Are You Unsafe - or Just Feeling Uncomfortable?

“You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort. But you cannot have both.”

- Brené Brown, Dare to Lead

Last month, I facilitated an in-house session - our 'Having Conversations That Matter' workshop.

The room held twenty leaders - all committed to lifting the quality of dialogue, and growing relationships across their workplace. As we began the section on preparing and practising a ‘counselling conversation’ - the kind needed when performance is off-track, or behaviour isn’t aligning with professional standards - a familiar theme had begun to surface.

Disturbingly, once again, I heard a pattern that’s been steadily growing over the past few years.

When attempting to correct behaviour, uphold expectations, or have a reasonable - yet occasionally uncomfortable conversation, multiple leaders shared with me that they were increasingly met with phrases like:

“I feel unsafe.”
“I don’t feel safe having this conversation.”

Let’s pause here!

Psychological safety is real. It matters. And the recent psychosocial legislation introduced in Australia rightly holds employers accountable for managing psychological hazards - that identify, eliminate or mitigate risks to workers’ mental health. We should never trivialise that responsibility.

But something else is happening.

The word “unsafe” is being stretched. Misused. Even at times… weaponised!

It’s being applied to moments that are not traumatic, or indeed unsafe - just challenging. And that’s a problem. Because when we start treating discomfort as danger, we erode the very conditions and environment that drive growth, trust and accountability.

Left unchecked, it leads to something far more damaging - psychologists call it learned helplessness. And no organisation wants that embedded in its culture.

However, what we do want are teams that are capable of sitting with short-term discomfort. Teams that can have the occasional robust conversation to ‘course-correct’ behaviour, drive better learning and results, and to resolve performance issues - quickly, respectfully, and courageously.

With high-performing teams, people will feel uncomfortable at times. Feedback won’t always land smoothly. And being challenged might sting - especially when it strikes close to home. But that doesn’t make it unsafe. It makes it honest!

Now, of course, there are still leaders who get this wrong - who confuse candour with combativeness. That’s why at Proteus, we teach how to lead these conversations with care, clarity and intent. Because as Patty McCord so beautifully puts it:

“Trust is based on honest communication, and I find that employees become cynical when they hear half-truths.”

If we label every uncomfortable conversation as psychologically unsafe, then we silence the very conversations that we most need to have.

So, here’s the leadership challenge:

Hold space for real safety - but don’t retreat from discomfort.
Know the difference. Name it. Teach it.

Because once your people understand that growth often feels uncomfortable, then they’ll stop using safety language to avoid it - and start leaning into the conversations that matter most.

Wishing you a great week of choosing courage over comfort - and building more robust relationships in the process.

Richard Dore
Co-CEO - Director of Partnerships
Proteus Leadership