compassionate Leadership is the switch in mindset from “ me ” to “ we .” It’s no longer about the individual, but about the team as a whole.
Bringing it all together
Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence and Compassion are 3 great starting points to help our employees and leaders feel more psychologically safe.
