“Psychological safety” in employment represents a simple, yet fundamental idea: that workplaces can and must be safe, secure environments with reasonable accommodations, where all employees feel comfortable speaking up, asking questions, and admitting mistakes without fear of punishment, embarrassment, or rejection. While this should be a given, ableism is unfortunately still a major problem in employment within the U.S., and efforts to implement psychological safety still often exclude the millions of people who are neurodivergent. For those unfamiliar, ableism refers to bias and discrimination against people with disabilities/neurodivergence, and can manifest both intentionally and unconsciously through outdated hiring practices that screen out people who are neurodivergent.
There is ample reason for employers to invest in improving psychological safety, as its absence is one of the strongest contributors to stress, burnout, and high turnover rates. “In the current climate of record burnout, quiet attrition, and questionable trust in leadership, organizations are still misdiagnosing why talent leaves,” Dr. Samantha Hiew observes in an article for CEOWorld Magazine. Hiew adds that “the first people to exit are often those most sensitive to relational toxicity and systemic strain. Increasingly, those people are neurodivergent.” In what should be a wakeup call for employers, Hiew cautions that these departures are “not anomalies – they are early warning signals of deeper cultural misalignment.” Tom Geraghty, an expert on creating more inclusive workplaces, echoes these concerns that neurodivergent employees are being marginalized where psychological safety is concerned. “If you read certain LinkedIn posts and popular psychological safety ‘hot takes’,” Geraghty writes, “you might conclude that you can only achieve psychological safety once everyone feels comfortable speaking up verbally, without stuttering or hesitating, while maintaining eye contact, and engaging in spontaneous and unstructured interactions.”
The problem is that all of the above are challenges for many people who are neurodivergent. By definition, psychological safety needs to account for the communication needs and preferences of each individual: a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Most importantly, psychological safety in the workplace is more than just a good thing: it’s vital for the welfare of all employees, including those who are neurodivergent, and for creating a healthy work environment. To retain the exceptional talent, skill, and strong work ethic contributed by employees who are neurodivergent, it’s imperative for companies to rethink their approach to psychological safety.
Improving Psychological Safety for Employees Who Are Neurodivergent
There are many ways to effectively improve and protect psychological safety in the workplace. As with reasonable accommodations, they can be implemented at low cost and with relatively small effort. One of the most essential steps involves allowing both written and non-verbal communication, such as acknowledging non-verbal gestures like nodding, hand gestures, or visual aids like traffic light cards. In his article, “Psychological Safety and Neurodiversity”, Tom Geraghty encourages employers to be more patient and understanding, allowing neurodivergent employees the time they need to formulate and express their thoughts without interruption. Employers should also provide neurodivergent employees with information and time to prepare for meetings and interviews, and create outlets for employees to share their thoughts and feelings after meetings. Another crucial approach is to normalize diverse speech patterns, creating a non-judgmental environment around speech differences (such as tics, stuttering, or stammering, as well as different accents, dialects, and languages).
Effective interpersonal interaction is also a key component of psychological safety. This can involve asking before offering help, respecting autonomy by allowing people to express their needs and preferences. It also entails avoiding assumptions about what someone can or can’t do based on their disability; respecting personal space and assistive tools, i.e., avoiding touching mobility aids or service animals without permission; being inclusive in conversations and directing your communication to the person with a disability, even if they have an interpreter present; and making sure that venues, websites, and materials are fully accessible to everyone. Other effective communication techniques involve giving constructive feedback; clarifying instructions, such as asking whether the employee would prefer a written step-by-step guide or a visual diagram; requesting input, whether written or verbal; checking understanding (such as asking the employee to summarize what was discussed); and encouraging open communication, such as asking whether anything was unclear or additional support was needed.
PsychSafety outlines 10 key ways to improve psychological safety in the workplace:
1. Reducing power gradients, or lowering the visible power or status gap between people in the group
2. Establishing shared norms and creating team/social contracts that clarify acceptable and unacceptable behaviors
3. Listening effectively and making space for all values, valuing individual contributions
4. Responding positively and carefully when someone speaks up
5. Rewarding speaking up, praising, and thanking people for their contributions
6. Reframing work as an experiment and learning process, rather than a pass/fail test, with a focus on learning how to do better in the future.
As the article astutely points out, “If instead [of treating work as a learning process], we only talk about “objectives”, “targets”, “milestones” and “deliverables”, we only focus on whether something is done or not done, hit or missed. This inhibits our ability to take the true value, the learning, from each bit of work we do.” This isn’t to say that delivery isn’t important. Rather, it means “executing to the best of our abilities and making sure that whatever happens, success or failure, we learn from it and get better each time.”
7. Running retrospectives and “futurespectives.”
Retrospectives are debriefs or “lessons learned” at the end of projects or programs, scheduled at regular, monthly, or weekly intervals. By contrast, futurespectives involve looking ahead, imagining possible failure or success scenarios, and learning lessons about why they might have happened. This, in turn, improves both success and risk mitigation, making it easier to talk about failure when it happens.
8. Addressing persistent problematic behavior.
This entails establishing strong, well-defined boundaries of behavior and collectively holding each other responsible for high standards. As PsychSafety explains, “Being firm with these boundaries and expectations means that we can all be reassured that if behaviour such as bullying or exclusion does occur, it will be addressed, and we will be protected from it as far as possible.”
