Psychological Safety isn’t a test, it’s a tool for teams

Psychological safety isn’t something you improve by chasing a high score. It’s something you build through behaviors, routines, and team habits. Across MENA organizations, we often see psychological safety assessments unintentionally treated like performance evaluations. Leaders feel they’re being judged, teams worry about how their answers will be interpreted, and the score becomes the focus instead of the learning. 

“It [the PSI] is always meant to be a conversation starter. Not some kind of absolute measure, like body temperature, with a right answer.” - Amy Edmondson

Why Psychological Safety Scores Create Pressure in MENA organizations?

In the MENA region, leaders often carry cultural and organizational expectations of flawlessness. When a psychological safety score is presented, the instinctive reaction is often: I’m being graded. This immediately shifts attention away from insight and toward defensiveness.

Common patterns emerge:

• Annual PSI surveys become corporate KPIs to “get the number up”

• Teams feel pressure to answer “correctly”

• Leaders question low results instead of exploring them

• Organizations celebrate high results that may not reflect reality

  
  

This mindset contradicts the purpose of the Fearless Organization Scan (PSI), which is designed to illuminate team dynamics, not to produce a pass/fail outcome. A score simply reflects how people are currently experiencing the team. It is not a verdict on leadership competence, nor a measure of leadership success.

Understanding this distinction helps teams approach the data with curiosity rather than fear. It reframes the assessment into what it was always meant to be: an entry point into real and useful team dialogue.

Using the Psych Safety Assessment as a Ritual, Not a Report Card

Instead of treating the assessment as an annual requirement, teams benefit far more when it becomes a reflective ritual. Running a survey after a period of high workload, team restructuring, or rapid change gives leaders and teams a shared picture of what’s shifting.

Used this way, the assessment becomes:

• A tool to surface differences in experience

• A starting point for meaningful conversations

• A neutral reference point for difficult topics

• A way to identify both strengths and friction points

  
  

This approach normalizes the reality that team dynamics fluctuate. Not every moment will feel ideal, and that is part of working life. When the PSI is positioned as a team practice rather than an organizational benchmark, psychological safety becomes something people explore together, not something they fear being judged on.

Embedding Psychological Safety Without Using the Term

Psychological safety is often misunderstood or confused with physical safety or wellbeing. But you don’t need to use the term to apply the behaviors that create it.

Embedding psych safety is about the behaviors that are created. Some of the most effective approaches include:

• Practicing culturally aware feedback, especially in multicultural teams

• Normalizing learning from failure through retrospectives or debriefs

• Reviewing processes that unintentionally silence voices

• Embedding consistent team rituals for meetings, decision-making, and reflection

  
  

These are the underlying variables that influence psychological safety. When teams focus on these behaviors, the PSI score improves naturally, as a result, not a target.

Conclusion

Psychological safety works best when it is positioned as a system of behaviors, not a score to achieve. In MENA, where cultural expectations of leaders and teams can make assessment feel like evaluation, reframing the PSI as a developmental tool is essential. When organizations stop chasing numbers and start building the habits that support openness and learning, psychological safety becomes a lived experience, and the score follows.

👉 Explore our https://www.psychsafety.me/our-services to learn how to position and measure psychological safety, and how to facilitate the behaviors teams need for high performance.