Last Updated on October 11, 2026 by YEO Chuen Chuen
Psychological safety starts with a humble leader and grows through small, consistent actions: noticing who has gone quiet, checking in, and acting on what people tell you. In this episode, Chelvin Loh, a public sector strategist with almost 20 years in jobs and skills development, explains why it is the most valuable thing a leader can build for a team, and also the hardest. She also shares how leaders can manage themselves when their own energy runs low.
Episode 3 of the Leaders People Love series.
What does a psychologically safe team look like?
In a psychologically safe team, people speak up before they are certain, and an incomplete idea gets questioned, not punished.
Chelvin’s first CEO brought young officers into meetings and expected them to give an opinion. When their view was incomplete, he asked “Did you consider this?” instead of telling them they were wrong. They learnt to think more carefully before speaking, without becoming afraid to speak.
She has also seen the opposite: organisations where staff were told to give an opinion only when they were 120% sure. Nobody spoke, so only the boss talked.
Why does psychological safety start with humility?
Humility lets a leader keep learning, and a leader who is learning makes it safer for others to speak.
Chelvin calls humility a hard pill to swallow, but it takes pressure off you because you stop needing to be right. It also helps you accept that what you intended may differ from how others experienced it. The two things she tries to pass on are simple: be a humble leader, and build a culture where people are prepared to tell you things, including “no”.
How can leaders build psychological safety faster?
There is no shortcut, but it comes sooner when senior leaders set the tone and managers pay attention to small details.
Chelvin is candid that psychological safety is very hard to build when the wider organisation is hostile or gives teams no room to try things. That is why senior management has to set the tone. Within a team, she recommends:
- Notice when someone who usually speaks up goes quiet, and call them to check in.
- Be consistent, so people trust that you are real and in it for the long haul.
- Act on feedback where you can. People only tell you things when they know you will listen.
- Make a difference to one person every day, through a message, a call or a personal note.
Her current team writes appreciation notes to each other once a month. It keeps attention on the person behind the work, not only the work.
Why do leaders need coaching skills?
Coaching skills help people think better so they can do better.
Chelvin sees asking good questions, listening, and giving people accountability as skills every leader needs. Chuen Chuen links this to an earlier episode in which HR director Tang Li Chow described the leader’s job as helping people think better so they can do better.
How can leaders manage themselves when their energy is low?
Look inward first, then talk it through with a few trusted people.
Chelvin describes leadership as lonely at times, with expectations from above, from peers and from staff. She sees self-management as the skill that separates leaders who cope: handling your energy and disappointment so your team does not absorb your raw emotions. She compares it to a trampoline. You choose how hard to land so you can bounce back.
Her own process starts with asking whether a piece of feedback reflects who she really is. Then she talks to a small circle of people who will be frank with her. She needs to talk things out, because bottling them up sends her into a downward spiral. She also reminds leaders to be kinder to themselves, and to start by being open with the people they already feel safe with.
Related reading
Fear of failure is not only a junior staff problem. In this Straits Times op-ed, Chuen Chuen explains why CEOs and directors are afraid to fail too, and how psychological safety helps.
Connect with Chelvin Loh on LinkedIn.
Read the full transcript
Chelvin Loh: I’ve been in teams that are safe and teams that are not safe, and the outcomes are clearly very different, for me and for the teams. If we want to make an impact on the lives of our team members, psychological safety is very important to build. But it’s also the hardest, because it’s so nebulous.
Chuen Chuen: Welcome to Agile Leaders Conversations, a podcast where we invite human-centred professionals and leaders to share what it means to lead in today’s workplaces. Through their personal stories, find out the lessons that guide them through disruption and help them forge a better way forward. My name is Yeo Chuen Chuen. I’m the author of Leaders People Love, a guide for agile leaders to creating great workplaces and happy employees. I’m delighted to have you listen in today.
My guest today is Chelvin Loh. Chelvin is a seasoned public sector strategist and implementer with almost 20 years of experience in jobs, skills and industry development. She is currently the Director of the Skills Intelligence and Planning Division, leading a team of skills policy officers, data analysts and data scientists.
Welcome to the show, Chelvin. Thank you for taking time to be here. To start off, tell us about yourself, what you do, and why you do what you do.
