Amy Edmonson: How judicial leaders can make organizations safer by treating failure as a source of learning

Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonson told a Federal Judicial Center podcast audience that judicial leaders who cultivate psychological safety — an environment where people can take interpersonal risks such as admitting mistakes or offering dissenting views — can turn failure into a source of organizational learning.

Edmonson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management and author of The Fearless Organization and Right Kind of Wrong, said psychological safety is not about being "nice" or lowering standards but about creating conditions for candor that support continuous improvement. "It's truly about a learning environment where we value candor over coddling," she said.

The distinction between "mistakes"…