How creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up strengthens organisational security posture

In an era where cyber threats evolve at breakneck speed and human error remains the weakest link in security defences, organisations are increasingly recognising that technology alone cannot protect them. The most sophisticated security infrastructure in the world can be undermined by a single employee who spots something suspicious but remains silent, fearing ridicule, blame, or repercussions. This is where psychological safety becomes not just a nice-to-have cultural attribute, but a critical component of organisational security.

 

Understanding Psychological Safety in Security Contexts

Psychological safety, a concept pioneered by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, refers to a shared belief that the team environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In security contexts, this translates to an environment where employees at all levels feel confident reporting security concerns, admitting mistakes, asking questions about security protocols, and challenging existing practices without fear of punishment or humiliation.

 

When psychological safety is absent, security culture suffers profoundly. Employees may hesitate to report phishing attempts they nearly fell for, remain silent about suspicious activities they've witnessed, or fail to disclose security breaches they've accidentally caused. Each of these silent moments represents a potential catastrophe waiting to unfold.

 

The Hidden Cost of Fear in Security

Fear-based security cultures, whilst appearing stringent on the surface, often create dangerous blind spots. When employees fear blame or disciplinary action, they become adept at hiding mistakes rather than learning from them. A developer who accidentally commits credentials to a public repository might frantically attempt to cover their tracks rather than immediately alerting the security team. An administrator who misconfigures a firewall rule might hope no one notices rather than raising the issue for peer review.

 

This culture of concealment has tangible consequences. Research consistently shows that the time between a security incident and its discovery significantly impacts the extent of damage. When people feel safe to immediately report errors or concerns, organisations can respond swiftly. When they don't, small incidents metastasise into major breaches.

 

Moreover, fear stifles the kind of proactive security thinking organisations desperately need. Employees who worry about looking foolish won't question whether that urgent request from "the CEO" is actually a sophisticated social engineering attack. They won't flag unusual network behaviour if they're not entirely certain it's malicious. They won't suggest improvements to cumbersome security processes that everyone works around but no one dares critique.

 

Building Blocks of Psychological Safety in Security

Creating psychological safety in security culture requires deliberate, sustained effort across multiple dimensions:

 

Leadership behaviour sets the tone. When security leaders respond to reported incidents with curiosity rather than blame, they send a powerful message. Questions like "What can we learn from this?" and "How can we prevent this in future?" foster openness, whilst "Who's responsible for this failure?" drives behaviour underground. Security leaders must model vulnerability themselves, sharing their own learning moments and mistakes.

 

Incident response frameworks should be blameless. The concept of blameless post-mortems, borrowed from software engineering, is invaluable for security. When investigating incidents, the focus should be on understanding systemic factors, process failures, and environmental conditions rather than individual culpability. This doesn't mean accountability disappears, but rather that the default assumption is that people come to work intending to do well.

 

Recognition systems must reward reporting. Organisations with strong security cultures celebrate those who report concerns, even false alarms. Some implement "security champion" programmes or provide recognition for employees who identify vulnerabilities, report suspicious activities, or suggest security improvements. When reporting is rewarded rather than punished, people do more of it.

 

Training should acknowledge human fallibility. Security awareness training that treats employees as problems to be fixed rather than partners in defence undermines psychological safety. Effective training acknowledges that everyone makes mistakes, provides practical guidance for recovery, and emphasises collective responsibility for security rather than individual blame.

 

Communication channels must be accessible and confidential. Sometimes, despite a positive culture, individuals still need safe ways to raise sensitive concerns. Anonymous reporting mechanisms, ombudsman roles, or security hotlines can provide additional safety nets for those who aren't yet comfortable speaking up openly.

 

The Security Dividends of Psychological Safety

Organisations that successfully cultivate psychological safety in their security culture reap substantial benefits:

 

Earlier threat detection. When employees feel comfortable reporting concerns, suspicious activities are flagged earlier in the attack chain. The receptionist who feels empowered to question an unusual visitor request, the finance team member who double-checks a suspicious payment request, and the IT support staff who report odd system behaviour all become valuable sensors in the organisation's security network.

