Mental Health & Resilience
Leadership Development
Physical Wellbeing
Workplace CulturePsychological safety training for leaders and teams
People do their best work when they feel safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and raise concerns without fear of being blamed or dismissed. That sense of safety is set, or undermined, by leaders. When a manager reacts badly to bad news once, the team learns to stay quiet.
Psychological Safety for Leaders is a workplace training program from Holistic Services Group that equips people leaders to create the conditions in which team members feel safe to contribute, challenge, and flag risks. It is delivered onsite across Australia and online nationwide, in formats from a single workshop to an ongoing series.
Tell us what your team needs
Complete the form and we’ll recommend the most suitable service, format or next step for your organisation.
No obligation. We respond to all enquiries within 12 hours.
Why psychological safety is a leadership priority
When people hold back questions, bad news or concerns, organisations lose information they need to learn and respond early. Psychological safety is shaped by everyday leadership responses, meeting practices, inclusion and what happens after someone speaks up.
- Evidence spans 136 samples: A meta-analysis covering more than 22,000 people and nearly 5,000 groups found psychological safety was positively associated with team information sharing, learning behaviour and task performance, according to Frazier et al.’s 2017 psychological safety meta-analysis.
- Risk management is broader: Psychological safety can help concerns surface, but it does not replace hazard identification, worker consultation, work-design controls or the wider risk-management process described in Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice.
Leaders influence important conditions through supervision, communication, workload allocation and their response to concerns. Organisation-wide governance and work-design controls remain necessary.
Who this is for
This program is designed for people-leaders at every level, from frontline team leaders and middle managers to senior executives shaping culture. It is equally relevant for leaders of intact teams, leaders managing through restructure or change, and leadership groups working to lift psychological safety across a whole organisation.
What the workshops involve
Sessions are practical and reflective, grounded in the everyday leadership behaviours that build or erode safety. Participants examine how their own responses shape what their team feels able to say, and practise the habits that invite contribution. By the end of the session, participants will be able to define what psychological safety is and is not, respond to mistakes and bad news in ways that encourage people to speak up, run discussions where quieter voices are heard, and link psychological safety to their psychosocial risk responsibilities. Sessions run as a 90-minute workshop, a half-day intensive or an ongoing series, can be customised to your context, and are delivered onsite across Australia or online for distributed teams.
Outcomes you can expect
After delivery, HSG can report on attendance, participation and staff feedback, and leaders frequently describe a clearer sense of the specific behaviours that build trust. Many organisations book follow-up sessions as part of a broader psychosocial or leadership program.
Over time, stronger leader-led psychological safety can support engagement, retention and the early surfacing of risks and issues. It is one part of a broader psychosocial risk management approach, not a standalone compliance measure: since 1 April 2023, most Australian jurisdictions have expected employers to implement higher-order controls, including work design, supervision and leadership capability, rather than relying on awareness training or EAPs alone (Safe Work Australia, Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work, 2022).
What clients say
HSG also delivers tailored resilience training for leaders and staff — the kind of work reflected in this feedback from St Vincent’s.
We partnered with Holistic Services Group to deliver resilience sessions tailored for both our leaders and general staff. Mae worked closely with us to identify the training that best suited our needs, and Dana facilitated the sessions on-site with professionalism and expertise. Both Mae and Dana were knowledgeable, engaging, and a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend Holistic Services Group for their exceptional team and comprehensive range of topics.
Peter J
St Vincent’s
Experience and credentials
HSG has delivered workplace wellbeing since 2003 and is trusted by more than 1,600 organisations, including Commonwealth Bank, NAB, the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Finance. Sessions are delivered by specialist facilitators matched to the brief, with relevant qualifications and workplace experience that may include psychology, organisational development, leadership or related disciplines. Contact HSG to confirm facilitator availability and fit for your location and cohort.
Related programs
Psychological safety connects HSG’s leadership development and workplace mental health and resilience work, and pairs closely with psychosocial risk programs, difficult conversations training and manager mental health training. To discuss the right starting point, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
This page focuses on the leader version, which builds the manager behaviours that create a safe team. HSG also delivers psychological safety sessions for whole teams; the same topic is framed for team-level conditions when the audience is all staff rather than people-leaders.
Since 1 April 2023, most Australian jurisdictions have required employers to control psychosocial hazards using higher-order controls, not awareness or EAPs alone (Safe Work Australia, Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work, 2022). Victoria and NSW apply their own separate frameworks and timelines. Because hazards such as poor support and low control are managed largely through leadership, building leaders’ psychological safety capability can be part of a practical, evidence-informed approach to managing psychosocial risk.
HSG reports on attendance, participation and staff feedback. Our experience shows that over time, leader-led psychological safety can support engagement, retention and the early surfacing of risks, and can contribute to your organisation’s broader psychosocial risk management approach. We focus on realistic, evidence-informed outcomes.
An EAP can provide valuable confidential support and manager assistance. This program serves a different purpose: it develops leader behaviours that influence whether people ask questions, raise concerns and acknowledge mistakes. Neither an EAP nor training alone replaces hazard identification, consultation or appropriate risk controls.
Both, and yes. HSG delivers onsite across Australian capitals and regional areas and online nationwide, and tailors the scenarios and emphasis to your organisation, including for teams going through change.
Trusted by 1,600+ organisations across Australia and Asia-Pacific
Supporting corporate, government, healthcare, education and not-for-profit sectors
HSG has supported more than 1,600 organisations across corporate, government, healthcare, education and not-for-profit sectors, including Microsoft, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, BHP, the Department of Defence, St Vincent’s, the University of Sydney, Deakin University, The Smith Family and headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation.