Not all acts of vulnerability carry the same risk.

This guide ranks 20 common workplace behaviors by how much personal risk people say they feel, using survey data from 2,025 people across 834 organizations. It then lists 130+ acts of vulnerability across The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ and shows what it looks like to reward them instead of punishing them.

What’s inside

• The Ladder of Vulnerability chart. 20 acts ranked by mean risk score on a 0-to-10 scale, from giving an incorrect answer (5.6) down to connecting with your team (2.7).
• The method. How the list went from 150+ behaviors to 20, the exact survey question people answered, and the sample behind the numbers.
• Why the ladder matters. Three uses: seeing your own barriers, getting better at spotting other people’s vulnerable moments, and diagnosing a team by having everyone take the self-assessment.
• Stage ladder data. Each stage gets its own five-bar chart of the acts that belong to it, so you can see that expressing disagreement (4.8) sits far above offering a different point of view (3.7).
• “When you have it” and “when you don’t” lists. Each stage comes with the signs that it’s present on a team and the signs that it isn’t.
• Acts of vulnerability by stage. 138 specific acts in four lists, from “correcting someone’s pronunciation of your name” (inclusion) to “disagreeing with the boss” (challenger).
• The threat-detection diagram. Why rewarded vulnerability produces a performance response and punished vulnerability produces a fear response.
• Punished, neutral, and rewarded lists. Eight common ways vulnerability gets punished, seven ways it gets rewarded, and why a neutral response leaves people in doubt.