The shared belief within a team that you can raise a question, a doubt, a mistake or a dissenting view without it being held against you. The concept comes from Amy Edmondson, and it predicts how well teams learn and perform better than their composition does.
Employers in shops, hospitality and public transport say aggression towards staff is rising and their own measures are falling short. Dutch Railways (NS) recorded a record 1,132 incidents in 2025. The national working conditions survey finds 11 per cent of employees face unwanted customer behaviour, as often as before.
Publications per month for Customer aggression towards frontline staff and the employer's role
Whether employees use AI and experience it as an improvement depends mainly on whether their own manager visibly supports it. At the same time, half of HR directors doubt their managers can do this, and training alone does little as long as those managers are overloaded.
Publications per month for The manager's role in how employees use AI
Middle managers feel less free to voice mistakes and doubts than their own bosses and their own teams, and newly promoted managers least of all. Yet they are the layer expected to model psychological safety in teams. Culture work that skips this layer does not land.
Publications per month for Psychological safety of middle managers and their role in teams
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