Episode 194: Psychological Safety Is Not About Being Nice

Bre (00:04)
Here’s a question for leaders. Have you ever held back feedback because you didn’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings? Or avoided a difficult conversation because you were worried it might damage the relationship? Maybe you’ve even been in a meeting where everyone agreed with the boss, but the moment the meeting ended, the real conversation actually started. Well, we hear a lot about psychological safety in the workplace, but

Somewhere along the way, I think we’ve started confusing psychological safety with making everyone comfortable, right? And those are two very different things. In fact, what if trying too hard to be nice is actually preventing your team from being honest? So today we’re talking about what psychological safety really means, what leaders frequently get wrong, and what our research at Zenger Folkman reveals about the behaviors that make

the biggest difference in this area. So I’m joined today by leadership expert, our president of Zenger Folkman, Joe Folkman, and Michelle Fabian, our VP of facilitation, who brings a vast amount of experience in the area of coaching and facilitating. And I’m glad to have you with us, Michelle.

Michelle (01:18)
Glad to be here with both of you.

Bre (01:20)
So Joe, I wanna start with you. Has psychological safety become one of those leadership concepts that everyone let’s say that they agree it’s important.

Joe Folkman (01:32)
Yes, I think that’s true, Bree. oftentimes psychological safety is confused or people think about it as you’re agreeable. You

Bre (01:41)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Folkman (01:42)
know, a lot of leaders interpret it as you know, avoiding conflict or differences of opinion or that you shouldn’t say that. employees don’t necessarily want leaders who agree with everything that they say. They want leaders who listen.

And take concerns seriously and respond respectfully. And psychological safety is particularly important when employees have something uncomfortable to share and their manager, their leader, takes some time to really listen to it.

Bre (02:16)
The truth is that you can’t make everybody happy, completely happy and completely comfortable. And when you try, a lot of times it makes things worse. So, Michelle, you spend so much time working with leaders in development program. When you bring up psychological safety, I’m curious what misconceptions do you hear most often with these leaders and these coaching conversations?

Michelle (02:39)
Well it makes them nervous, I’ll say that’s the first thing because they

to start to go down the path of does that mean I have to lower my expectations of my team? Does

Bre (02:49)
Hmm.

Michelle (02:49)
that does that mean I have to be nice and make it comfortable all of the time? And what it what do I

What do I do when I need to challenge an employee or hold somebody accountable? And so it gets really tricky because people, as Joe said, it starts to get more towards that nice side, and people are wondering about what that might look like. In fact, I had a client one time when we were in a session together who said they noticed that their team meetings had started to become pleasant, which on the surface sounds great, right? Who doesn’t want a pleasant meeting? And

Bre (03:20)
Yeah.

Michelle (03:21)
yet, when really we peeled back the layers of it, what was happening was that.

desire to have people be so comfortable was keeping them from having the tough conversations, making decisions, those types of activities started to suffer.

Bre (03:36)
So I think that’s such an important distinction because a team can have incredibly friendly, great relationships and still have a culture where nobody feels comfortable actually speaking up and saying the problem,

Okay, so before we get into our own research, I wanted to talk about Amy Edmondson’s work. Amy is a professor at Harvard Business School, and her research on psychological safety has really

brought this into the mainstream, into the conversation on how organizations understand psychological safety. And one of the most important ideas in her work is about innerpersonal risk.

she talked about it’s whether you believe you can ask a question, admit a mistake, challenge an idea, or say you need help without being embarrassed or punished for it.

And that doesn’t mean the conversation itself will always be comfortable. So Joe, why is that distinction between psychological safety and comfort so important?

Joe Folkman (04:41)
You know, disagreements and constructive conflict can be a real good sign of a healthy team. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have such a healthy team, duh, do you agree? I mean uh silence and agreement do not necessarily indicate trust. Employees need

the confidence that disagreements won’t damage their standing in the team. A leader can set expectations while creating an environment where people feel safe to disagree and ask questions and and really push a little bit and not just go along.