Chelvin Loh: Thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast, Chuen Chuen. I’m Chelvin. I’m in the public service, working on jobs and skills, and using data science to better inform citizens and enterprises about the future of skills and jobs. And I absolutely love my job.
Chuen Chuen: It’s very meaningful. When we talk about preparing people for the future of work, this is one of the tangible ways to make a difference: giving people the trends and making them understandable, so they can prepare as early as possible.
Chelvin Loh: Exactly. We hear this a lot from citizens, stakeholders and the enterprises we work with. The key is whether we can help citizens anticipate the trends to come and be better prepared. Many countries are doing this. In Singapore we have an advantage because we’re small and can bring different parts of the economy together. Having the data is a real leg up for our citizens. That’s what keeps me going, knowing it makes a direct impact on our community and our families.
Chuen Chuen: Yes. I have three boys, and they will join the workforce, so I’m sure the work you and your team do will make a real difference. For listeners who don’t know Singapore, we have no natural resources except our people. So we need to make sure people are well equipped for the future, with good jobs and good training, especially as life expectancy increases.
Chelvin Loh: Life and work expectancy.
Chuen Chuen: Life and work expectancy. What’s your prediction for the retirement age in the future?
Chelvin Loh: No retirement. It will be a different model from the past, where we worked until 60 or 62 and then retired to spend more time with family. It’s now much more flexible. You can take career breaks. You can go part-time and come back when your stage of life is different.
The way we work will have to adapt to this, and skill sets will be quite different too. Gig work may become normal. Within organisations, you won’t be limited to your own division. You can take on projects across the whole organisation, which builds your skills, and organisations can see your full set of skills, not only what your job requires or what your qualifications say. It will be quite a rethink, a hybrid model where individuals have more say in the work they take on.
That’s why I don’t think there will be retirement as such. It’s about choosing the intensity you want, the kind of work you want, and the balance you want between family and work.
Chuen Chuen: We can already picture that future. Hybrid work is not just about location. It’s about pace: how you organise work around your life, and how you make work part of your life. What you’re describing is an inspiring way to rethink it. It’s not just skill sets, it’s a mindset of work-life integration and harmony. I don’t use the word balance, because I don’t think it can be 50-50. It’s about harmonising.
Chelvin Loh: Yes. The value of work is very important. Work needs to bring meaning to your life. You can’t divide your life into three parts, school, then work, then retirement, because school is coming into work and work is going back to school. Your life is already part of your work. The question is how you find the right balance and flexibility at different stages of your life.
A lot of jobs are becoming hybrid, so job content will change and your skills have to change too. And it’s about our mindset towards change, and how we help our staff embrace change and be part of it in their organisations.
Chuen Chuen: Let me recap that last line: our mindset towards change, how we prepare staff for change, and how we help them step up and be part of it. I see a lot of overlap between your work and mine. You come from a data-driven approach. Mine is helping people on the ground shift their mindset and let go of old stereotypes so they can make meaningful change. We should work hand in hand more.
When we talk about the future of work, leaders play a big part. They always have, and they will continue to. My personal mission is that every workplace will be filled with leaders people love working with and working for. When you think of a leader people love, who’s the first person who comes to mind?
Chelvin Loh: I’ve been blessed with a number of leaders who made a huge impact on my life and guided me to where I am today. The first one who made a big impression was the CEO in my first job. He wasn’t my direct boss, but he didn’t believe young officers should stand at the back or that they had no value to add. He encouraged young officers to sit in meetings with the other staff and to share their opinions, whether or not they were right. You had to have an opinion.
That set a very open culture in the organisation. You weren’t afraid to speak up, because your opinion always had value. It might differ from everyone else’s, but there was space for it. That had a huge impact on me.
Chuen Chuen: Senior leaders set the tone. Instead of saying “Young officers, you have nothing to add, just watch and learn, and ask questions privately,” there was an open culture where your opinion was valued. That’s why you felt safe.
I’m curious. As a young officer, I’m sure there were times you said something wrong.
Chelvin Loh: Of course.
Chuen Chuen: What was the reaction?
