Psychological safety in graduate leadership education: a program directors' theory-of-action model

Purpose Leadership development is increasingly treated as a strategic priority in graduate leadership education, yet limited research specifies how leadership programs are intentionally designed to support students' engagement with vulnerability, uncertainty, and developmental risk. This study examines how psychological safety is conceptualized and enacted by directors of graduate leadership programs in US higher education, a context characterized by formalized leadership programs embedded within institutional curricula. Design/methodology/approach The study employed an inductive qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews with directors of graduate leadership programs (N = 18). Data were analyzed using an iterative constant-comparative coding process, progressing from open and axial coding to mechanism-oriented selective coding. Analytic procedures emphasized sequence, conditionality, and negative-case probing to support defensible inferences about mechanisms. Findings Directors' accounts were interpreted as reflecting four interrelated mechanisms through which psychological safety is described as operating in leadership education: (1) relational processes that reduce interpersonal risk, (2) leadership as developmental authorization, (3) identity safety as a condition for leadership emergence, and (4) the institutionalization of productive failure in leadership development. Originality/value The study contributes to leadership education research by articulating a directors' theory-of-action model that reframes psychological safety as a designable set of relational and institutional processes rather than a background climate condition. The contribution is conceptual rather than causal, specifying program-level design logics through which psychological safety is described as reducing interpersonal risk and supporting developmental risk-taking in graduate leadership education.