Bre (05:21)
Yeah, and it’s hard because some people take those disagreements or that standing up a little personally and you worry about that leader of like if I say this, and are they never gonna like me again? and that’s a real concern. Mm Michelle, I think this is where I it gets really interesting.

Imagine you’re sitting in a meeting and someone is saying, you know what? I don’t really think this plan is going to work. So that leader hears it, is kind of embarrassed or maybe even challenged by that statement. But isn’t that

exactly the kind of conversation we want people to feel comfortable having, to say, this might not work. Can we think of another way of doing this?

Michelle (06:01)
exactly what we want people to do and yet then when they do it our own self steps in of the

Joe Folkman (06:07)
Yeah.

Michelle (06:07)
I need to protect myself and I need to save face for myself or whatever that is some internal dialogue that we have and so then all of a sudden instead of remembering to stay open and continue to be curious and ask more questions we sometimes move into defend mode.

Bre (06:24)
Yeah, our brain goes there being challenged. So there’s another part of Amy Edmondson’s work that I think is really important. She distinguishes psychological safety from accountability. So when teams have both high psychological safety and high standards, they have the conditions for learning. But when leaders focus on keeping everyone comfortable and don’t establish expectations, she said that’s not the same thing as creating a high performing team. Michelle, how do you help leaders?

understand that they can be both supportive and demanding at the same time. It’s hard.

Michelle (06:59)
Yeah.

It’s very hard. And I think you nailed it already by saying the word and using both the first thing is to move beyond supportive or demanding. And sometimes we make those choices as well. So in this case, how do we really look for both of those things? Well they reinforce each other, right? If I hold people accountable, people want to know what to do. So as much as sometimes we hear people say, don’t be the boss of me or let me be a part of making decisions, employees

Do you want clarity of what’s expected of them? So when they have that, then we can hold them accountable, which reinforces psychological safety and it becomes this circle that we can go around and around on, right? In a good way, not around and around and about, but in a good way. And that we can see the goal is to challenge the work without actually challenging or attacking the person per se. So separating those two things so we can talk.

Bre (07:55)
And I think the more often probably it happens within your team, like Joe was saying, his is so used to disagreeing and no. but honestly, the more the more that is embedded in the culture that it’s okay to speak up, then it doesn’t feel defensive because it’s not like, whoa, this has never happened before, right?

so let’s get into Zenger Folkman’s research now.

Joe, this is where I really want to dig into what you have written about because psychological safety can sound like this abstract concept, this utopia, right? Everyone agrees that employees should feel safe, but that doesn’t necessarily tell a leader what they should do differently on a daily basis to achieve this utopia in your team. So we want to talk about what we can different on Monday morning. And that’s what I love about the research you’ve done.

You’ve analyzed data from more than 18,000 employees looking at how they rated their experience of dignity and respect in the workplace and how those perceptions relate to their managers’ effectiveness across 60 different leadership behaviors. So what were you hoping to understand when you started looking at this data?

Joe Folkman (09:04)
Well, it’s really an interesting data set because it gives us a view of and by the way, this is data collected over the last three years, so we tried to keep it t up to date. Uh

Bre (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Folkman (09:16)
but it was fairly easy to look at the data and what the correlations were between, you know, psychological safety as people felt it and the and the outcomes that produced.

So what happened is that I found there were eight really strong correlations of behaviors that when we saw leaders doing these behaviors, psychological safety was higher.

Bre (09:41)
In fact, when leaders demonstrated them, you talked about how employees’ intention to quit dropped from 37% to 20%, which is huge. And you also found that the percentage of employees willing to give extra effort, that discretionary effort beyond what their job expectations were, went from 23% to 47%. That

That is what every company organization craves, to have that kind of commitment to the organization. That’s more than double the percent of w employees that are willing.

I think we talk about psychological safety, like you said, is people like they’re content, they feel safe at work, but we’re looking at meaningful differences in employees’ willingness to stay and to contribute more. So, Michelle, from your experience with leaders, what happens when employees stop feeling like their opinions matter to their boss?

