Virtual EI (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)

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What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace

By Amy C. Edmondson and Mark Mortensen 13

Since the pandemic changed the landscape of work, much attention has been given to the more visible aspects of WFH, including the challenges of managing people from a distance (including reduced trust and new power dynamics). But a far less visible factor may dramatically influence the effectiveness of hybrid workplaces. Sorting out new forms of work arrangements, and attending to employees’ inevitable anxieties about those arrangements, requires managers to rethink and expand one of the strongest proven predictors of team effectiveness: psychological safety.

How New Forms of Work Affect Psychological Safety

Psychological safety—the belief that ...