2025 is coming to a close. In previous years we have written on the types of issues and challenges that can arise at the end of the year. This year, we look ahead to 2026. Specifically, to what the new Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) regulations on psychological health mean for medical leaders and leadership.


What’s just happened?

On Dec 1st, new Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025, came into effect. These new regulations ask us to focus on the work we are responsible for to ensure a safe workplace. With this regulation is the Compliance Code: Psychological Health, a practical guide that explains what organisations need to do to meet their obligations under both the OHS Act 2004 and the new regulations.

Together, the new framework provides a clear, enforceable roadmap for identifying, controlling, and reviewing psychosocial risks in the workplace.

Where are we right now?

We’re in a tricky place in healthcare. We already know that things are not as good as they could be. Hospital and Medical Training surveys have shown year upon year unacceptable high rates of bullying and harassment, and of stress and burnout. We must do better, and doctors have leadership roles in this space.

So, what are we going to do?

First, we can know our rights and responsibilities in terms of these new regulations. Using the resources above, we can learn about the new laws, and what proactive duty is to identify, mitigate and improve the psychological risks and hazards.

From a leadership lens, I think we can also take an active approach to learn and enact practices and behaviours that put creating a strong collaborative culture and psychological safety front and centre of our leadership work. That is, work to create the good culture that is effective for complex and collaborative care, rather than just attend to reducing the risks and reporting the problems.

The aim of the Leadership Insight series is to put a spotlight on issues and challenges that are coming up for our members right now, and to provide practical tips, skills and behaviours that are evidence-based, and able to be learned and used immediately from your current role.

What does this proactive work look like?  

It involves taking deliberate action to model and embed behaviours that protect psychological wellbeing. This includes building psychological safety, supporting continuous learning and improvement, and reinforcing professional behaviours that enable teams to perform well in complex environments.

And this is leadership work. It is reflected in what leaders say and do each day to set expectations, shape norms, and model behaviours that create psychological safety. This includes promoting inclusive and collaborative ways of working, clear communication, and strong professional relationships. These conditions are integral to effective collaboration and high-performing teams and, ultimately, to the care patients receive.

This work is enacted through specific, observable behaviours such as:

  • Knowing and using people’s names

  • Running inclusive and well-structured meetings

  • Actively creating psychological safety within teams

  • Ensuring role clarity and shared understanding of responsibilities and CST

  • Meeting regularly with staff, colleagues and junior doctors

  • Reviewing performance and addressing underperformance or unprofessional behaviour in a timely and appropriate way

And as leaders, we can practice these behaviours in specific settings – where we are actually strengthening a strong culture of open communication, feedback and improvement, and professionalism.

These specific settings include:

  • Whole of Team or Department meetings

  • 1:1s (with staff, junior doctors, supervisees etc)

  • Performance and Development Reviews

  • MDTs, M&Ms, and other debriefing, review or quality improvement meetings

These actions and behaviours are not difficult, but they are not easy either. They require skill and time. And they are central to leadership and to the effective and sustainable functioning of highly complex, collaborative workplaces.

However, our experience tells us that this work is not always done consistently or thoroughly. Many of the doctors we work with report limited regular contact with their supervisor, a lack of meaningful performance review, and very little structured feedback to support improvement and accountability.

This highlights clear and achievable opportunities for improvement that are already within reach.

In 2026 we urge you to think about this:

  • When will I meet with my supervisor/boss/staff?

  • How often do I want to have a professional conversation 1:1

  • When do I have a PDR scheduled for myself? For my direct reports?

  • How often will I schedule a team meeting?

Reflecting on these areas provides practical and realistic ways for leaders to meet their duty to create safe and supportive workplaces and to mitigate psychosocial risks such as lack of role clarity, unreasonable workloads, and bullying and harassment. Because if leaders are not engaging regularly with their people, issues often go unnoticed until it is too late.

We will explore this further in the 2026 Leadership Insights. You can also view our professional development offerings in this area: Leadership Education for Senior Doctors, Creating Psychological Safety in your Team, and Leadership Coaching for Doctors.

References

Your brilliant career: how new WHS laws protect every doctor | Insight+

Compliance code: Psychological health (PDF) | WorkSafe Victoria

How to create psychosocially safe work | LinkedIn Pulse

Dr Anna Clark (PhD) delivers AMA Victoria’s Leadership education and Leadership coaching programs. If you would like to find out more about our leadership development offerings schedule a discovery call or email [email protected].