Building teams that speak up: psychological safety and feedback culture
Insights from my Culture Corner conversation with Terry Brown, Senior Director of Engineering.
In the ever-evolving world of leadership, building a high-performing team isn't about speed, strategy or scale, it's about safety. Real innovation comes when people feel confident to speak up, challenge norms and grow from mistakes. But how do we create environments where that's not just allowed, but expected?
In a recent Culture Corner podcast, I spoke with Terry Brown, Senior Director of Engineering at Mews about the role of psychological safety and feedback in shaping strong cultures. Terry didn’t just talk theory, he shared the lived experience, offering thoughtful and practical insights that any leader can apply.
Culture is what you tolerate
Terry is very clear when it comes to defining culture. Forget glossy posters or value statements, the real culture of a team is revealed in the behaviours you walk past, and even more starkly, "the worst behaviours a manager is willing to tolerate."
"When cultures treated as fluffy," Terry explained, "you get diluted results. It’s foundational to delivery, impact, value and market share."
Culture isn’t static. It’s shaped in every interaction, decision and oversight.
Actionable steps:
Reflect with your team on what behaviours feel tolerated versus supported.
Shift culture conversations from slogans to habits.
Ask “what do we need to stop walking past?”
Psychological safety: balancing safety with standards
Terry challenges the misconception that psychological safety is about being nice. "It’s often misrepresented or even weaponised as an excuse to avoid discomfort or difficult conversations,".
True psychological safety is built from high trust alongside high standards. "Safety without standards leads to stagnation. Accountability without care creates toxicity. We need both."
At its best, psychological safety empowers people to:
Take calculated risks.
Admit mistakes without fear.
Ask questions.
Offer dissenting opinions.
Challenge assumptions.
Actionable steps:
Practice saying “I might be wrong, what do you think?”
Reinforce that disagreement signals engagement, not disruption.
Reward curiosity and challenge as cultural behaviours.
Feedback as culture in motion
Terry’s feedback philosophy is grounded in radical candour, where honesty and care go hand in hand. He recounted a moment when his team simply said, "Terry, just tell us." That reflected deep trust not in hierarchy, but in intention.
"If I’m not giving you the truth you need to grow," he said "it’s not safety it’s avoidance."
When psychological safety and feedback coexist, they create a loop that reinforces growth, not fear.
Actionable steps:
Ask team members how they prefer to receive feedback.
Use regular forums, retros, check-ins, peer coaching to normalise it.
Give feedback as a form of care: timely, clear and focused on improvement.
Tools that turn theory into practice
Terry doesn’t just talk about culture he builds it. Here are some of the practices he uses to create safe, feedback-driven environments:
Model fallibility from the top: "As a leader, you don’t need to know everything. It’s more powerful to say, 'I don’t have the answer, but let’s work it out together.'"
Invest in skill-building, not just systems: Muse’s “Remarkable Managers” programme helps build coaching, feedback and conversation skills across the leadership team.
Foster shared learning spaces: "We run Think Clubs and book clubs, we’ve explored 'Five Dysfunctions of a Team' together. These are great levellers and open up real discussion."
Practice radical transparency: Terry highlighted Muse’s weekly all-hands, where senior leaders answer questions openly and honestly.
Actionable steps:
Make vulnerability and curiosity team norms.
Champion skill-building for communication, not just delivery.
Create rituals that support openness, learning and challenge.
Final thought
When psychological safety and feedback culture work together, teams don’t just execute they evolve. As Terry showed, culture is lived in the quiet moments, the hard conversations and the everyday behaviours that build trust.
Try the following:
Share something you got wrong in a team setting.
Ask someone on your team “What could I do better?”
Review a recent decision and ask, “Did everyone feel safe to speak up?”
Culture doesn’t happen by default. It’s built in the moments you model safety and deliver truth and when you do, your teams will do the same.