A 4-step framework to reclaim your professional agency and influence

TLDR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

The Mindset: To reclaim agency in a low-psychological safety work environment, stop being a reactive and become a proactive.
The Solution: Use the A.C.T.S. Framework (Assess, Communicate, Test, Set) as a structured plan to influence your work climate and protect your well-being.
The Payoff: Systematically applying this framework is an act of energy management, allowing you to close the “emotional labor” that drain you and shift you from a helpless state to an empowered one.

The mindset shift

Before you move to the active steps, you must perform the most critical internal work: a mindset shift. In a low-trust environment, it is easy to adopt a victim mindset where culture is something that happens to you. To reclaim your agency, you must shift from being reactive to being proactive. Think about it from a room perspective, in a room there is a thermometer simply reflects the temperature of the room. It is reactive. If the culture is toxic (cold), it identifies how toxic (cold), and allows you to adjust at your own stress. Versus, a thermostat, which assesses the temperature and then actively works to change it. It sets a new standard. It is proactive.

You cannot single-handedly change an entire organization. It will be exhausting for you to try, but you can focus on your Sphere of Control, and influence every meeting you attend, every project you work on, and every one-on-one interaction you have. This allows you to influence the thermostat in the room; it won’t work immediately, but as you show up and continue to engage in a way that protects your energy and influences others, you can start changing the culture of a low psychological safe workspace. Recognizing your sphere of control returns the power to you, you’ll be able to protect your energy, think strategically, and become proactive.

A 4-step plan to reclaim your agency

Feeling unsafe at work can leave you feeling passive and powerless, but you are not. While you cannot single-handedly change an entire organization, you can create pockets of safety within your sphere of influence and make strategic decisions to protect your well-being. The A.C.T.S. Framework (Assess, Communicate, Test, and Set) is a structured approach that moves you from a passive, reactive, state of endurance to an active, empowered one.

Assess your environment with detachment

You cannot fix a problem you do not fully understand.

The goal is to remove emotional reactivity and become an objective, dispassionate observer of your team’s dynamics. Over the next week, act as a cultural anthropologist: observe meetings, one-on-one interactions, and email chains, looking for clear patterns of behavior, not just isolated incidents.

The Psychological Safety Checklist: Green Flags (Indicators of Safety)

Productive Dissent: Can someone respectfully challenge a leader’s or peer’s idea or decision without facing immediate shutdown, defensiveness, or passive-aggressive pushback?
Curiosity Over Blame: When a mistake or failure occurs, is the team’s first question, “What did we learn?” or “How can we prevent this next time?” rather than, “Whose fault is it?”
Mistakes as Data: Do team members and leaders openly and quickly admit when they’ve made a mistake or don’t have a clear answer? Is asking for help seen as a strength?

The Psychological Safety Checklist: Red Flags (Indicators of Danger)

Micromanagement: Does your manager or senior colleague consistently dictate the how of every task, signaling a deep, paralyzing lack of trust in your competence?
Blame Culture: Is there a constant search for a scapegoat when projects or deadlines are missed? Is the focus on punishment rather than process improvement?
Gossip and Back-Channels: Are important, substantive conversations constantly happening “offline” or in private channels because people are afraid to discuss them openly in the group setting?

Communicate with Intention

Your words have the power to either escalate a threat response in others or create a sense of safety. To foster the latter, you must model structured, non-blaming communication using the principles of assertive communication skills:

Observation: State a neutral, fact-based observation. (e.g., “I noticed the project plan has a two-week timeline for Phase 2.”)
Feeling: State your own emotion in response to the observation. (e.g., “I’m feeling concerned about that.”)
Need: Express the underlying professional value or need. (e.g., “I need to feel confident that we have enough time for quality assurance to uphold our team’s standard of excellence.”)
Request: Make a clear, actionable, and collaborative request. (e.g., “Could we spend 10 minutes reviewing the dependencies in that phase together to ensure the timeline is realistic?”)

This approach invites collaboration, while the alternative, “This timeline for Phase 2 is insane. There’s no way we can get this done,” triggers immediate defensiveness, presumes blame, etc.