 

Faster incident response. Mistakes get reported immediately rather than hidden, allowing security teams to contain damage before it spreads. A recent study found that organisations with high psychological safety detected and contained breaches 30% faster than their fear-based counterparts.

 

Continuous improvement culture. When people feel safe to critique existing security measures, organisations can identify and address security theatre, processes that appear secure but provide little actual protection. Employees who actually use security tools daily often have valuable insights into their weaknesses and workarounds that security teams need to hear.

 

Enhanced security awareness. Psychological safety creates a positive feedback loop for security learning. When people can ask "stupid questions" without judgement, they actually learn rather than pretending to understand. When they can share near-misses without repercussions, everyone learns from collective experiences.

 

Stronger insider threat defence. Counterintuitively, organisations where people feel safe to speak up are better protected against malicious insiders. Colleagues of potentially malicious individuals are more likely to report concerning behaviour when they trust that their concerns will be handled appropriately and confidentially.

 

Overcoming the Paradox: Safety and Accountability

A common objection to psychological safety in security contexts is that it might undermine accountability. Surely, critics argue, security requires strict enforcement and clear consequences for violations?

This represents a false dichotomy. Psychological safety and accountability are not opposing forces but complementary ones. High-performing security cultures maintain both by distinguishing between different types of security events:

 

  • Honest mistakes and system failures are treated as learning opportunities requiring systemic fixes rather than individual punishment.
  • At-risk behaviours—shortcuts taken under pressure or due to inadequate processes—are addressed through coaching and process improvement.
  • Reckless behaviour and malicious actions still face appropriate consequences, but these are clearly defined and consistently applied.

 

The key is that psychological safety creates an environment where people can be held accountable without being shamed, where consequences are predictable and fair, and where the focus remains on improvement rather than punishment.

 

Practical Steps for Security Leaders

For security leaders looking to enhance psychological safety, several concrete actions can drive change:

Start by examining your own reactions to security incidents. Do you begin with blame-seeking questions or curious inquiry? Your immediate response sets expectations for the entire team.

 

Conduct a "speaking up" audit. Ask employees at various levels whether they feel comfortable reporting security concerns, what barriers they perceive, and what would make them more confident in speaking up.

 

Review your incident response procedures to ensure they're focused on learning rather than blame attribution. Consider implementing blameless post-mortem processes for security incidents.

Create opportunities for employees to engage with security beyond compliance requirements. Security champions programmes, red team exercises that reward creative thinking, or innovation challenges can shift security from something done to employees to something done with them.

 

Measure and track psychological safety as a security metric. Regular pulse surveys, analysis of reporting patterns, and exit interviews can help gauge whether your culture genuinely supports speaking up.

 

The Future of Security Culture

As organisations face increasingly sophisticated threats from nation-state actors, organised criminal groups, and emerging technologies, the human element of security becomes ever more critical. The security operations centre analyst who feels confident escalating an ambiguous alert, the executive who admits they've been compromised, and the contractor who reports a security vulnerability they've discovered, these individuals are the immune system of modern organisations.

 

Psychological safety doesn't make organisations soft on security; it makes them resilient. It transforms security from a top-down compliance exercise into a collective endeavour where every individual feels responsible for and capable of contributing to organisational protection.

 

In the end, the strongest security cultures aren't built on fear of punishment but on trust in people. They recognise that security is fundamentally a human challenge requiring human solutions, and humans perform best when they feel safe, supported, and empowered to do the right thing.

 

The organisations that will thrive in our increasingly complex threat landscape are those that understand this fundamental truth: when people feel psychologically safe, they don't just perform better, they protect better, report better, and collectively create the kind of vigilant, adaptive security culture that no adversary can easily penetrate.

 

Creating this culture requires courage from leaders, sustained commitment from organisations, and a willingness to trust in people's fundamental desire to do good work. But for organisations serious about security in the modern age, it's not merely an option, it's an imperative.