In this paper, we join with leader in the field Tony Morris to outline psychology leaders fears commonly experienced in psychosocial risk management, along with its typical outcomes and costs.

We also provide practical guidance for leaders to proactively engage in a rigorous psychosocial risk management process, not only to meet regulatory obligations but to foster a safer, healthier, and more productive workforce.

Debunking Common Psychosocial Leaders Management Fears

Across Australia and increasingly globally, regulatory expectations centre on four key pillars to demonstrate proactive psychosocial risk management: hazard identification, risk assessment, control measure implementation, and ongoing review. Duty holders must demonstrate a structured, proportionate process, showing that actions taken are reasonably practicable based on the level of risk and the organisational context.

In this paper, we outline the psychology of fear commonly experienced by psychosocial leaders and executives in psychosocial risk management, along with its typical outcomes and costs.

We also provide practical guidance for psychosocial leaders to proactively engage in a rigorous psychosocial risk management process, not only to meet regulatory obligations but to foster a safer, healthier, and more productive workforce.

Contents

The Psychology of Executive Fear Examines the cognitive biases and misplaced fears that cause psychosocial leaders to avoid psychosocial risk management.

Common Pitfalls and Costs Highlights frequent missteps and the legal, financial, and reputational risks when psychosocial leaders avoid proper psychosocial risk management.

Executive Recommendations Defines regulator expectations and guides psychosocial leaders to manage psychosocial risk through consultation, prioritisation, and continuous improvement.

Regulator-Accepted System: Mibo Presents Mibo as a proven, regulator-endorsed system that simplifies, strengthens, and scales psychosocial risk management for psychosocial leaders.

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The Psychology of Leader Fear

Although psychosocial leaders across industries are increasingly aware that psychosocial risk management is both a compliance imperative and a key driver of organisational health and success, many executive teams are still resistant to engage deeply in this space.

They fear that comprehensive assessment will “open a can of worms,” create new liabilities, or overwhelm their capacity to respond.

In reality, these fears are misplaced.

For example, a common concern among psychosocial leaders is that it presents under-performers an opportunity to weaponise the environment as an excuse.

In practice, when a rigorous approach is undertaken, the opposite is true. It helps us understand how the broader staff group is experiencing the environment. This provides data that shows whether an individual’s experience reflects a commonly experienced systemic issue or is more likely linked to personal factors best addressed through individual support.

Additionally, psychosocial leaders are not liable for what they discover—they are liable for failing to identify foreseeable psychosocial risks in their organisation. And finally, psychosocial leaders aren’t expected to fix everything at once; rather, the expectation is to develop a risk management process in a reasonably practicable manner.

Fear is powerful and entirely human. In high-stake areas like psychosocial risk, even well-intentioned psychosocial leaders who want the best for their people can experience fear when faced with uncertainty or perceived threat.

Subtle Cognitive Biases

Subtle cognitive biases often shape these reactions:

Reputational Threat “What if the findings make us look bad?”

Knowledge Avoidance “If we know about the risk, won’t we have to act?”

Ambiguity Aversion “What if we uncover too much and can’t fix it all?”

Negativity Bias “Employee complaints will increase”

Salience Bias Vivid incidents overshadow broader systemic issues

Over-responsibility Believing everything must be fixed immediately to remain defensible

Status Quo Bias Doing nothing feels safer than taking action

When fear is triggered, instinct may shift from aiming to understand the environment to reducing fear without awareness. This can unintentionally steer psychosocial leaders away from proactive and systemic risk management toward avoiding both the perceived threat and the cognitive and emotional discomfort it evokes.

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Common Pitfalls and Costs

This results in many common pitfalls for psychosocial leaders:

• Avoiding risk management altogether
• Relying on inadequate internal data sources not specific to psychosocial risk
• Using surveys that identify hazards but do not assess levels of risk or protection
• Failing to adequately consult across the organisation’s different working groups
• Depending on narrow qualitative data biased by employees who may not feel safe to speak openly
• Becoming overwhelmed by the misconception that every individual factor must be addressed, rather than analysing the cumulative and interrelated nature of the environment and acting only on the most influential factors
• Failing to effectively measure, monitor and maintain control measures to manage the risk

This avoidance doesn’t protect organisations—it exposes them.

The Reality of Liability

In psychosocial risk, liability doesn’t come from identifying hazards and assessing risk—it comes from being unaware or failing to improve the psychosocial environment over time.

Offences in the safety legislation are strict liability criminal offences, meaning the prosecution does not have to prove a defendant had knowledge of the risk to health and safety, only that they ought to have knowledge of the risk.

Pleading ignorance to a foreseeable risk of health and safety is not a defence.

