Psychological Safety Isn’t About Being Nice — It’s About Being Real

Why high-performing teams thrive on challenge, clarity, and constructive conflict- not comfort

Over the past year, I’ve found myself increasingly called into organisations to help teams build psychological safety. It’s a term that gets tossed around a lot these days—so much so that it’s tempting to write it off as the latest HR buzzword.

But let me be clear: psychological safety isn’t fluff. It’s one of the most research-backed predictors of team performance that we have.

The concept was introduced by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, but it was Google's landmark Project Aristotle—a study of over 180 teams—that really cemented its place in mainstream organisational thinking.

Their researchers went in expecting to find that talent, intelligence, or work ethic determined team success. But what they discovered was something entirely different.

The teams that outperformed the rest weren’t necessarily the ones working the longest hours or boasting the most credentials. They were the ones where people felt safe—safe to speak up, take risks, challenge ideas, and most importantly, show up as their full selves.

Psychological safety, it turns out, was the single most important factor in high-performing teams.

But there’s a twist.

When misunderstood or misapplied, psychological safety can actually become the very thing that holds a team back.

When Safety Gets Confused with Comfort

A C-suite executive from a global bank once shared a story with me. He had given direct—but not aggressive—feedback to a team member who was underperforming. Weeks later, his 360 review came back with a surprising critique: he had “failed to create psychological safety.”

He was stunned.

There are two possible explanations here:

1. He delivered the feedback poorly—perhaps lacking empathy or openness.

2. The team member lacked the emotional resilience to receive it.

From what he described, it was likely the latter.

This brings us to a critical distinction:
When we confuse comfort with safety, we create psychological danger.

Too often, organisations adopt the view that psychological safety means avoiding discomfort at all costs. No tension. No hard truths. No awkward feedback.

That’s not psychological safety. That’s avoidance.

And avoidance kills performance.

Feedback Is the Fruit of Safety

A psychologically safe team isn’t one where no one ever feels uncomfortable. It’s one where people can be uncomfortable and still speak the truth—because they trust their team enough to handle it.

Avoiding tough conversations might feel good in the short term, but it’s deadly in the long run. Without feedback, poor performance hides in plain sight. Mistakes repeat. Growth stalls.

Interestingly, a global study by Harvard found that 57% of employees would rather receive corrective feedback than praise.

Why? Because clarity trumps comfort. People want to grow. They just want the feedback delivered in a way that’s constructive, not crushing.

And when companies train their people to give and receive feedback well, the payoff is real. In a study of 57 organisations, those that excelled in feedback culture doubled the financial performance of those that didn’t.

Enter: Team Quotient (TQ)

Feedback isn’t the opposite of psychological safety—it’s the result of it.

That’s why we developed a model called Team Quotient (TQ): a way to measure and improve how well a team truly works together. Not just in theory, but in practice.

TQ looks at the real drivers of cohesive, high-performing teams:

• Giving and receiving feedback

• Regulating emotions under pressure

• Resolving conflict constructively

• Holding shared purpose

• Mutual accountability

• And yes—true psychological safety

When these are strong, teams accelerate. When they’re weak, even the most talented individuals struggle to collaborate.

We Built a Program That Goes Deeper

To help teams develop real, lasting cohesion, we created Team Accelerator — a science-backed, psychology-driven program designed to build the right kind of psychological safety.

The kind that welcomes challenge. The kind where hard conversations are expected, not feared. The kind where feedback comes from purpose, not punishment.

Because this isn’t about being nice. It’s about being real.

When teams can speak the truth without fear, regulate their emotions, and resolve conflict without toxicity, you don’t just get better culture—you get better performance.

Want to Know How Safe Your Team Really Is?

We’re offering a limited number of free Team Quotient Assessments for teams of 5–20 people. No jargon. No fluff. Just insights that matter.

If you’re curious about how psychologically safe (and effective) your team really is, reply to this message and I’ll send you the details.

Let’s build teams where people feel safe enough to challenge—and strong enough to be challenged.

Justin Cohen,

Signing off for 84 Musing..