Test the waters with calculated risks

Psychological safety is built on a foundation of reciprocal vulnerability. You willingness to go first will open the space for others to model. Before starting with a high-risk act, test out the waters with low and medium risk vulnerability practices. For example:

Low-Risk: Ask a clarifying question in a group meeting, even if you feel it’s basic: “Chris, could you walk me through your thinking on that last point? I want to make sure I’m following.” This allows you to check how this is received by the team, are they blaming you for asking a “dumb” question or curious to bridge the gap?
Medium-Risk: Admit a small, easily correctable mistake publicly: “Heads-up team, I realized I used last month’s data for that initial chart. I’ve already corrected it and will send the update in five minutes. My apologies.” This gives others permission to do the same, and models you found and corrected the error.
High-Risk: Admitting a deeply personal/professional information about you: “Team, I’m going through a rough divorce that may disrupt how I work in the immediate future, as my partner is trying to take everything from me. I have been absent minded for the past month, and I think that will continue until the divorce is finalized and I’m able to return fully back to work.” This opens you up to performance reprimand and you feel vulnerable and leave things open, a colleague might not be able to support your personal and professional needs.

Make space for quieter voices:

In meetings, be aware of the conversational dynamics. If a quieter colleague makes a good point that gets ignored, bring it back: “I’d like to circle back to what Halen said a moment ago. I think it’s an important point we shouldn’t lose.” By consistently amplifying others, you create a pocket of safety for them, which then becomes a new standard for everyone.

Set and uphold boundaries

Boundaries are the ultimate expression of self-respect and a critical component of psychological safety. They are the clear rules of engagement you set to protect your energy. In a low psychological safety environment, you cannot wait for others to respect your boundaries; you must define and consistently enforce them yourself.

Examples:

Time boundaries (The “When”): “I am available for meetings between 9 AM and 5 PM. I check emails twice a day, once at 10 AM and once at 4 PM, so for anything truly urgent, please call or use our urgent chat channel.”
Respect boundaries (The “What”): If you are interrupted: “Dan, I’d like to finish my thought on this before we pivot.” If a conversation veers into gossip: “I’m not comfortable discussing a colleague who isn’t present. Let’s refocus on the problem we can solve.”

Enforcing boundaries feels uncomfortable at first, but it is your ultimate move to reclaim agency. In a toxic environment, this is often addressed/attacked first – “you’re here to work, you should be available at any given time.”

Creating psychological safety fuels career authenticity

Working in a psychologically unsafe environment is like walking on eggshells regularly, not knowing what will set someone off, being overly cautious about everything and everyone, there’s low/no trust between peers, and it leads to more burnout, feeling anxious, afraid, depressed, helpless, etc. It takes a LOT of energy to keep putting yourself in that environment, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. It’s a toxic environment, and a professional trauma.

By applying the 4-step (ACTS) framework, you can protect your energy and influence those around you to take better care of themselves, and it starts with a mindset shift from reactive to proactive:

Assessing gives you clarity and reduces the anxiety of the unknown.
- Assess (This Week): Block 15 minutes at the end of each day to journal your observations using the Green/Red Flag checklist.
Communicating with intention reduces emotional friction and invites respect.
- Communicate (Today): Identify one opportunity to rephrase a comment or concern using the Observation-Feeling-Need-Request model.
Testing allows you to slowly and safely expand your sphere of influence.
- Test (Your Next Meeting): Choose ONE intentional, low-risk behavior to practice. Will you amplify a quiet voice? Will you ask a clarifying question?
Setting boundaries plugs the major power drain by shifting you out of a helpless state and giving you control.
- Set (This Week): Define one professional boundary you need to set to protect your time or energy (e.g., “I will not check email after 6 PM”).

You have the expertise. You have the experience. Now, you have the framework.

Without shifting your mindset and having your wellness practice in place, this can be very challenging and exhausting. When we’re feeling overwhelmed and burned out by your workplace culture, we can be blinded by the opportunities we have to change/influence the system. We get depressed, anxious, afraid, and our neuro-psycho-physiological health suffers.

You don’t have to navigate it alone. Let’s build a strategy to reclaim your energy and career satisfaction – see how we can help by scheduling a 20-minute discovery session.

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