Psychological Safety and Accountability - The Secret Sauce of Health Professions Education

Think of a time when you were a member of an effective team (that was diverse or geographically dispersed. Why was it effective? How did this make you feel as a team member?

In her recent book “The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth,” Dr. Amy Edmondson shares from her 20+ years of research demonstrating that psychological safety is required for effective teamwork and learning.

Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Edmondson describes the “learning zone” as a combination of high accountability and psychological safety. For example, when you look back over the most recent #MedEdPearls, you will find that accountability and psychological safety foundational to creating a learning environment which supports, providing effective feedback, and encouraging students to engage in the active learning strategies that “Make it Stick.” 

Edmondson also provides strategies for inclusive leaders that are applicable to educators. Inclusive leaders:

• Are accessible
• Proactively invite input
• Acknowledge their own fallibility
• Lower the psychological costs of speaking up
• Raise the psychological costs of silence

Join the #MedEdPearls Twitter discussion to share how you apply these strategies while teaching trainees!