But achieving this requires a specific kind of culture—one where employees feel a high level of challenge safety.
It’s vital not to overlook challenge safety or dismiss it as a luxury for forward-thinking organizations. It’s increasingly becoming a necessity for any business striving to thrive in the 21st century.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how to build a work environment that not only allows but actively encourages bold thinking, constructive challenges, and innovative breakthroughs.
Hvad er udfordringssikkerhed?
Challenge safety is the fourth and final stage of the four stages of psychological safety.
Imagine a meeting where one of your employees openly says:
"Boss, I’m concerned about the direction we’re heading in. May I challenge some of your assumptions?"
And imagine that you, as a leader, not only accept this but value it. This is challenge safety in its purest form.
It’s not enough for employees to feel safe contributing ideas; they also need to feel confident actively challenging you and each other—even when it’s uncomfortable. Only this way can you ensure that the best decisions are made.
Challenge safety builds on the earlier stages of psychological safety. Dr. Timothy R. Clarke first introduced these four stages in his groundbreaking book The Four Stages of Psychological Safety.
The earlier stages are:
While contributor safety is about employees feeling safe to share their thoughts, challenge safety is about them actively daring to disagree - with you and with each other.
This is the difference between an employee saying, “I have an idea,” and “I don’t agree with your approach—may I challenge it?”
Learn more: How to Give and Receive Constructive Feedback
When your employee suggests improvements to your PowerPoint presentation, that’s feedback. When they question the very premise of your project, that’s a challenge.
You need both, but it’s often the challenges that prevent significant mistakes.
Here’s the difference illustrated:
- Feedback: “I think we should adjust the timeline.”
Challenge: “Are we sure this project solves the right problem at all?”
- Feedback: “Could we improve this process?”
Challenge: “Why do we even have this process? What if we eliminated it entirely?”
- Feedback: “Here’s my input on the strategy.”
Challenge: “I’m concerned about the assumptions underpinning our strategy.”
As a leader, your responsibility isn’t just to accept challenges—you must actively encourage them.
You should celebrate employees who dare to be constructively critical. And you must lead by example, showing that you, too, can be challenged and willing to change direction when presented with strong arguments.
To foster this culture, you need to be honest with yourself: Are you truly ready to be challenged? Are you prepared to discover that you might be wrong? It takes both courage and humility to create genuine challenge safety in your organization.
The question isn’t whether you’ll face challenges—they already exist within your team. The question is whether you’ll hear them in time to act on them.
Read about: How SydKIP laid the foundation for even better collaboration in a new department in Region Southern Denmark
Where is Challenge Safety Important?
As a leader, you likely desire both innovation and quality in your decision-making. But have you ever considered why some teams consistently deliver better results than others?
The answer often lies in their ability to challenge the status quo and one another constructively.
- Innovation and Development: When your employees feel safe challenging existing practices, you open the door to an entirely new world of possibilities. Innovation rarely arises from the comfort zone - it comes when someone dares to ask, “Why do we do it this way?” or “What if we did something entirely different?”
By fostering challenge safety, you create the ideal conditions for innovation to flourish.
- Quality in Decision-Making
Think about an important decision you’ve made recently. Was it enriched by different perspectives and constructive opposition? Or was it primarily met with nodding and agreement?
The quality of your decisions improves significantly when your team dares to challenge your assumptions and point out potential issues. It’s often constructive resistance that elevates a good decision to an excellent one.
- Preventing Mistakes and Blind Spots: We all have blind spots—even you as a leader. But in a culture with high challenge safety, these blind spots are brought to light before they become real problems. When your project manager feels safe saying, “Boss, I see some risks you may have overlooked,” or when your developer points out potential flaws in your strategy, you prevent costly mistakes.
- Engagement and Ownership: There’s a direct link between people’s willingness to challenge and their level of engagement. When employees know their critical input is valued, they take greater ownership of the outcome. They become co-creators of the solution rather than just executing orders. This fosters both deeper engagement and better results.
- Organizational Learning: Every time your team challenges an assumption or questions a process, you create an opportunity for learning. In a culture with high challenge safety, mistakes and problems aren’t swept under the rug. Instead, they’re seen as valuable learning opportunities. This makes your organization more adaptive and better equipped to handle future challenges.
