Why emotional regulation matters for building psychologically safe workplaces
- Saskia Wheeler
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
Google spent two years on Project Aristotle studying 180 teams, examining 250 attributes to answer the question: what makes teams high-performing teams? They discovered that what mattered most for team success wasn't productivity, workload, or individual talent. Instead, the most important factor was psychological safety. It’s a familiar phrase in HR and wellbeing circles – often cited in discussions on performance, inclusive leadership, or healthy workplace culture.
We know it well at an organizational level, but what does psychological safety require on a human level? And how does it connect to emotional regulation? A skill that neuroscientists in leadership development, like Dr Tara Swart and Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett, identify as foundational for both wellbeing and healthy relationships.
Table of contents:
What is psychological safety?
First defined by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety describes an environment where individuals can speak up, take risks, and admit mistakes – without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or blame.
For HR, this is more than team culture. It’s a psychological state that influences how people behave and connect with one another in workplace environments, directly connected to how we, on an individual level, regulate emotions.
Emotional regulation: What it is and why it matters for building psychologically safe workplaces?
Emotional regulation is the ability to manage internal responses to stress and adapt flexibly when faced with uncertainty.
It’s not about suppressing emotions, more so about maintaining balance.
When employees can regulate effectively, they are more able to:
Tolerate ambiguity without shutting down.
Engage in difficult conversations without escalation.
Recover more quickly from emotional triggers.
From an HR perspective, this matters because:
Teams made up of individuals who self-regulate tend to stay grounded under pressure.
Handle complex or emotionally charged scenarios with more clarity.
Contribute to a stable, connected team culture.
How the two interact?
The relationship between psychological safety and emotional regulation is bidirectional:
Environments that support psychological safety help stabilize the nervous system.
And individuals who are able to regulate their emotions contribute to a culture where others feel psychologically safe.
HR can act as the bridge – designing conditions that support both.
When psychological safety is lacking
When individuals feel unsure about whether to speak up or anxious about getting something wrong, this can harbor internal stress in the body, increasing rates of cortisol. Over time, stress becomes chronic which has lasting effects on the body.
A few impacts of chronic stress:
Increased cortisol, disrupting sleep and increasing anxiety
Higher inflammation and lowered immune function
Impairing memory, decision-making and flexible thinking
Nervous system dysregulation, resulting in emotional reactivity or shutdown
These responses often don’t look like stress on the surface. Instead, they show up as disengagement, apathy, or lack of contribution—behaviors HR leaders may already recognize and are working hard to address.
What HR can do to support nervous system regulation
While individual capacity to regulate emotions is shaped by many factors (often influenced by upbringing, trauma, identity, and social context), HR plays a key role in shaping the workplace conditions to best support employees. Key areas include:
Trust: Clarity and consistency in communication and decision-making.
Relational attunement: Leaders trained to respond with empathy and awareness.
Belonging and inclusion: Especially vital for underrepresented or marginalised groups.
Structural clarity: Reducing ambiguity that can add cognitive load and make employees feel more supported in the workplace structure.
Wellbeing initiatives, mental health support, and feedback cultures that help individuals to gain self-awareness are essential infrastructure for building psychologically safe workplaces.
Final reflections
Psychological safety may be expressed through company culture, but it begins in the body.
Emotional regulation is no longer a “soft skill”– it’s a key part of cultivating healthy workplaces that underpins resilience, collaboration, and innovation.
Ultimately, psychological safety is a collective condition, but it starts with nervous system regulation. Understanding this can help to move beyond surface-level strategies and begin to design cultures that feel safe from the inside out.
Interested to see how improved psychological safety can make your organization thrive? Get in touch here.
