How Safe Is It to Speak Up Around You?
Free Psychological Safety Assessment for Leaders
12 questions • 3 minutes • Instant result • No email required to see it
This check evaluates your own behaviors as a leader in creating a safe environment for your team. Answer 12 quick questions about what you actually do, and see which of four habits make it safe for people to speak up around you.
What it evaluates: leader behaviors, as you see them in yourself. It does not measure how safe your team feels. Only the people around you can answer that, and the full assessment's Multi-Rater Option asks them.
Psychological safety is the shared belief that a team is safe for raising concerns, disagreeing and admitting mistakes. Research since Amy Edmondson's 1999 study ties it to how teams learn, and the leader's everyday reactions shape it more than anything else. Developed by an I-O psychologist with 25+ years of assessment experience.
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12 questions, two statements each
Your habits on screen, with a free PDF if you want it
No name or email needed to see your result
Common questions
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety is the shared belief that a team is safe for speaking up: raising a concern, disagreeing, admitting a mistake or asking for help without being embarrassed or punished for it. The term comes from Amy Edmondson's (1999) research on team learning. It does not mean being nice or lowering standards. Teams with high standards need it most, because that is where bad news has to travel fast. Our article Psychological Safety: The Research Behind High-Performing Teams walks through the evidence.
What does this free check measure?
It reads your own habits in four areas that leaders control: inviting input, responding to mistakes, hearing challenge, and showing your own uncertainty. You answer 12 paired choices, and the result shows which habits are strongest for you and which one to work on first. It is your own view of what you do. It is a starting point for reflection, not a score for your team.
What research is it based on?
Edmondson (1999) showed that teams learn and perform better when members believe it is safe to take interpersonal risks, and that the leader's behavior is one of the strongest influences on that belief. Later work on why people stay silent at work (Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin, 2003; Detert and Edmondson, 2011) found that people hold back mostly because of how they expect the person in charge to react. The four habits in this check are those reactions. For more, read Psychological Safety: The Research Behind High-Performing Teams.
Is it really free?
Yes. 12 questions, about 3 minutes, and your result appears on screen without an email address. A one-page PDF of your result is free too if you give a name and email. The full Communication Insight assessment is $19.95.
Why do you offer this for free?
We want good research to be useful in everyday work, not left in journals. A free tool lets you try a research-based model for yourself and see what it shows in your own work. If you want to understand the research behind it, our blog explains it in plain language. And if you want the most benefit, our full assessments and the support that comes with them are here when you are ready. Use the free tool as often as you like. There is no obligation.
How is this different from the full Communication Insight assessment?
The free check is a quick read of four habits. Communication Insight is a full assessment built on the Johari Window. In about 20 minutes it measures how openly you share (Exposure), how actively you ask for input (Feedback Seeking), how you give feedback, and the psychological safety you create, and it shows how your style shifts with people above and below you. With the Multi-Rater Option ($69.95), up to five people who work with you answer about you, and the report sets their view beside your own. For the thinking behind it, see Communication Insight: The Listening Habit That Separates Effective Leaders.
Can I measure my whole team's psychological safety?
Not with a self-check. Safety is what the team believes, so you have to ask the team. For one leader, the Multi-Rater Option of Communication Insight asks the people around that leader. For a whole organization, the Ground Truth Survey measures psychological safety across the workforce as part of a healthy culture.
Can I use the free check with a group of leaders?
Yes. Share the link, have each leader take it, and ask each person to name the one habit they will work on. It works well as a ten-minute opener for a leadership team meeting. If you lead the group, the results page has a link to extras for your group: the Communication Insight facilitator kit, two sample reports and discounts on paid options.