As a leader, your job isn’t to have all the answers—it’s to create the conditions for the best answers to emerge through constructive challenge and dialogue. Master this, and you’ll see the quality of both decisions and results improve dramatically.
To make this concrete: Think about your team’s most recent major success. Was it the result of a single brilliant idea? Or was it the outcome of diverse perspectives and constructive challenges refining the original concept?
The Consequences of Lacking Challenge Safety
Failing to foster challenge safety can have serious repercussions:
- Critical issues are discovered too late.
- Innovation is stifled before it even begins.
- Your best people leave.
- Decisions are made on incomplete foundations.
- A “yes-man” culture develops, undermining quality and results.
Challenge safety isn’t just another buzzword in a sea of meaningless management jargon—it’s the foundation of an organization that continually evolves and delivers superior results.
The question isn’t whether you can afford to build challenge safety—the question is whether you can afford not to.
Read and learn more: Empowering learning and leadership in organizations
How to Recognize Signs of Challenge Safety
As a leader, it’s crucial to recognize whether you’ve fostered a culture where people genuinely feel comfortable challenging you and each other.
Here are the most noticeable signs to look for in your organization:
Positive Indicators – What High Challenge Safety Looks Like:
- Your youngest employee feels confident pointing out flaws in your strategy during a strategy meeting.
- Employees come to you with concerns long before problems become critical.
- Meetings are filled with lively and constructive debate—not just polite agreement.
- Employees at all levels ask "silly" questions about ingrained practices.
Warning Signs – What Low Challenge Safety Looks Like:
- There’s noticeable silence when you ask for input on your ideas.
- Employees nod and agree during meetings but whisper their true thoughts in private.
- Critical questions only come from the same 1-2 people.
- There’s a tendency to "please" leadership rather than challenge it.
- Important discussions happen secretly by the coffee machine instead of in the meeting room.
As a leader, it’s your responsibility to pay close attention to these signals.
When you notice too much nodding and agreement, alarm bells should go off. Remember: The comforting feeling that everyone agrees with you is often a sign that something is wrong.
5 Tips: How to Create Challenge Safety
Building challenge safety requires deliberate effort from you as a leader to cultivate a culture where employees feel comfortable asking questions, challenging the status quo, and sharing risky ideas.
Here are five concrete tips to strengthen challenge safety in your team:
- Invite Critical Thinking
Ask questions that encourage dialogue and reflection, such as: “How can we improve this?” or “Is there something we’re overlooking?” By actively seeking employees’ perspectives, you signal that criticism and new ideas are not only welcome but necessary.
- Acknowledge the Courage to Challenge
When an employee dares to bring up a controversial topic or suggest an unexpected idea, acknowledge it. Say something like: “Thank you for sharing that perspective—it’s important that we consider all possibilities.” Even if the idea isn’t implemented, it’s vital that their contribution is appreciated.
Read more: Recognizing Leadership: Creating a Positive & Motivated Workplace - Turn Mistakes into Learning Opportunities
Create a culture where mistakes aren’t hidden but are used to improve. For instance, hold a weekly reflection session where the team discusses what went wrong and what they’ve learned. Set the tone by sharing your own mistakes and learnings.
- Adjust Your Reaction to Criticism
When an employee challenges your decision, avoid responding defensively. Instead, listen openly and ask: “That’s an interesting point—what do you see that I might not?” This shows you value others’ perspectives, even when they differ from your own.
- Create Structures for Innovation
Ensure there are concrete spaces and processes where employees can share ideas and challenges. When innovation is built into the workflow, employees are encouraged to think boldly and differently.
By integrating these tips into your leadership style, you create an environment where employees feel safe thinking outside the box and challenging existing solutions.
Explore: Strengthen Psychological Safety Across Teams
Imagine a workplace where questioning the status quo, proposing new approaches, and taking risks are the norm—without fear of how others will perceive it.
It’s in these environments that the most innovative ideas are born, and the most effective solutions are developed.
By fostering this culture, you enable your team to thrive in an environment that produces innovative ideas and effective solutions.
