5 Reasons Why Scaling Psychological Safety Reduces Respect and How to Fix It!

Welcome to this edition of Respectful Workplace Insights!

In this edition we reveal five failure patterns of large-scale psychological safety initiatives.

We highlight the common pitfalls organisations face that reduce respect when implementing psychological safety initiatives, and what to do instead.

5 Common Pitfalls of Scaling Psychological Safety

1.??? Focusing Solely on Metrics

2.??? Underestimating the Complexity of Shifting Culture

3.??? Neglecting Leadership Modelling

4.??? Ignoring Team Differences

5.??? Failing to Link Psychological Safety to Performance

1. Focusing Solely on Metrics

It’s natural that organisations want to focus on measuring psychological safety through surveys and data.? The pitfall is overlooking the need to change actual behaviours, conversations and mindsets.

The right metrics are very helpful, but focusing only on numbers may cause teams to game the system to look good.

It misses the point of fostering a safe environment for authentic interaction and experimentation. Ultimately people lose respect for each other.

Metrics are valuable upfront in any psychological safety initiative. Metrics are valuable for measuring milestones.

It’s the implementation of mindset and skillset training to change behaviours and conversations that increases respect and creates the breakthrough!

?2. Underestimating the Complexity of Shifting Culture

Organisations often believe that psychological safety can be achieved quickly; underestimating how difficult it is to shift entrenched cultural norms.

Cultivating psychological safety is a long-term process requiring consistent effort.

It’s created through impactful interactions moment-to-moment between people in real time.

Without commitment, patience and dedication, the initiative can stall or face resistance.

Respect is lost and the culture reverts to the status quo

Culture is shifted one conversation and one behaviour at a time!

3. Neglecting Leadership Modelling

When psychological safety is implemented with top-down, compliance-driven mandates, team members see it as a box to tick rather than a genuine cultural shift.

People may comply outwardly, but the initiative doesn’t foster real openness or trust.

True psychological safety requires everyone to participate with a willingness to experiment … not to be mandated through forced compliance.

When leaders push for psychological safety, then pay it lip service without modelling the behaviours themselves … a gap gets created between what is preached and what is practiced.

I’ve experienced a situation where leaders modelled the right behaviours by willingly participating in the launch of an organisational wide psychological safety initiative … pretending they were all in … then removing themselves from the rest of the program.

Here’s the thing …

Team members look to leaders for cues on acceptable behaviour.

If leaders don’t demonstrate vulnerability, trust, and openness, others will follow suit, leading to a lack of authenticity.

A few months into one program, team members were asking why certain leaders were still raising their voices at them after everyone had been trained in Respectful Conversations.

The point is … the leaders refused to participate in the whole program because they didn’t feel they needed it!

Respect was lost across the board!

Psychological safety is built from the top down. Everyone is accountable for participating responsibly.

PS: A fish rots from the head down. Don’t let it happen in your organisation!

4. Ignoring Team Differences

Initiatives often treat psychological safety as a one-size-fits-all approach, while ignoring the unique dynamics and needs of different teams or locations.

Each team has its own culture, and what works for one team may not work for another.

Failing to adapt the initiative to these differences can limit its effectiveness.

If participation is made mandatory for all teams, it forces everyone into the same program which may cause teams with different cultures to feel alienated or disengaged.

This leads to lower overall effectiveness of the initiative and respect is lost.

Each team has their own unique needs that deserve to be listened to and honoured!

5. Failing to Link Psychological Safety to Performance

Some initiatives focus solely on making team members feel safe without showing how psychological safety drives business outcomes such as innovation and performance.

Psychological safety is not an end in itself. It needs to be tied to business goals and performance.

Without this connection, team members may view it as a “soft” initiative unrelated to productivity or success.

When team members understand that psychological safety isn’t just about “feeling good” but is directly linked to better business outcomes through increased performance, they are more likely to adopt and support the behaviours associated with it.

The key to success is ensuring psychological safety is aligned with both performance goals and the unique dynamics of each team.

You can join us for our upcoming free workshop on 22 October where we’ll dive into how psychological safety can transform your workplace AND build respect. You can reserve your place HERE

Thanks for reading this edition of my weekly Respectful Workplace Insights newsletter.

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Respectful Workplace Insights is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight?some of the things that get in the way of creating a respectful workplace culture.

Eliminating disrespectful, unproductive and depleting conversations and behaviours that are getting in the way of building respectful alignment and performance is where we start.

Each week I'll offer insights on how to do that so you can create a respectful workplace culture where everyone feels safe and included.