Women Less Comfortable Admitting Mistakes on Male Teams

A survey of 1,485 people working in UK financial services found that women in teams that were at least 75% male felt less comfortable admitting a hypothetical work mistake and were less confident it would be treated as a learning opportunity than men in similar teams. The difference disappeared in teams where women were in the majority, suggesting workplace composition may shape employees’ sense of psychological safety beyond formal rules. Researchers said the results point to informal workplace culture, including concerns about reputation or colleagues’ judgments; the study did not examine observed mistakes or actual disciplinary outcomes. The survey was distributed through a women-in-finance network, and 81% of respondents were women, a limitation in interpreting the findings.