Importantly, a high hazard does not automatically mean high harm. Protective factors like role clarity, fairness, and supportive leadership can buffer risk. Without valid, rigorous data to gain insight into these interactions, psychosocial leaders risk investing in low-impact or ineffective controls, missing root causes, and falling short of regulatory expectations.

The Costs of Avoidance

The costs of avoidance are predictable for psychosocial leaders:

• Aggrieved staff
• Poor understanding of actual risk
• Misallocated time, costs and resources
• Loss of worker trust through lack of visible action
• Weak defensibility when regulators ask for evidence of risk assessment process, consultation, prioritisation, and a clear plan to implement controls to eliminate or minimise the risk, and continual improvement
• Potential devastating psychosocial harm for workers, reduced productivity, and severe reputational damage to the organisation

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Recommendations for Psychosocial Leaders

As we have seen, psychosocial leaders generally overestimate the legal and practical risk of rigorously assessing psychosocial risk.

In reality, liability arises from gaps in process, not transparency.

Another common misconception among psychosocial leaders is that every hazard must be ‘fixed’ immediately. Instead, regulators expect progress that is proportionate and improving over time. A defensible position demonstrates a clear plan, rationale, and timeline for reasonably practicable improvement.

What Regulators Look For

Regulators look for evidence that psychosocial leaders:

• Proactively identify psychosocial hazards, assess and manage the risk
• Apply genuine workforce consultation, coordination and communication
• Progress clear prioritisation from hazard, to harm, to control
• Allocate time, costs and resource decisions according to risk level and feasibility (the “what is reasonably practicable” test)
• Measure, monitor and review the effectiveness of elimination/controls to minimise the risk to health and safety ongoing

As the focus of work health and safety regulators expands to include psychological risks, psychosocial leaders should consider how they adapt to manage this risk. Psychosocial risks are complex and require a multifaceted approach that involves the commitment and support of leadership, effective management within the organisation to collaborate and coordinate (including WHS, HR, Risk, and operations), the engagement of workers and the implementation of effective strategies.

The safe, effective and compliant path for psychosocial leaders isn’t to avoid what might be found—it’s to build confidence through disciplined consultation, targeted priorities, proportionate controls, and transparent progress.

By proactively addressing psychosocial risks, psychosocial leaders can not only comply with regulatory obligations but also create a safer, healthier, and more productive workforce. The journey to managing psychosocial risks is ongoing, but with the right approach, psychosocial leaders can protect the psychological health and safety of their workers and, in turn, benefit from the increased success of their organisations.

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Regulator-Accepted System: Mibo

If you’re a psychosocial leader currently considering psychosocial risk management options, Mibo is a proven, regulator-accepted system already used by organisations including those operating under improvement notices. It simplifies and strengthens psychosocial risk management, making it safer, clearer, and demonstrably effective for psychosocial leaders.

Validated, Actionable Data

Effective psychosocial risk management rests on sound foundations. Mibo’s validated assessment, independently evaluated by the Griffith University RISE Research Centre, combines hazard identification and risk assessment into one rigorous process.

A Balanced View, Not Just Risk

Mibo assesses both risks and protective factors. Psychosocial leaders may see, for example, that high job demands does not lead to harm when resourced with strong job control, role clarity, and support. Where demands can’t be reduced quickly, strengthening protections becomes a reasonable and defensible priority.

Reduces Complexity

Psychosocial risk is complex by nature, but managing it doesn’t have to be. Mibo’s Risk-Protective Ratio (RPR) provides a single, easy-to-interpret metric summarising the balance of each group’s psychosocial environment.

And its Factor Influence Prioritisation (FIP) model highlights the factors that are most powerfully influencing the environment, encouraging action on a small number of high-leverage priorities. This reduces overwhelm for psychosocial leaders and focuses action where it matters most.

Practical Risk Register

Mibo delivers a clear, psychosocial risk register to demonstrate reasonably practicable steps, prioritisation, and progress over time for psychosocial leaders.

Trust, Buy-in, and Scalability

Mibo also delivers configurable anonymity, confidentiality, and aggregate reporting which promotes trust and participation.

Psychosocial leaders can start small, with a pilot or cohort, and scale up over time. Early, visible wins help build momentum.

Over time, Mibo helps psychosocial leaders embed psychosocial risk management as an evolving, sustainable process that improves employee health, safety, and productivity.

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Conclusion

Executive fear often overstates the risks of psychosocial risk management while underestimating the far greater risks of inaction, and the opportunities lost by not engaging fully.

The real danger lies not in what is revealed, but in what remains hidden.

By taking a structured, proportionate approach that targets both risk reduction and the amplification of protective strengths, psychosocial leaders make a strategic investment in their employees’ health and long-term business success.

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Authors

Dr. Anthony Ross Founder, Chief of Psychosocial Safety at Mibo

Tony Morris Founder, SafeTM