Ever been on a call where you felt invisible??
When you set up a meeting, you hope that every voice is heard. In hybrid settings (where you have folks joining in person as well as online), remote participants may feel left out as in-person team members can dominate the conversation. Often, when you join a Teams call, half of the participants are in the room, laughing over coffee. The other half are on screen, across locations, staring at their screens with muted mics. These situations risk silencing valuable input. This gap isn’t just about technology or logistics, it’s about psychological safety. When half of the room feels like they’re shouting through a fog and the other half is replying to other chats and emails or scrolling Instagram, psychological safety crumbles. Psychological safety in hybrid meetings is a crucial element that can shape how well your team works together. When people feel safe, they speak up, share ideas, and voice concerns.
What Is Psychological Safety? And Why Often It Disappear in Hybrid Meetings?
Psychological safety means feeling safe to speak up, take risks, or admit mistakes without fear of judgment. It gives you the strength to to speak up without the fear of embarrassment or retribution. It is about knowing that your ideas and concerns will be treated with respect. Psychological safety leads to people being more likely to share honest feedback, increasing open dialogue to prevent miscommunication and future conflicts, and building a safe space for better decision making and stronger team bonds.
In a hybrid world, this becomes tricky and harder to achieve. Why? Because, in a hybrid meeting, factors such as technical issues, side conversations, and uneven participation can disrupt this safety. You need to pay attention to these details to ensure that everyone is comfortable.
Common reasons for psycological safety often unraveling during hybrid meetings:
Visibility bias favors in-person attendees. It’s easier to ignore a ‘raised hand’ on the screen than a person sitting in a chair in front of you.
Tech barriers (lag, poor audio) silence remote voices. Frozen screens or lagging audio make people withdraw.
Social cues are often lost in translation or go unnoticed.
Uneven participation: Remote participants often feel like second class citizens and struggle to interrupt the ‘room crowd.’
Distraction Culture, as remote attendees multitask, while in-person teams converse on sides.
A 2023 Gallup study found that 43% of remote employees feel excluded in hybrid meetings. If half your team is holding back ideas, your meetings aren’t just inefficient, they’re harming your culture and are costly for you as teams lacking safety underperform by 40%.
And yeah, it is awkward as well!
3 Strategies to Build Psychological Safety in Hybrid Meetings
1. Pre-Work
- Psychological safety starts before anyone logs in. Before the meeting, set clear expectations. Explain the meeting agenda, purpose and ground rules. Make sure everyone knows that every idea matters.
- Invest in Miro or Slack for real time brainstorming. Use tools like Slido or Mentimeter for anonymous polls. At times, your best process improvement idea might come from an anonymous submissions.
- Share materials atleast a day early.
- Initiate conversations on Slacks or Teams CG a day or two before the meeting to align on topic and pointers that you can pick up for the conversation during the meeting.
- Setting norms reduces ambiguity and levels the playing field.
2. During the Meeting
- Technology fails, often during the most important meetings 🙂 be prepared.
- Start with some casual conversations to build rapport if the audience is not well versed with each others. If they are, more reasons to have those casual chats.
- Agree on some ground rules like mute when not speaking, share screen, rotate who leads discussions, etc.
- Visual cues are essential, so encourage (not force) everyone to use cameras.
- Use a shared digital whiteboard for everyone to contribute, and chat functions so people can share ideas without interrupting.
- Call out dominating behavior, gently.
The 10-Minute Rule
Research shows that engagement nosedives after 10 minutes of one way talking. You should reset the energy every 10 minutes to keep the engagement high:
- Pause for questions.
- Shift to breakout rooms (even in-person folks can huddle separately).
- Share a meme related to the topic. (Yes, really. There are hundreds of memes of any topic you can think of, and it takes only minutes to create a meme of your own if it ain’t available. Use it, as it cuts tension and sparks creativity.)
The “Pass the Baton” Method
Instead of asking, ‘any thoughts?’ (which rewards the loudest voices), try:
- Let’s hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet.
- ABC, you worked on this last quarter, what did we miss?
- For remote folks with a large audience, ‘jump in anytime, we’ll watch the chat’.
- Check in with remote participants on how are they following, do they have questions, etc..
Silence Is Golden (But Not for Long)
If silence hits, count to seven in your head. People need time to process. If no one speaks, say: ‘let’s put our thoughts in the chat over the next two minutes and we will discuss the top ideas next.’
Practice Active Listening
- Give positive feedback and recognize contributions.
- After each comment, ask, ‘does anyone else want to add to ABC’s point?’ This validates contributions and invites quieter voices.
- Ask open-ended questions to get people talking.
- End meetings with, ‘how can we improve next time?’ Use anonymous surveys to gather candid input.
3. Post-Meeting
Follow up with empathy
- Send a recap with decisions and unanswered questions. Tag people publicly, ‘Alexis suggested X, let’s explore it next time’.
- For quieter attendees, send a private message, ‘loved your point about Y. Would you like to lead that discussion next week?’
Audit your meetings
- Every quarter, ask the team — Which meetings felt inclusive? Which drained us?
- Use a 1–4 scale survey- ‘Did you feel safe to disagree in yesterday’s meeting?’
Celebrate awkward moments
- There is so much written about Vulnerability and its impact on Leadership, look i t up. Share your ‘best blunder’ each month, practice ‘failure as a part of learning’ and laugh about those blunders. Laughing at mishaps builds trust.
Common Mistakes Even Smart Teams Make
- Assuming silence equals agreement. It often means fear, dig deeper.
- Letting tech glitches slide. A dropped call isn’t just annoying, it signals the meeting wasn’t worth fixing. Always restart if needed.
- Ignoring time zones. Requiring someone to attend a call at 6 AM/10 PM? That’s not hybrid, it’s hostile.
Final Thoughts:
Two facts. First, people want to feel valued, and thats not so complicated. Second, hybrid meetings are here to stay and you can make them work. You can create a space where everyone feels safe. Where everyone contributes and thrives. Start small. Laugh when the Wi-Fi fails, call out the interrupters, and watch your team’s ideas flow.
Build trust, listen, adapt.
Your team will thank you.
(Idea and content credits: Marin Bezic, I learned most of the above by attending meetings led by him)
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