Chelvin Loh: It wasn’t really wrong. Our view just wasn’t as comprehensive or balanced as theirs when they deliberated on issues. The tone was always, “Did you think about this? Did you consider that?” Then you’d realise you should have considered it. It was a nurturing environment, not one where you were singled out for being wrong.
That encouraged us to think things through before speaking. If I believed what I had to say had value, I’d say it. It motivated officers to think about what we said, but it didn’t penalise us for having a limited view.
Chuen Chuen: A lot of organisations are trying to make the most of diversity. If there’s no retirement age, many things change. Say someone rejoins after a three, five or even ten-year career break. They will want to contribute. Their frame of reference may come from the past, but that doesn’t make it obsolete. It can be a good reminder of first principles: this is what we do, and this is why we do it, before we got distracted by everything else. We need to hear those questions and points of view.
So there are two things your first CEO did very well. When your opinion was different, you didn’t feel singled out or attacked. You were questioned, but in a compassionate, nurturing way that kept you open. You learnt, because you would challenge yourself and take more responsibility before speaking. And you were open to being challenged, even in a big forum. That’s not just a skill, it’s a mindset. A lot of people struggle with fear of rejection.
Chelvin Loh: It’s real. I won’t play that fear down. It’s real.
Chuen Chuen: What doesn’t help is when leaders shoot people down the moment they say something wrong.
Chelvin Loh: Yes. I’ve also seen organisations at the other extreme, where staff are told to give an opinion only when they’re 120% sure.
Chuen Chuen: How would anyone know?
Chelvin Loh: So nobody talks.
Chuen Chuen: And only the boss talks. If you’re only talking to yourself, there’s no progress. Without diversity there’s no innovation. Without different points of view there’s no learning. And without learning there’s no excellence.
Chelvin Loh: Exactly. You can’t get beyond what you already know. With so much uncertainty and change, it’s critical that we don’t rely only on our own knowledge. We need to draw on the people in our team, on knowledge outside our organisation, and on our partners. It’s like a large project we’re all doing together, each working on a different part. That takes a different mindset.
Chuen Chuen: Collaboration and partnership, not competition. We’re in an ecosystem, co-creating. One of my biggest mindset shifts, when I started working on my personal development, was moving from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset: believing everyone can win together. That’s still very relevant.
In your area of responsibility, what have you learnt about leadership that you try to pass on?
Chelvin Loh: It’s super important for leaders to be humble. Humility is sometimes a hard pill to swallow, but it takes pressure off you. Don’t let ego get in the way. Give yourself space to grow. It can be difficult and painful, but it’s the best way to learn, and it’s where I’ve learnt the most as a leader. Humility makes you look at issues differently and more objectively. What you intended may be different from the impact others see. You have to accept that gap and be humble enough to learn from it.
The second is how you build trust and psychological safety in your team. I’ve been in teams that are safe and teams that are not, and the outcomes are very different, for me and for the teams. If we want to make an impact on our team members’ lives, psychological safety is very important to build. But it’s also the hardest, because it’s so nebulous. You don’t really know which tools will work in your team. How do you build positive energy around it? That creates a positive culture, sets the tone, and helps people feel safe.
So to me, that’s the magic. First, you must be a humble leader. Second, you must add value to your team, and the best way to do that is to create a psychologically safe, trusting culture where people are prepared to tell you things, even say no to you, and we grow together.
Chuen Chuen: Beautiful summary. People are prepared to tell you things and to disagree, and in the end we go forward together. That was a strong statement. One, humility as a leader. Two, the greatest value a leader can bring to a team is psychological safety.
What would you advise leaders who want to build psychological safety faster?
Chelvin Loh: You need to be empowered, because you’re trying to bring out the different strengths in a team, and sometimes that needs more innovative approaches. If the organisation’s culture says “Stick to the status quo, don’t try different things, don’t be too clever,” it won’t work.
I can’t say I’ve fully figured out how to build psychological safety. In some of my previous organisations it didn’t succeed because there was no empowerment and the culture was very hostile. It’s very hard to build psychological safety in a team when the organisation is hostile.
