Revolutionizing Workplace Culture: Entrepreneur Lena McDearmid on the Power of Psychological Safety for High Performing Teams
Lena McDearmid is the founder and CEO of Wryver, a consultancy that helps leaders create company cultures where people and performance thrive together. Previously Lena co-founded the fintech company Momnt, where she served as COO and Chief Culture Officer. With Wryver, she’s on a mission to create teams that trust each other and organizations that are future-ready in an AI world. With more than 20 years in leadership, consulting, and culture strategy, she focuses on strengthening the trust, rhythms, and structures that determine whether teams succeed or stall.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
✨💡 Why Culture Isn’t “Nice to Have”—It’s Everything: Company culture spells the difference between success and failure. Study after study finds that 65% of business failures can be traced back to poor culture, not product or market missteps, but to things like leadership misalignment, weak communication, or lack of psychological safety.
🤝 🤎 Purpose Not Perks: Forget the ping pong tables and free snacks. Perks aren’t culture. Culture is about how decisions get made, how disagreements are handled and how your company supports (or shames) failure. Are your team members confident to speak up and innovate or do they fear the consequences?
🌱🧠 Psychological Safety Is Non-Negotiable: To truly innovate, your team needs two big things: psychological safety and playfulness. Without trust and the freedom to fail, bold ideas won’t surface.
🔥🛠️Leaders Go First (With Vulnerability): Learn why the best leaders model mistakes, hold themselves accountable, and invite feedback. It’s not intuitive for everyone, and that’s why not everyone who’s good at their job should be leading people. You may be the CEO but you may need a Chief of Staff or a Chief People Officer.
🤖 ❤️AI Is Changing the Rules: New tools can make teams more efficient, but AI will never replace creativity, empathy, and thoughtful leadership. Now, more than ever, a people-first culture is critical to your success.
👩🔬 🤟 For Female Founders—A Competitive Edge: Women are naturally collaborative and are building some of today’s most successful, high-ROAS teams. The data is in—female-led companies consistently deliver higher returns, and their focus on culture is a major driver.
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More about Lena at Wryver
