Too much psychological safety is a bad thing.
Too much psychological safety is a bad thing. It leads to people endlessly bringing up off-topic issues, constant interruptions, or heated discussions that fuel personal conflicts.
Right?
Wrong, I would argue.
A thought-provoking study titled “The limits of psychological safety: Nonlinear relationships with performance” argues that too much psychological safety harms the performance of routine tasks. The researchers say that too much psychological safety distracts employees from their core tasks, thereby diminishing the performance of such routine tasks.
This study is an excellent opportunity to open a dialogue on what is needed to ensure an optimal ‘return on psychological safety’.
It would be horrible if a leader reads the study and concludes: “OK, let’s aim to install a moderate level of psychological safety because I don’t want my team members to be distracted.”
Psychological safety (‘felt permission for candor’) helps teams learn, innovate, and outperform those with low levels of psychological safety.
But psychological safety in itself will not magically lead to excellent performance.
You need to install guardrails that help teams to reap the benefits of high psychological safety.
What comes to my mind immediately is (1) goal commitment, (2) role clarity, and (3) accountability.
For example, if team members commit to a shared goal and experience high psychological safety, I would be surprised to see those team members not achieve the goal because they are 'distracted'. Instead, I expect such teams to perform well and leverage psychological safety to have relevant, fearless, on-topic conversations about improving performance.
So, the question is not whether too much psychological safety is bad. The question is whether your team is equipped to let high psychological safety pay off.
Psychological safety needs to be put in a holistic context of team performance. Being clear on the team’s goal, defining roles to achieve that goal, and continuously assessing progress and accountability are helpful elements that—together with psychological safety—allow your team to perform above and beyond.
Sources:
Eldor, L., Hodor, M., & Cappelli, P. (2023). The limits of psychological safety: Nonlinear relationships with performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 177, 104255.
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta‐analytic review and extension. Personnel psychology, 70(1), 113-165.