Psychological Safety Check

Amy Edmondson's 7-question scale measures psychological safety in teams. High scores correlate with better learning, innovation, and performance.

What is psychological safety?

Psychological safety describes the feeling that you can take interpersonal risks in a team — ask questions, admit mistakes, voice ideas — without fear of punishment or humiliation. Amy Edmondson first studied this concept empirically in 1999 and developed the 7-question scale.

Google's "Project Aristotle" confirmed in 2015: psychological safety is the single most important factor for team effectiveness — more important than structure, dependability, or meaning.

Heads up: reverse-scored questions

Some questions are phrased negatively (e.g. "held against me"). For those, the scale is automatically inverted: "Strongly agree" = low safety.

Edmondson scale (7 questions)

Rate each statement for your current team

↻ Reverse-scored
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
↻ Reverse-scored
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
↻ Reverse-scored
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4
Strongly disagree Strongly agree 4

Inspiriert von Amy Edmondson — Psychological Safety

Trivia

  • Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor at Harvard Business School and has topped the Thinkers50 list since 2024.
  • The term "psychological safety" goes back to Edgar Schein (1965) — Edmondson made it measurable.
  • Google found in Project Aristotle: teams with high psychological safety had 17% higher revenue.
  • Edmondson stresses: psychological safety is NOT "being nice" — it is being able to be honest.
  • The 7-question scale is used in more than 100 languages and is the most-cited instrument in team research.