People might rake you over the coals if you underperform. Overperforming tends to get kudos instead.

Anti-stress ball, Alexa from Pixabay

But both overfunctioning and underfunctioning can be dangerous. Both can be a way to cope with stress.

My latest edition of Mind Uncensored unpacks how.

Overfunctioning and Underfunctioning Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

vetkit from Getty Images, airdone from Getty Images, Karola G from Pexels; compiled by Wanda Thibodeaux

In the most stressful and most traumatic points in my life, I’ve always done the same thing — worked more hours than I can count. When my mother died, when my husband was out of work, when my kids struggled through the pandemic and its residual hell — it all found me at my computer.

But others flip the script. They shut down. Work becomes an insurmountable hurdle they barely jump, if they jump at all.

In most settings, only one of these reactions gets raked over the coals. But they are two sides of the same coin, and both are dangerous.

The four stress responses in the performance context

If you study psychology, you’ll see that experts have laid out different models to categorize the varying responses we can have to situations. But most models now recognize four basic response options: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Fight means you get aggressive with your body or words, flight means you run or leave, freeze means you don’t act or stay still, and fawn means you engage in some kind of behavior others might like.

In the work context, overfunctioning is the combination of fight and fawn. The fight part follows the logic of “If I can just do more, I’ll overcome.” The fawn part follows the logic of, “If I do everything everybody wants, I’ll overcome.” These are connected in that saying yes all the time increases load, and that increased load is perceived as a hedge — it’s exhausting but safer because it builds rapport and puts more proverbial eggs in more baskets. Either way, boundaries are lost, and the amount of work exceeds what’s healthy.

Underfunctioning is the combination of flight and freeze. The flight part follows the logic of “If I run away from this responsibility or task, I can escape from the difficulty of learning or the potential for critique or failure.” The freeze part follows the logic of, “If I do nothing with this responsibility or task, I can default back to responsibilities and tasks I am more familiar and comfortable with.” Either way, others learn not to place new responsibility or load on the individual due to a perceived lack of reliability or capability.

Overfunctioning and underfunctioning look completely different. We usually interpret overfunctioning as proactive and participatory, such as when an employee volunteers for their third committee or picks up an extra shift. There’s problem-solving happening, and positive results show up. We usually interpret underfunctioning as lazy and an unwillingness to be a team player. The lack of action, such as not going after a promotion, not raising rates, or shutting down when faced with complicated protocol, usually creates issues, and yield is low or doesn’t happen.

But overfunctioning and underfunctioning are simply polar stress responses. The key difference is that overfunctioning usually happens from fear (e.g., “If I don’t work three jobs or pick up all the slack at home, I’ll lose my house or my family won’t function.”), while underfunctioning usually happens from shame (e.g., “If I don’t run away or sit on my hands, others will see what I can’t do or I’ll get benefits I don’t deserve.”

Importantly, it’s not the stressor that determines how a person responds. That’s a matter of the person’s nervous system perception and experience. We don’t necessarily choose to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn consciously. Our nervous system simply picks whatever option it thinks will keep us safest given the situation, although the nervous system can get trained to lean on one “default” option more than the others.

This means that, when exposed to the same stressor, one employee can step up while another falls back. Both workers are seeking safety, but their nervous systems have chosen different pathways to try to get there.

But people, situations, and nervous systems are complicated. We can feel both fear and shame. So, a worker might overfunction in some areas where they feel more fear while they underfunction in areas where they feel more shame. This can be confusing for leaders who are trying to determine why a worker isn’t consistent. They don’t always understand that, when a worker seems stuck in a hamster wheel of working harder in specific spaces, it’s often as a way to compensate for the fact they don’t function well in areas necessary for better efficiency or advancement.

Why both overfunctioning and underfunctioning are a problem

In general, the business world — and culture as a whole — tends to reward overperformance because it involves action that’s seen as progressive, and because we associate doing with competence. We tend to be critical of underperformance because it tends to slow down movement, and because we assume that a person does nothing because they can’t or don’t understand how. But both overperformance and underperformance are harmful.

The “reward” we give overperformers is usually just more work — we assume that because the overperformer has handled X, they also can handle X+Y, and that because they handled X in the past, they’ll continue to handle it in the future. This adds stress and increases the risk of burnout. But the pats on the back and material gains teach the worker that they can continue to stay safe if they can somehow just adapt to the increased load.

The criticism of underperformance, by contrast, feeds into the worker’s feelings of shame. But the fact others stop expecting a lot teaches the worker that they can continue to stay safe in what’s comfortable and familiar if they don’t challenge their established identity as someone who fails.

Discerning the root of the problem

Sometimes, people overfunction out of genuine ambition and curiosity, not fear. And people can underfunction because they just don’t like or need to practice the task. Leaders thus shouldn’t automatically assume that their team members are struggling. But because overfunctioning and underfunctioning are both stress responses, leaders who see the behaviors should at least consider the possibility that workers have some anxiety around their situation.

How can we tell the difference?

First, ask yourself: Is there a common thread that goes through tasks? For example, presenting on Zoom, talking at a conference, or being on a podcast are all different environments that have slightly different technical and social requirements. If the issue is that the worker still needs to learn the requirements of one space, they typically fail in that space but not the others, and repeat exposure usually resolves the issue. But the common thread is verbal expression. If the worker fails in all environments that require verbal expression, that suggests the problem is not the environment, but rather that there is shame or fear around speaking as a whole.

Secondly, ask yourself: What is the collective response? When a task is reasonable, appropriately loaded, and properly paced, most individuals will approach and complete it. Conversely, if a task is unreasonable, too heavy, and has an improper deadline, most individuals will resist it. If you see an individual not responding according to the norm, that might suggest that the individual is overperforming or underperforming out of personal stress.

Lastly, observe the individual’s mood. Shame often manifests as low energy or quietness, because the individual sees not participating or holding back as the path to safety. Fear often manifests as intensity and seriousness, because the individual feels so strongly obligated to get the job done to create a hedge. Low energy/quietness or intensity/seriousness are more likely to be a stress response — not personality — if they manifest only around certain tasks and aren’t consistently observable in most environments.

We’re halfway there, but we can do more

Every business has underperformers and overperformers. But generalized underperformance and overperformance that comes from operational design or leadership quality is not the same as individual underperformance and overperformance that manifests as the result of how a person responds to stress. The first is corrected by paying attention to systems or frameworks and leader fit. The second is corrected by paying attention to mental health and providing customized psychological support.

Most businesses focus only on the first type of underperformance and overperformance. This gets a company only halfway to good yield and a loyal, satisfied workforce. If we want to get the rest of the way, investing in tools and training that focus on performance as part of the stress response is a competitive and compassionate move.

The original version of this post appeared in Wanda Thibodeaux’s Mind Uncensored newsletter March 12, 2026. Like this content? Subscribe to Mind Uncensored!

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