9. Embracing differences.
This step means exactly what it sounds like: recognizing that the needs involved in psychological safety vary from person-to-person, based on factors like culture, experience, neurodiversity, and many others. “In truly psychologically safe groups,” Geraghty writes, “people behave in ways that work for them and their context. A software development team may feel safest sitting in silence, with headphones on, whilst maintaining 15 different conversations via 10 different platforms. Conversely, the sales team next door might be ringing bells to celebrate wins and clapping each other on the back. Neither are “good” or “bad” for psychological safety, and we should avoid assuming that there is a cookie-cutter version of what a psychologically safe team looks like.”
10. Accepting human error as normal.
This acknowledges that mistakes in the workplace are inevitable, and that technical mechanisms and human factors can prevent, detect, and mitigate those errors. Taken together, these 10 approaches comprise some of the most powerful and effective ways to protect and improve psychological safety.
Business Leaders Weigh in on Psychological Safety
At its core, psychological safety involves maintaining a healthy middle-ground between a neutral, work-oriented workplace and an environment where people feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings. In her essay “Pragmatism, Neutrality, and Leadership”, Charity Majors, CEO/co-founder of the software company Honeycomb, offers insight into this dynamic and how companies can more effectively navigate what can at times feel like a tricky balancing act.
“In general, people want to work in an environment that is relatively peaceful and neutral-feeling, where people can focus on their work and our shared mission,” Majors observes. “But people also need spaces to talk about what’s going on in their lives and process their reactions.” As important as comfort and security are, Majors stresses that making the business succeed and having a straightforward, clearly defined mission should be the top priorities for founders and leaders of a company. “Success in business is what earns you the right to devote more time, attention, and resources to cultural issues,” she elaborates, “and to experiment with things that matter to you.” As she points out, the foundation of a great company culture involves competent, experienced leadership with mutual trust, a shared mission and strategy, clarity, and good communication. In other words, “if everyone in the company knows what the most important thing is, and their actions align with that, your company is probably pretty healthy.” Majors emphasizes that, while the feelings of employees matter, they shouldn’t be the sole driving force behind every decision or policy. “You have to let go of underperformers, deliver hard feedback, set high standards and hold people accountable,” she writes. “A lot of this does not feel good…if you do your job well, with some luck, many people will be happy, much of the time. But if your goal is to make people happy, you will fail, and then everyone will be unhappy. Feelings are a trailing indicator and only roughly, occasionally a sign that you are doing a good job.”
The benefits and importance of psychological safety have also been demonstrated through a 2025 study co-authored by Amy Edmonson, Hassina Bahadurzada, and Michaela Kerrisey of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Edmonson herself coined the term “psychological safety” in 1999). The study found that workplaces with higher levels of psychological safety are less prone to burnout, even during periods of stress and resource limitations. The researchers also found that psychological safety helps with job retention, as employees who reported higher levels of psychological safety in 2019 were more likely to report a willingness to stay in their jobs in 2021, according to an article on the study from the Harvard School of Public Health. “For many years, the theory has been that people get burned out as their resources get depleted,” Kerrissey was quoted as saying by Harvard Business Review. “By thinking of psychological safety as a ‘social resource’ we unlock a whole new aspect of reducing burnout that can be helpful to physicians—and likely people in other high-pressure industries.” In her essay, Charity Majors writes that psychological safety and a healthy workplace culture depend on employees (including those who are neurodivergent) being respected and heard by their employers, especially when they’re calling attention to legitimate problems and concerns within the workplace. “Open your eyes,” she writes. “Look around. Do some reading. Talk to people. Consider whether you might be missing something. Then make a decision and give an honest answer. They may or may not agree, and they may or may not choose to stay, but that’s what treating them with respect looks like, just like you ask them to treat you, and each other.”
Research has shown that workplaces that fully include employees who are neurodivergent have seen 30-140% increases in productivity, along with retention rates above 90%. Prioritizing psychological safety is a huge part of retaining neurodiverse talent. Joining HireDifferent Academy, Creative Spirit’s comprehensive training program for companies to become Neurodiversity Certified, is a valuable method for enhancing psychological safety.
By building mutual trust, understanding, and respect, psychological safety is the cornerstone for creating the kinds of workplace cultures and environments that all professionals, both neurodivergent and neurotypical, would want to be a part of.
Sources:
Hiew, S. (2026). “Why Psychological Safety Determines Who Stays and Who Walks: Mental Health, Neurodiversity, and the New Retention Divide”, C-Suitee Insider, CEOWorld Magazine. https://ceoworld.biz/2026/01/28/why-psychological-safety-determines-who-stays-and-who-walks-mental-health-neurodiversity-and-the-new-retention-divide/
Geraghty, T. (2024). “Psychological safety and neurodiversity”, PsychSafety. https://psychsafety.com/psychological-safety-and-neurodiversity/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Geraghty, T. (2024). “Top 10 Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Workplace”, PsychSafety. https://psychsafety.com/top-10-ways-to-foster-psychological-safety-in-the-workplace/
Blanding, M. (2025). “In Tough Times, Psychological Safety Is a Requirement, Not a Luxury”, Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2025/11/in-tough-times-psychological-safety-is-a-requirement-not-a-luxury
(2024). “Pragmatism, Neutrality and Leadership” https://charity.wtf/2024/07/24/pragmatism-neutrality-and-leadership/
Brownstein, M. (2025). “Psychological safety at work is essential—especially amid crisis”, Harvard T.H. Chan, School of Public Health. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/psychological-safety-at-work-is-essential-especially-amid-crisis/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