Michelle (10:39)
Such a good question,

In fact, from an EL perspective, people stop answering their manager’s report, right? They don’t even provide feedback.

Bre (10:46)
Okay.

Michelle (10:47)
they don’t think their opinion matters on giving their leader feedback. So sometimes they don’t offer that up or they might do some of it, but not all of it.

So those meetings we talked about tend to go quiet and people become agreeable.

and they only do the bare minimum. They’re disengaging from the bigger team and the bigger picture of what they’re there to accomplish. And unfortunately, many times a leader in that scenario mistakenly interprets that silence as agreement from their team and misses the signs.

Bre (11:21)
Yeah,

there no one’s complaining. Everybody’s nobody’s disagreeing. it’s great. We’re doing good. But what they may actually have is a team that’s learned, you know what? It’s safer if I just don’t say anything. Just kinda come to work and then I’m gonna go home and my opinion doesn’t matter. Right?

Michelle (11:38)
Exactly.

BreAnne Okoren (11:39)
Joe, your research identified eight leadership behaviors that you talked about are the most strongly connected to employees feeling this sense of psychological safety at work. And the first two really jumped out at me. So first is building an inclusive climate and being open to diverse perspectives. And I feel like we have

felt that challenged in the last few years of people going, I know that really doesn’t matter, but the research is saying differently. So what separates a leader who simply allows people to speak from a leader who generally values different perspectives? Cause I think there is big difference.

Joe Folkman (12:18)
You know, when I think about this inclusive client, I I have memories of uh being a little kid on the playground and they’re choosing up teams. You know. Isn’t it Michelle,

BreAnne Okoren (12:31)
that’s the worst. It’s the worst memory. We all have it.

Joe Folkman (12:34)
do you ever had that you know, you’re the last one shows it and it’s like I you know, it’s like, my gosh. And and but y you know, when you have that same experience at work

when you don’t feel like you belong, when you don’t feel like you’re in the group, w y you’re just odd and it and that that’s a terrible environment and and and we felt it so much as children and now we ignore it like it doesn’t matter and it does. It makes a ton of difference. And then the second one is being open to diverse perspectives. And

you know, we build up resistance to that. We we like to have it one way. We like to all agree. And when somebody comes in and challenges what we say and pushes a boundary, we resist that. And can you be open to when people sort of say, Well there’s another way to look at that. I mean, that is a real skill and managers that do that well, uh they’re gonna have psychological safety.

BreAnne Okoren (13:43)
Yeah, it’s not a threat. It’s it’s good. It’s good to realize that people are thinking a different way. So Michelle, what would that actually look like in a meeting? Because I think most leaders would say, Well of course I’m open. I’m open to different opinions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean employees believe them.

Michelle (14:01)
Sure, sure. Is that the old my office door is always open line? Yeah,

BreAnne Okoren (14:05)
Yeah. So it’s been

Joe Folkman (14:06)
Yeah.

Michelle (14:08)
yeah. But only if you drop off opinions that agree with mine.

BreAnne Okoren (14:12)
Yeah.

Michelle (14:13)
That’s what that means. But yes, yeah. So w

I th I do think many leaders have learned though to ask for the difference of opinions. It becomes the challenge of what’s their reaction to that. And also I notice many leaders ask it one time and then they keep moving else, keep moving on.

BreAnne Okoren (14:32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michelle (14:35)
And I think, what about saying, and what else? Just a an extra invitation, because sometimes people will share a surface-level answer first to test us.

Out and to see whether or not we really are open and mean it. And so if we as leaders can then lean in and say, and what else, we create even more psychological safety for people to participate. There’s also a noticing of who in the room or who on the virtual session is contributing. And are

BreAnne Okoren (15:06)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle (15:06)
there ways for you to gently invite people who maybe aren’t the most vocal and the first to speak up? How might we invite them in?

into the process and conversation as well so that we’re making sure we’re hearing from everyone with who might have a difference of opinion. And then I mentioned it earlier and I think we’ll probably keep talking about it. It’s turning that into curiosity. So how do I not get defensive in the moment and have a I have to respond respond reply versus a curiosity of digging deeper.