That’s why senior management has to set the tone. And it takes investment over time. It doesn’t happen immediately. You have to pay attention to small details. For example, you notice a staff member isn’t speaking as much as usual. You pick up the phone: “Are you okay? I sensed you weren’t comfortable this morning.” It takes that kind of one-to-one engagement. Then they need to see that you’re consistent in your behaviour, because that’s the only way they’ll trust you, know you’re real, and know you’re in it for the long haul and won’t abandon them.
Feedback from staff is also very important. Staff must be prepared to tell you things, but they’ll only do it when they know you’ll listen, take note, and act if you can. Over time you see this formula take hold in teams, and it shows in great places to work.
Chuen Chuen: You’ve touched on one of my favourite laws, the law of consistency. I know you haven’t read my book, Leaders People Love, but you’re naming so many things in it.
Chelvin Loh: I’ve read part of it.
Chuen Chuen: These small things every leader can do make the difference in the long run, and I want to call them out. First, pay attention to the little details. And psychological safety takes two hands to clap. What tone is set from the top? Is there enough empowerment in the culture? Do we cut down the tallest blades of grass, frowning on and attacking new ideas? We may do this without realising. Senior leaders who are impatient and carry frustrated energy all the time can be quite intimidating.
So empowerment is one part. But middle managers and individual contributors, leaders at every level, may not control how much empowerment there is in the culture, yet there are small things everyone can do. Observe your colleagues. Are they engaged? Pick up the phone and ask how they are. Do it consistently, so people understand who you are as a person.
I also encourage every leader to own up to mistakes. Leading with vulnerability is a powerful way to build trust, but it needs finesse. Humility is a tough pill to swallow, and we have to swallow it.
Chelvin Loh: There’s one skill you have that I think all leaders should have. As leaders, we are coaches. We need to know how to ask the right questions, how to listen, and how to give staff accountability as well as responsibility. Those skills are really important.
Chuen Chuen: That brings to mind one of the most impactful episodes I’ve had: episode 3 of my first series, with HR director Li Chow. One sentence he said still sticks with me: as leaders, our job is to help people think better so they can do better. To do that, leaders need coaching skills: asking questions, listening, observing, and giving accountability and responsibility. Very much like your first CEO, who listened, saw the value in a seemingly naive point of view, and asked questions back to widen your perspective. He put the accountability back on you in a nurturing way, so you thought better and gave a better response each time.
Chelvin Loh: That’s right.
Chuen Chuen: What’s one lesson you believe leaders must learn sooner rather than later to stay relevant and agile?
Chelvin Loh: Leadership can be quite lonely. We can have communities to learn with, but when you go through struggles, it can be lonely. The skill I think matters most is self-management. Managing yourself when your energy is down, or when you’re disappointed. How do you climb back up? How do you keep your energy from dropping too low? You need to know what’s important to you, and manage your emotions while still playing your role for your staff, so they don’t see your raw emotions and aren’t too affected by them. It’s like a trampoline. You decide how hard to land so you can bounce back up.
Self-management is especially important because there are so many expectations on leaders today: from the top, from peers, from staff. The job will only get tougher. The leaders who rise above it are very good at managing themselves. I’ve seen leaders who are excellent at compartmentalising, so work doesn’t spill into the rest of their life. “This is family time. Nothing else comes in.” And at work, they bring their true selves but don’t let disappointment get in the way. That ability is really valuable.
Chuen Chuen: That’s very heartfelt. I actually felt like crying. Leadership can be lonely, and being a leader is not a popularity contest. The word that comes to mind for me is character. Crisis reveals character. Everyone can be nice and friendly when things are smooth. Watch them in a crisis. How they respond will either make you respect them more or erase the respect they’ve built.
You named a few situations: when your energy is down, when you’re disappointed, when expectations are high. If we choose to step into the leader’s role, it comes as a package. The expectations will always be there and will keep growing. Even when we talk about being authentic, there’s still a persona we need to project. The higher we go, the bigger the power distance, and every word carries more weight. I like your trampoline metaphor.
What was one of the first things you learnt that helps you manage your emotions when things get rough, a kind of recovery process to get back on the trampoline?
