misunderstanding of psychological safety

Psychological safety paves the way for inclusive and high-performing work environments but since it has emerged as a pivotal concept, it’s been widely misunderstood and misapplied and that hurts teams’ performances.

Let’s explore the potential consequences of that misunderstanding:

1️⃣ Impaired problem-solving and decision-making

🚩Seeing psychological safety as HR-centric 'fluff’

Consequence: Considering psychological safety as „nice to have” hinders its effective integration into effective problem-solving and decision-making processes and leads to impaired, lower-quality decisions

2️⃣ Creation of „yes-people” organization culture:

🚩 Employees become hesitant to voice concerns or challenge ideas, leading to a culture of conformity.

Consequence: This may resemble toxic positivity, where a focus on maintaining a positive atmosphere hinders the constructive criticism necessary for improvement.

3️⃣ Loss of innovation and learning

🚩 Leaders and hashtag#managers may misinterpret that their role is to guarantee the team members’ comfort, overlooking that psychological safety is about creating space where hashtag#team members embrace the discomfort of being candidly honest*

Consequence: The reluctance to invite diverse perspectives can impede genuine innovation and stifle the learning from mistakes that are necessary for growth



What in your opinion leads to those misinterpretations and how can we change the narrative around psychological safety so that it is more accurately applied?

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