How Psychological Safety Rewired My Career
For years, I worked afraid.
Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of being replaced. Afraid that one mistake would end everything I had worked for.
Early in my career, fear was not just part of the job. It was the operating system. I worked for organizations where silence meant survival. Speaking up meant risk. Failure was not a learning opportunity. It was a scarlet letter.
I obsessed over perfection. I killed ideas before they left my notebook. I avoided risk because mistakes meant humiliation. The cost was brutal. Anxiety that never shut off. Burnout that felt like a badge of honor. Growth that stalled because fear does not innovate. Fear only preserves.
The Scar That Shaped Me
My first big career move was a leap from call-center helpdesk to corporate administration. I thought I understood what success meant: loyalty, hard work, zero mistakes. That was the script I followed.
Then came the failure that defined a decade.
Part of my new role was backup administration. During a migration to a new storage platform, I missed version and driver compatibility requirements. The new storage location was not fully operational. Nobody realized until several days of backups failed. Critical infrastructure left exposed.
The fear that washed over me was paralyzing. My internal dialogue was relentless:
“I’m done. My career is over. Newly married, brand new child and I’m already jobless. What are we going to do?”
My response was a 48-hour non-stop working session. No sleep. No leaving the office. Just me, a broken system, and the crushing weight of failure.
Eventually, I fixed it. Backups resumed. But the scar remained. For years, that fear dictated every decision I made. Perfection became my prison.
The Breakthrough That Changed Everything
Each career change brought new responsibilities and new lessons. The rocketship moment was joining a team to build a managed service from the ground up. Going in, I was still paralyzed by perfection. I believed I could learn anything, but the shadow of past failures followed me.
For a time, I was successful. Then came the challenge that tested everything: leading a team with drastic differences in experience, backgrounds, and knowledge domains.
This is where psychological safety changed my career forever.
Our first team weekly blameless meeting started with me sharing candidly, without fear, what we were doing great, areas where we should focus, and how I had failed in areas most leaders never discuss with direct reports. The room was silent. I could see the weight rising from their shoulders.
If I could face and acknowledge my fears and failures, they knew I was there to support them through theirs. My job then became about freeing their minds to truly innovate. To think outside the box. To hold nothing back because no topic was taboo any longer.
That single shift removed friction. It built trust that made collaboration natural. It unlocked innovation because people stopped hiding mistakes and started sharing ideas.
Without psychological safety, we would have never achieved together what none of us could have achieved alone.
My Definition
For me, psychological safety means speaking honestly without fear of judgement or reprisal. It means creating space where ideas can breathe, mistakes are not fatal they are encouraged, and feedback is not a weapon but a tool for success.
It is not about being nice. It is about being real without fear.
The Impact
Once I embraced this, my career trajectory shifted.
- I stopped managing through control and started leading through curiosity.
- I built teams where trust was not a buzzword. It was the foundation.
- I stopped fearing mistakes and started embracing them as fuel for innovation.
- I watched collaboration replace compliance.
Before, I killed ideas before they left my notebook. Today, my team understands mistakes are not career-ending but key to innovation. That is the power of safety.
Why It Matters
Fear-driven cultures do not scale. They do not innovate. They do not retain talent. They manage survival, not success.
If you are leading through fear, you are not leading. You are controlling. And control is brittle.
Psychological safety is not optional anymore. It is the difference between teams that thrive and teams that implode.
Your Move
Ask yourself:
What would change in your career if fear was not the driver?
What would your team build if mistakes were not fatal?
Here is the truth. Safety is not soft. It is the hardest skill you will ever learn.
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
Comments