BreAnne Okoren (15:40)
Hmm. I’m

So Joe, your research identified building trust, resolving conflict, and staying connected as three important behaviors that you saw in leaders. So I wanna start with conflict because this is where I think psychological safety gets misunderstood.

How can resolving conflict actually increase psychological safety rather than threaten it? You know, we’re not pushing it under the rug.

Joe Folkman (16:06)
Right. You know, we measure sixty behaviors in our three sixty. The behavior that is scored the lowest out of those sixty behaviors in all of our data, thousands and thousands of ratings, is resolves conflict in the work group.

BreAnne Okoren (16:22)
Oh

Joe Folkman (16:24)
And it’s that it’s the lowest rated behavior. And uh managers to a to a person always say, Well, it’s not my job. I mean, basically you know, they started the fight, they should figure out how to end it, but they don’t want to get involved, and they they don’t and and really if they could have resolved it they would have. So really managers need to address these disagreements, they need to get involved.

They need to ask people to sort of fix things and they need to push them and they need to hold people accountable for resolving the conflict because they will not do it on their own.

BreAnne Okoren (17:05)
Yeah. That’s part of being the leader is you have to hold that uncomfortable and and make it and make that conversation happen. And it’s hard.

Joe Folkman (17:16)
sometimes to help other people feel psychologically safe, we’ve gotta feel a little bit psychologically unsafe. Because what I’d like to do is have everybody agree with me and nobody disagree with me. That makes me feel safe, but it makes everybody feel else feel unsafe, but but sort of being more vulnerable.

You know, letting your you know, letting people comment, that really helps them. So you’ve gotta be on that edge a little bit. So that that’s

Michelle (17:46)
Right.

Joe Folkman (17:46)
that’s an interesting perspective.

BreAnne Okoren (17:49)
So the final three behaviors are balancing tasks with people’s needs, being a role model, and demonstrating adaptability. So Joe

I think there’s something really interesting about adaptability being on this list. Why would you think uh why would a leader’s willingness to adapt influence whether employees feel psychologically safe?

Joe Folkman (18:13)
I think right now we’re all being asked to be more adaptable. We’ve got AI, you know, nipping at our footste I mean, there it’s coming and what is it gonna do? Is it gonna take my job away? I mean and and we we’re trying to learn new ways to kind of adapt that in different environment with AI helping us. Uh I think that adaptability

really as a role model managers can sort of say, Hey, I can change too and one of the things that I’ve found is fascinating in organizations is often it’s the management that are the the slowest to change. They’re the last ones

to adapt a new technology. So I think in this case they need to be the first.

BreAnne Okoren (19:02)
Interesting. Um and I think adaptability is what you said earlier, Joe, about being a little vulnerable. Realizing that, yeah, I do I do need to change. I do need to bring it up. I do need to start the hard conversation. I do need to ask the question, right?

Joe Folkman (19:20)
Yeah, and it’s asking those questions and being willing to change your mind and being open to that. That’s really the essence of adaptability.

BreAnne Okoren (19:29)
And and what goes in with that other one about being a role model. That is the role model behavior that people need to see. The leader has to to do it. They set the tone for these for this safety, for these conversations to happen.

Um, Michelle, I want to ask you something about that. We often tell leaders, you know, be confident, decisive, have this clear vision, but we’re also telling them, be willing to admit you’re wrong and be willing to change direction. That’s a lot to take in. So how do great leaders balance this confidence with humility?

Michelle (20:02)
Sure. Yeah, it almost, as you even said the sentence before that, it almost feels like a pendulum, right? Well I can either

BreAnne Okoren (20:07)
Yeah.

Michelle (20:08)
be confident or I can be humble, but how do I be both and make it again with an and statement? And the thing that’s interesting about this is it doesn’t require confidence, doesn’t require us to have every answer, or even more importantly, pretend we have every answer. I mean for years we’ve we’ve been trying to help leaders tell say it’s okay to say I don’t know.

