Dear Change Leader,
Elena had been in her department head role for two years when the new organizational restructuring was announced.
As her team’s questions mounted and anxiety spread through the hallways, she noticed something she hadn’t expected. It wasn’t the most senior people who were steadying the room. It was Darius — a mid-level program manager with no direct reports and no formal authority — who was showing up to every meeting with calm curiosity, asking good questions, and making it feel safe for others to do the same.
He wasn’t leading the change. But he was shaping the climate in which the change was happening.
Darius was, in every meaningful sense, a changemaker.
You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Changemaker
One of the most powerful ideas I’ve encountered lately comes from The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers, the new book by Karolin Helbig and Minette Norman — a follow-up to their widely adopted original The Psychological Safety Playbook.
Their core claim is deceptively simple: everyone carries a responsibility to nurture psychological safety at work — the conditions where people feel safe to speak up, share ideas, admit mistakes, and take risks without fear of humiliation or punishment.
This is not a title-holder’s job. It is everyone’s job.
And it matters enormously — not just for morale or belonging, though those are real. Psychological safety has measurable impacts on decision quality, team performance, and your organization’s capacity to navigate change effectively. When people don’t feel safe to speak up, you’re leading with incomplete information. Every time.
The first book, published 3 years ago, introduced five focused “plays” — communication, listening, managing reactions, building risk appetite, and team behaviors — each offering concrete actions that individuals and teams can begin today.
The new Playbook builds on this foundation with additional resources and tips that the authors have gained since the original publication. There are real-world stories that illuminate the lessons they share, activities to do as a team, tips to respond to the skeptics who question the impact of these practices, and guidance for leaders on how to walk the talk.
Three Practices Worth Your Attention This Week
- Ask what you’re missing.
One of the most culture-shifting moves I’ve seen a leader make costs nothing and takes four words: “What am I missing?” Asked consistently at the end of team conversations, it signals that your perspective isn’t the final word — and that other viewpoints are genuinely welcome. That signal, repeated over time, changes how people show up.
This week: Try ending one meeting with this question. Notice what surfaces that wouldn’t have otherwise.
- Listen to understand, not to respond.
Most of us listen while quietly assembling our next point. The Playbook names this habit directly and offers a disciplined alternative: during a conversation, resist the impulse to prepare a response. Focus solely on understanding what the other person is actually saying. This single shift — practiced consistently — tells your team that their thinking matters.
This week: In your next one-on-one, set an intention to listen without preparing your response. See what you hear differently.
- Welcome failure before it happens.
Safety around risk and experimentation rarely exists by default. It has to be created explicitly. Something as simple as saying, “This is new territory for us — we’ll make mistakes along the way” before a challenging initiative reframes what stumbling means. It normalizes learning and removes the fear that one wrong step is a career risk.
This week: Identify one current project where this kind of explicit permission to experiment could make a real difference. Name it out loud to your team.
Back to Elena — and to You
Elena eventually pulled Darius aside and told him what she’d observed. He was surprised. He hadn’t thought of himself as someone with influence over the team’s culture.
But he did. And so do you — regardless of your title, your level, or how uncertain the terrain feels right now.
Culture shifts through small, consistent actions. Not declarations. Not programs. Actions.
You’re already in the room. The question is how you’re showing up in it.
Until next time,
P.S. I’m a certified facilitator of The Psychological Safety Playbook. If you’re interested in bringing this framework to your team — through a workshop, a facilitated session, or simply a conversation to think through what psychological safety looks like in your specific context — I’d welcome that conversation. Just reply to this email.
Join Me in May — The First Change& Conversation
One of the ideas at the heart of the Change& newsletter is that we figure things out together. So I’m putting that into practice.
On Friday, May 29 at noon Eastern, I’m hosting a Change& Conversation — a live, facilitated conversation that will focus on psychological safety for leaders and changemakers.
This isn’t a webinar. There’s no slide deck. It’s a genuine conversation — the kind that’s hard to find inside your own organization — with a small group of leaders from different sectors, facilitated by me.
Join me and have a chance to win a free copy of the new The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers!
If you’ve been reading this newsletter and thinking “I’d like to go deeper on this” — this is that opportunity.
Recent Articles
Read other editions of this newsletter for further insights:
“When Leaders (Over) React” examines how your instinctive reactions in moments of stress can quietly undermine the safety your team needs to speak up — and five practices for responding more deliberately.
“What Leaders Fear to Say But Teams Need to Hear” explores the trust paradox leaders face in turbulent times — and what responsible transparency actually looks like in practice.
“Small Actions, Big Shifts: How Psychological Safety Spreads” offers five concrete practices that ripple across teams and organizations — without a budget or a mandate.