Developing Psychological Safety in the Workplace Through Forgiveness & Other Leadership Virtues: Two Experimental Vignette Methodology Studies

Abstract

In a competitive talent landscape, some employers have turned to the psychological community to better understand employee engagement and one of its key antecedents, psychological safety . While a growing body of descriptive literature has highlighted the benefits of these constructs, challenges to research have resulted in a dearth of studies on specific interventions. In the present studies, I use an experimental vignette methodology (EVM) to examine how virtuous leadership behaviors contribute to psychological safety in the workplace. In two separate studies, I found evidence that leadership virtue, particularly that of forgiveness, led to increased psychological safety among followers. Two hundred eighty-three participants in the United States and 106 from India were randomly selected to read one of four different short stories or vignettes about a fictional workplace. The five-paragraph vignettes were identical except for a short description of their leader. After a brief reflection on the vignette, participants were asked to complete a survey with measures for psychological safety and work engagement. Statistical analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in mean psychological safety scores between virtuous leader groups and the control group, with the largest effect visible for members of the forgiving leader group. Mediation analysis revealed that psychological safety mediated the effect of leadership virtues on work engagement. These results suggest that organizations may benefit from paying greater attention to leadership virtues. Further, the replication of results in India indicates that the causal relationship between virtuous leadership and psychological safety may be applicable outside the American workplace.