What happens when your workplace is too nice

For many years, the management model espoused by legendary CEO Jack Welch was what organizations emulated: the “rank and yank,” which resulted in ranking employees ruthlessly and cutting the bottom 10% each year.

Then, over the past two decades, there was a slow but steady shift toward organizations being more emotionally intelligent. Leaders were asked to lead with empathy and prioritize psychological safety, and HR teams built out wellness programs and feedback training meant to soften the edges of corporate life. Some companies took it so far as to treat any friction or disagreement as a culture failure.

Now, the pendulum looks to be swinging back a bit. In new research, researchers found that organizations with a culture of niceness can lead to worse performance when leaders prioritize harmony and comfort over candor, accountability, and results. At one company, for example, they found that nearly every employee “met” or “exceeded” expectations in year-end performance reviews.

Why a "nice" workplace can underperform

Many organizations often see niceness as an individual issue, when it can actually be a systemic one, too. Often, it traces back to how an organization has built or applied psychological safety. The concept is meant to make people feel safe enough to disagree and make mistakes, but when misapplied if safety is mistaken for comfort, rather than safety to be candid. When that happens, artificial harmony can suppress the candor it’s supposed to protect.

What’s more, just because niceness is the norm doesn’t mean anger and frustration disappear. The question just becomes where people put that anger and frustration — particularly if difficult conversations don’t happen.

What BetterUp's coaching data shows about avoidance

When BetterUp analyzed coaching transcripts across six companies, fear-driven avoidance was the single most common theme, showing up in half of all conversations that touched on managing a difficult conversation. The second most common issue was “emotional reactivity,” or friction with colleagues who’ve had negative experiences and react defensively. When people expect a hard conversation to be met with defensiveness, the safer choice is often to avoid it altogether, which means the underlying issue never gets addressed.

The research also found that a “nice” culture is really an avoidance pattern of not asking the hard questions or pushing back on weak ideas. Our research on curiosity backs this up: curiosity, which can lead to better problem-solving and higher performance, has been on the decline for the past six years. This matters because when workers lose their appetite for inquiry and challenge, they’re less likely to raise concerns or question a bad idea in the moment because the same conditions that suppress curiosity also suppress dissent.

How to build a culture that's candid, not just comfortable

The fix isn’t Welch-era ruthlessness. It’s teams where people feel cared for and feel safe enough to say the hard thing. Three moves help:

1. Rumble instead of avoiding the hard conversation

The Center for Daring Leadership founder Brené Brown has a concept called “rumbling,” or leaning into a hard conversation instead of avoiding it. When people do this, they practice being courageous because they’re willing to sit in discomfort and vulnerability, rather than rushing to smooth things over.

2. Bring it to a coach before you bring it to your manager

Coaching can help because it allows employees to dissect a situation without judgment and then rehearse how to approach it differently in the future. A worker dealing with frustration over not getting credit for her work may hesitate to bring it up to her manager, for example, because she doesn’t want to come off as petty or difficult. But she can speak freely with her coach and strategize with him or her to find ways to try to make sure her contributions get recognized.

3. Build one real friendship at work

More than half of workers want more connection at work than they currently have and nearly one-quarter of employees say they don’t have a single friend at work. That gap matters because a close work friendship can be a low-stakes place to be candid, vent, or admit something isn’t working. This can help dissolve frustration and/or give someone the practice and confidence to raise it directly elsewhere — and the payoff isn't just personal. Employees who turn to teammates instead of relying on AI report far stronger team coordination and trust than those who don't.

Silence is the enemy, not niceness. The best cultures are the ones where people trust each other enough to disagree.