In an industry where precision is paramount and the cost of error can be catastrophic, encouraging people to speak up about their mistakes might sound counterintuitive. But for Lucy Airs, psychologist, leadership coach and doctoral researcher, it’s exactly what the construction sector needs to improve safety, quality and trust.
Lucy recently joined the
Site Story podcast to explore a powerful and often overlooked concept:
psychological safety in construction. And she doesn’t sugar-coat the challenge.
“If you’re not hearing about mistakes, it doesn’t mean they’re not happening. It means people don’t feel safe to say so.”
The Hidden Cost of Silence on Site
Silence can be deadly. In one study, only 71% of employees in low-trust teams said they would report an error compared to 91% in psychologically safe teams.
Lucy believes construction teams face a similar dilemma. "Mistakes don't go away just because they’re not reported. They grow quietly layer by layer until they’re either expensive, dangerous or both."
She’s worked across sectors where people are under immense pressure to deliver fast, lean and perfectly. But what happens when the culture doesn’t allow space for real conversations about mistakes?
“People hide errors not because they’re careless” Lucy says, “but because the environment rewards silence and punishes vulnerability.”
From Resilience to Responsibility
Lucy’s career began in psychology with a focus on resilience: the capacity to adapt, recover and thrive under pressure. That led to leadership coaching where she encountered a frustrating pattern: organisations invested heavily in training but little changed on the ground.
“We spend time and money on leadership development but if people can’t practise what they learn nothing sticks. It’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.”
That realisation drew her to psychological safety research, particularly Amy Edmondson’s work on error reporting in medical teams. Edmondson’s findings, that high-performing teams reported more mistakes not fewer, became a cornerstone of Lucy’s thinking.
In her own doctoral research, Lucy is exploring how leaders and teams can actively develop psychological safety and embed it into everyday site culture.
Culture Change Starts With Leaders
Leaders, Lucy argues, have to model the very behaviours they want to see, especially when it comes to owning mistakes. And this isn’t just theory.
In teams with strong psychological safety, research shows higher engagement, more innovation, better safety outcomes and fewer burnout symptoms. Another study found that leader inclusiveness and openness to input significantly boosted willingness to report errors, especially among early-career professionals.
So what can leaders on site do today?
Lucy suggests a surprisingly simple starting point: talk about your own mistakes first. Invite input, even dissent. Thank people for pointing out problems early, even if they’re small. Because of those small things? That’s where the big disasters begin.
“If you’re a leader and nobody is coming to you with mistakes that’s not a sign of a great team. That’s a warning sign.”
Making Safety Human Again
Lucy shared one practical exercise that has stuck with many podcast listeners. She calls it “the best mistake conversation.” You pair people up, ask them to share a mistake they made and what they learned and then have them reflect back on each other’s strengths.
“It reframes the conversation. It’s not about blame it’s about learning. That’s how trust on site is built—person by person story by story.”
It’s not about being soft. It’s about being specific, constructive and real.
In construction, where human decisions are layered into concrete outcomes, building an error-reporting culture isn’t just a leadership skill—it’s a safety strategy.
“There are no perfect humans. So why are we designing site cultures that expect perfection?”
For Lucy, the answer lies in changing the question. Not “how do we avoid mistakes?” but “how do we talk about them early, learn from them and build better together?”