Why Psychological Safety Holds The Key To The MENA’s Next Growth Phase

Across the Middle East, leaders are navigating unprecedented transformation. As economies diversify and organizations race to localize talent, attract global expertise, and foster innovation, the human side of performance has become both a challenge and a differentiator.

High turnover, multicultural teams, and the pressure to deliver rapid growth have created environments where the ability to collaborate, learn, and adapt quickly defines success. Decades of research point to one critical factor behind high-performing teams: psychological safety. When people feel they can ask questions, admit mistakes, or share ideas without fear of blame, they learn faster and perform better.

Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the term in the 1990s, showed that teams with high psychological safety consistently outperform their peers. Google’s Project Aristotle later confirmed these findings after studying more than 180 teams: psychological safety was the single strongest predictor of effectiveness.

The global data is compelling. Teams that score high on psychological safety enjoy 12 percent higher productivity, 27 percent lower turnover, and 29 percent more innovative behaviors. The concept, used extensively across the USA and Europe by global companies including Accenture, Coca-Cola, Merck, Volvo, Microsoft, and Adobe, has become a cornerstone of organizational development worldwide.

In the MENA, where organizational cultures often blend deep respect for hierarchy with extraordinary diversity, psychological safety takes a unique shape.

Why Global Playbooks Don’t Always Fit

In Western contexts, psychological safety is often associated with radical candor and speaking truth to power. But in much of the Middle East, such directness can backfire. Respect for hierarchy and harmony are core social values; deference to authority is often seen as respect, not fear. Feedback is typically given indirectly to preserve relationships, and success is measured collectively rather than individually.

At a roundtable hosted in Dubai on October 31, 2025, by my company, Cosmic Centaurs, in partnership with The Fearless Organization Scan [a platform for measuring psychological safety], human resources (HR) and business leaders discussed how regional dynamics shape the way psychological safety shows up at work. Many noted that in fast-growing organizations, strategic priorities often take precedence over people and culture. Not out of neglect though, but out of necessity. As one participant put it, “The focus has long been on growth and delivery; now, we’re learning that trust and learning are what sustain both.”

The region’s extraordinary diversity adds another layer of complexity. In countries like the UAE, where over 200 nationalities work side by side, communication norms vary widely. Building psychological safety here requires cultural intelligence and the ability to adapt leadership behaviors to the social and cultural context, without compromising openness or accountability.

Building Psychological Safety, The Middle Eastern Way

After more than a decade of helping teams across the MENA understand and embed psychological safety, one truth stands out: while the concept is universally relevant, the way it is practiced cannot be imported. It must be redefined to honor the values of respect, humility, and relational balance that characterize the region’s workplaces.

Rather than focusing on who speaks the most, psychological safety in the Middle East should be about ensuring everyone feels heard. That happens not through grand gestures, but through rituals; small, recurring practices that embed trust into the daily rhythm of work.

Rituals make culture tangible. They remind people what matters and make psychological safety a lived experience rather than an abstract ideal. Cosmic Centaurs’ global study on team rituals, published in the Harvard Business Review, found that teams with strong ritual practices experience 20 percent higher psychological safety, 23 percent stronger connection to purpose, and 28 percent fewer quitting thoughts.

Here’s how these principles translate into the four domains of psychological safety developed by Edmondson:

• Attitude to risk and failure Many employees in the region grow up in environments where mistakes are stigmatized. Leaders can shift this mindset by hosting reflective retrospectives: sessions that focus on what we learned rather than who was at fault. Allowing individuals to prepare reflections privately helps them share insights without fear of losing face.
• Willingness to help In achievement-oriented cultures, asking for help can feel uncomfortable. Regular check-ins where team members explicitly ask, “How can I support you this week?” normalize collaboration and strengthen trust.
• Open conversation In many Middle Eastern workplaces, sharing ideas or challenging assumptions can feel uncomfortable. Leaders can create space for dialogue by asking open-ended questions such as “What perspectives are we missing?” or “Is there another way we could look at this?” to invite participation and signal curiosity. It also helps to recognize contributions by appreciating employees’ ideas and efforts, even when outcomes aren’t perfect. This reinforces that input is valued and that progress matters more than perfection.
• Inclusion and diversity In the MENA, inclusion often manifests through visible respect for cultural, religious, and linguistic differences. Simple rituals, such as asking new joiners about their communication and feedback preferences or prayer times during onboarding, signal that differences are noticed and valued.

Each of these practices reinterprets psychological safety through a local lens, turning it into a regionally specific strength.

A Systemic Effort, Not A Soft Skill

Psychological safety is sometimes misclassified as a “wellbeing” measure. It is in fact the leading indicator of team performance, one that sits at the core of what organizational theorist Peter Senge called the learning organization.

Building it requires more than a few training sessions or team workshops. It must be integrated into the system, across all levels of leadership and learning. The organizations that have done this best in the region approach it in layers:

• Executive masterclasses equip senior leaders to speak a common language and role-model the right behaviors: curiosity, humility, and openness to feedback.
• Middle-manager development programs build specific capabilities: giving and receiving feedback, leading inclusive discussions, managing conflict, and running learning-oriented meetings.
• Company-wide upskilling and communication through short webinars, storytelling campaigns, and dialogue sessions ensure every employee understands that psychological safety is not about comfort, it’s about continuous learning and collective growth.

This integrated approach reinforces that psychological safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Why It Matters Now

The region is at an inflection point, competing globally for talent and ideas. In this context, silence is the cost no organization can afford. As countries move toward knowledge-based economies and localize leadership talent, organizations must unlock the full contribution of their people.

When leaders in the Middle East create workplaces where respect and openness coexist, they unlock a uniquely regional advantage: the ability to blend humility with boldness, and collective harmony with courageous learning. That balance may well define the next chapter of organizational excellence in the region.

About The Author

Marilyn Zakhour is the founder and CEO of Cosmic Centaurs, an organizational development consultancy that’s redefining how leaders think about work and the workplace. Under her leadership, the firm has impacted over 90,000 individuals across 92 countries in just five years, delivering strategic alignment, culture transformation, and leadership development to organizations of all sizes.