Research finds team psychological safety to be an important ingredient for high-performing teams. However, there is scarce research on how team psychological safety emerges and develops over time. Drawing on the literature from climate emergence and team development, we designed two mixed method studies in two different contexts and studied the temporal dynamics of team psychological safety in both short- and long-term project teams. Interestingly, most teams started out at somewhat similar levels of team psychological safety. However, from there, team psychological safety appears to be a perishable good that can decrease as well as increase over time. These dynamics appear to be explained by connecting, clarifying, supporting, and performing team practices. Thus, we found team psychological safety to be a result of active choices rather than a passive consequence of simply spending time together. In fact, time itself is neither sufficient nor necessarily positive for team psychological safety—it is how this time is spent that matters. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest directions for future research.