Chelvin Loh: I tend to look inward first. When I get feedback or hear something about myself, I ask whether it’s really true, whether it reflects the real me. Then I talk to people. I have a group of trusted people I can ask openly, and they give me very open feedback. They’ll say, “No, that’s not the real you I see, so don’t worry too much. But if you’re concerned about why it happened, maybe it’s something you said or did. Pay attention to those small things and observe over time.” That’s really helpful. Sometimes I just take one of them out for a chat.
I know I need to talk things out. I can’t bottle them up, because then it eats into me and becomes a downward spiral. Talking it out clarifies my thoughts and puts me on the path to recover and grow, instead of staying in negative energy.
Chuen Chuen: Knowing yourself is very important. That’s personal mastery. You know your style, and talking it out to make sense of it is essential. Who you talk to matters too. You’ve built a circle of trusted advisers who give sound advice, don’t put the blame on others, and offer a few possibilities for you to consider and test. Looking inward first is already a big step, because you’re taking responsibility and being accountable.
Chelvin Loh: That’s right.
Chuen Chuen: The other step is to ask people directly. “I got this feedback. I’m quite surprised and a bit disturbed. I’m coming to you because I trust you’ll be frank with me, and I want your view.” Direct communication is badly needed in organisations, to build trust and to make the most of diversity, but it isn’t practised enough.
Chelvin Loh: To add to that, give yourself space as well. If you’re not comfortable, be honest with yourself and say, “I’m not ready yet.” Leaders need to feel safe too. With people you feel safer with, you can be more open and authentic, and that builds your confidence. As leaders, we should be kinder to ourselves.
Chuen Chuen: Yes. Be kind to ourselves and cut ourselves some slack, even if it’s just saying “I can’t think about this any more” and taking a half day of leave. During COVID I’d ask my coachees, “What’s your leave balance? Please cut yourself some slack.”
What’s one simple action a leader can take every day that makes a difference in the long run?
Chelvin Loh: Make an impact on one person every day. It can be a simple WhatsApp message or a phone call. That can be really powerful. This week was International Self-Care Day, so I gave my staff a treat with a personalised note. You never know. Some people are having a hard time and don’t want to say so, but this shows them you care. That’s what matters.
Knowing someone is watching out for you and cares enough to check in is really helpful. During COVID, my boss would sometimes send me ice cream: “You look a bit down. Here’s some ice cream to cheer you up.” First, you noticed my energy was down. Second, you bothered to order it and send it to me. These small things make a huge difference.
Chuen Chuen: There’s a fundamental human need to be seen, heard and understood. So the one thing every leader can do every day is show others you care, and that you’re observant enough to notice.
I had a funny interview last year. A woman came back from a three-week holiday, and her boss caught her at the lift and asked, “What happened to that piece of work?” Whatever energy she’d recharged on holiday was gone. Nobody asked how her holiday was, or said she looked refreshed.
When I was a teacher, before I started my coaching and training business, I learnt that observation makes a difference. A class can have up to 45 students, and if you don’t pay attention to individuals, they become faceless teenagers. Two things made a difference. First, I memorised all their names, with about 90% accuracy within the first hour, so they knew they were seen. Second, I noticed small changes in their appearance: new glasses, a new hairstyle or parting, a new uniform. “That’s a nice uniform. You look really smart in it.” And they’d sit up a little straighter, because they’d been seen.
We need to do this more in organisations so work doesn’t feel like a cold, transactional place where nobody would notice if you didn’t show up. Feeling that your existence doesn’t matter is the worst thing, and we can reverse it easily. It takes maybe three seconds to text someone.
Chelvin Loh: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: “I really appreciated the thinking in that piece of work,” or “That was a well-crafted email. Thanks for managing the stakeholder.”
Chelvin Loh: Yes. In my current organisation, we show appreciation once a month. We all get together and write notes to one another. It’s a good discipline: you take time to look at everything that’s been done that month and ask who the person behind the work was, and you acknowledge them publicly. That’s really powerful. It shows people that they matter, not just the work.
Chuen Chuen: So make appreciation part of the culture. Go beyond the work and see the person behind it.
Chelvin Loh: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: Another powerful statement. Thank you, Chelvin, for sharing all these nuggets of wisdom.
Chelvin Loh: I loved it. Thank you.
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Updated: October 2026