During an executive workshop, someone asked how to build psychological safety within a team. Everyone nodded. I did, too. It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I realized what no one had asked.
It was a good group. Twelve leaders from the insurance industry, different companies, similar challenges. Profit pressure, regulation, the transformation of entire job roles due to automation. And right in the middle of it all was the question that has been a recurring theme in every leadership seminar for years: How do you create an environment where employees feel comfortable speaking openly?
The answers were insightful: from leading by example, to a culture of learning from mistakes, to regular check-ins, to psychological safety as a leadership responsibility, everything was covered, all the way down to the team level.
I nodded and thought: yes, that’s right. On the way home, somewhere on the highway, the question that hadn’t been asked in the room came to mind.
Who creates that for the leader?
The Gap in the Concept
Psychological safety is one of the most frequently cited terms in leadership literature in recent years. Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School, coined the concept: the shared belief within a team that members can take interpersonal risks without being shamed, punished, or excluded. Google’s widely cited Aristotle study brought it to the public’s attention: psychological safety was the strongest predictor of team performance, stronger than competence and stronger than team composition.mot
The concept is good, but it has a flaw. It always thinks in one direction: the leader as the giver, as the one who creates a safe space so that others can flourish. What the concept rarely takes into account is that the leader also needs such a space.
What Structural Loneliness Means
In my work with leaders in financial services companies, I’ve noticed a pattern that occurs so regularly that it no longer surprises me but rather concerns me. People in middle and upper management positions find themselves in a structurally isolating role: too high up to speak openly with employees about uncertainties, yet too low down to be truly heard by senior management.
They know their team needs clarity, so they provide it, even when they don’t have it themselves. They know their employees need a sense of security, so they project confidence, even when they themselves are under pressure. They facilitate the changes coming from above, explain the incomprehensible, and cushion the uncomfortable.
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls this phenomenon “emotional labor ”: the ongoing effort to regulate and display the emotions expected of a role, regardless of what one actually feels. Hochschild originally developed the concept for professions involving significant customer interaction. It affects leaders during periods of transformation with particular intensity, because the pressure to meet expectations comes from multiple directions at once and is rarely explicitly acknowledged.
You project outward what you lack on the inside. Permanently.
Implications for the Industry
Right now, amid one of the industry’s most significant transformation processes, this dynamic is being put to the test. A ZHAW study commissioned by the SVV made it clear in June 2026: In the future, leaders in the insurance industry will need to guide employees through transformation not only professionally but also emotionally. New FINMA requirements, AI integration, shifting customer expectations, it all lands at the heart of the organization, with the leaders who must interpret, explain, and persevere.
What they rarely get: a space where they’re allowed to feel uncertain themselves.
What I see are the consequences. Leaders who don’t ask questions because they’re not supposed to have any. Who nod in meetings even though they don’t understand, because not understanding is seen as a weakness. Who try to sleep off their exhaustion at night and function again in the morning because their role demands it.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s a systemic flaw.
My Position
Psychological safety is not a one-way street. A leader who is constantly under pressure, emotionally isolated, and not allowed to ask questions will, in the medium term, no longer be able to provide the very thing they are supposed to build for their team.
If anyone disagrees, let them speak up. But I haven’t yet met a leader who was able to radiate psychological safety to their team over the years without having that space for themselves somewhere. Sometimes it was a good leader above them, sometimes a network of peers, and sometimes a coach.
The question that wasn’t asked in the workshop is not a trivial one. It has tangible consequences for performance, for the culture of accountability, and for an organization’s ability to learn from setbacks. Those who continue to avoid asking this question are trading short-term peace of mind for long-term stability.
The Moment Afterward
A few weeks after the workshop, I ran into one of the participants again. We stood together briefly after a meeting; our coffee grew cold.
She told me that she’d made a change since the workshop. Once a week, she meets with a colleague from another insurance company, with no agenda and no expectation of a specific outcome. Two leaders who give each other the space that the system doesn’t provide.
I asked what they discuss during those meetings.
“Mostly the questions I can’t ask anywhere else.”
She laughed as she spoke. Not that brief, casual laugh that hides something. The calm laugh of someone who had found a solution she didn’t even know she was looking for.
Marcus Selzer
See also: The Mistake That Pays Off
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