No, and I can go find the answer. That seems to be really hard for leaders to do. They want to build credibility, they want to have people look up to them, and yet being able to say, gosh, I don’t know in that moment, right? Also, admitting mistakes allows behaviors to see that they too sometimes are in that mode of learning and goes back to that creating that role modeling environment of emotions.

Am I going to speak up and say I’ve made a mistake if I don’t see my leader role modeling for that? And so

BreAnne Okoren (21:07)
Mm.

Michelle (21:08)
you know, and then that a last piece around how do I be open to new information? We just keep talking about that. It’s the questions, the questions, the questions, but how do I

BreAnne Okoren (21:16)
Questions.

Michelle (21:17)
continue to remain open to new information that my employees might offer me?

BreAnne Okoren (21:22)
Yeah.

So Joe, I think there’s one finding that we have to close if we haven’t overwhelmed the listeners with all of these behaviors, and it is the most it’s the best finding of all. And that is that there there are these eight behaviors. That feels overwhelming, but your research found something really interesting that leaders who perform at or above the seventy-fifth percentile in just three of these behaviors that we talked about had psychologically safe results.

At the 53rd percentile, which is fantastic. And when leaders reached the 90th percentile in three, just three, not eight, of these behaviors, psychological safety rose to the sixty-second percentile. So what does that tell us about how leaders should approach psychological safety?

Joe Folkman (22:10)
You don’t need to be perfect to be a really great leader and one who really magnifies psychological safety in their work group. In fact,

BreAnne Okoren (22:20)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Folkman (22:20)
if you only do one well, you’re at the sixty-fourth percentile.

BreAnne Okoren (22:25)
Yeah.

Joe Folkman (22:26)
So tha I think that’s the m most important thing we found in our research. You don’t need to be perfect to be a great leader. And so we’ve got six. Do one

Do one well. Pick one that’s really going to help you and work on that.

BreAnne Okoren (22:45)
So before we wrap up, I wanna make sure we give leaders something practical to take away from this conversation because it’s easy to listen to an episode like this and be like, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it all the time, psychological safety is important. But what matters is what you do differently. So I’m gonna ask each one of you for something specific. Joe, if a leader wants to understand whether their team actually feels psychologically safe, what’s one question?

they can go to work and ask their team.

Joe Folkman (23:13)
I’d ask my team if they’re open or or they’re willing to speak up and and and ask them what question would you like to ask or where would you if you could challenge me on anything, what would it be? Because

BreAnne Okoren (23:28)
Oh.

Joe Folkman (23:28)
I think people are afraid to do that. They’re afraid to push back. So go ahead, challenge

BreAnne Okoren (23:33)
That’s a good one.

Joe Folkman (23:34)
me.

BreAnne Okoren (23:36)
All right, Michelle, what’s one behavior, let’s say, that you’d encourage leaders to practice this week then?

Michelle (23:44)
think asking the team or just even one employee that you know you have a good relationship to start with, what makes it difficult for people on the team to speak up? What I missing or not noticing?

BreAnne Okoren (23:57)
Um okay.

I like that a lot. I think the biggest takeaway for me from today’s conversation is that psychological safety isn’t about making everyone comfortable. It’s about creating an environment where people can do difficult things that great teams need to do, that they can challenge ideas, admit mistakes, ask for help.

give the honest feedback um and hold each other accountable. And that’s especially what’s interesting about Zanger Folkman’s research is that these aren’t just abstract leadership ideals. They’re connected to meaningful differences in whether employees want to stay where they’re working and most importantly, whether they’re willing to give their best effort, which is what we all want. So Jo and Michelle, thank you both for joining me today.

Joe Folkman (24:45)
And great.

Michelle (24:46)
Loved it.

BreAnne Okoren (24:47)
For anyone who wants to dig deeper into this research, we’ll include Joe’s article, What Leaders Do to Create Psychological Safety, in our show notes. And remember, extraordinary leadership isn’t about being perfect. It’s about understanding which behaviors make the greatest difference and being willing to improve. So thanks for listening to the 90th Percentile Leadership, Insights Backed by Data. We’ll see you next time.