Psychological Safety: The social contract

Laura McPhee discusses why belonging matters and how psychological safety can lead to school improvement

We've all been there. Someone speaks up at work, perhaps in a meeting or in conversation with colleagues. They’re describing behaviours you recognise, making suggestions for improvement, challenging the status quo. But it’s… well, uncomfortable.

In that moment, we all have a choice.

Peer support matters. Building a safe environment is a collective effort, starting with leadership and extending to every team member.

The evidence base is clear. Those organisations with a strong culture of psychological safety are more resilient, more innovative, more profitable. They perform better.

Employees immersed in these cultures report higher levels of engagement and wellbeing. It’s the pre- cursor for creating a sense of belonging. When we invite colleagues to learn from failure, take risks and offer supportive challenge without fear of reprisal, it sets teams up for success, and builds the foundation for belonging.

So why do we find it so hard?

Well for starters, there’s very little guidance out there for school leaders on how to practically apply the principles of psychological safety.

Contrary to popular belief, rather than placing emphasis on the employee to have the courage to speak up, as leaders it’s our responsibility to create an environment where speaking up feels safe, and is actively encouraged. When this is built into daily practice, it becomes the cultural norm.

Leaders matter, because there is of course a power dynamic at play and education settings are notoriously hierarchical.

That said, if I had a time machine and was able to repeat every presentation, published article and blog I’ve ever written on this topic, I would spend more time talking about our collective responsibility.

Why? Simply put, if we have the power to dismantle psychological safety through our actions, then we all share a responsibility to create and nurture it.

Peer support reduces stigma and isolation, builds trust and authenticity, empowers self - management and increases resilience. (Agarwal et al, 2019).

Small practical steps can have a significant impact on others.

1. Active listening:

We can’t underestimate the importance of showing up and tuning in. Listening to understand as oppose to listening to respond. How can we support colleagues to really be heard? Of course facilitating meaningful conversation is a helpful starting point, but this needs to be followed up with meaningful action for colleagues to feel understood.

2. Showing empathy and understanding:

Naturally when we listen with empathy, we illicit a very different response. Emotional Quotient (EQ) skills are crucial for building strong relationships, increasing engagement and productivity, developing adaptability and resilience.

However, the transformative power of empathy is systematically undervalued. Empathy isn’t just a ‘nice to have’, or fluffy personality trait; on the contrary, it’s a driver for improved performance. Extensive research and across industries confirm that leaders with higher levels of emotional intelligence (EQ) perform better and are more effective. EQ has been found to be a stronger predictor of leadership success than IQ or technical skills. (Nabih et al, 2016)

3. Providing validation:

We might not always agree, but we always have the opportunity to acknowledge how others feel. It’s an important step which builds confidence and encourages colleagues to share their perspective again moving forwards.

4. Offering allyship:

Schools are microcosms of society and therefore colleagues are subject to systematic barriers in the workplace. How do we actively support colleagues, in particular team members from underrepresented groups? In decision making spaces, do we stop to consider whose voice is not being heard?

5. Challenging inappropriate behaviours:

We won’t always agree. That’s ok. It’s easier to avoid conflict, but it doesn’t serve us well in the long run. When there’s cognitive dissonance between the values we hold and the action we take, it impacts morale and erodes culture.

5. Learning from failure:

We’ve been led to believe the fallacy that all mistakes are disastrous, contributing to a wider culture of blame not just in our workplaces, but in our homes and society at large. This common misconception can in fact lead us to repeat, rather than avoid unwanted behaviours, because individuals are reluctant to ‘speak up’ when they’ve made a mistake for fear of reprisal. This is to our great loss, because mistakes, when managed effectively and with sensitivity, present us with rich opportunities to learn, innovate and take a step closer to our goals.

5. Role modelling:

When I’m invited to speak on this topic there’s often much nodding from the audience and consensus in the room. But speak to individuals and it’s not long before someone will want to share a less favourable experience.

These concepts are agreeable in principle. In practice, harder to execute. On occasion, it will feel counter intuitive to ‘speak up’, challenge the status quo or even make suggestions about how to improve systems and processes. But it’s imperative to acknowledge our shared responsibility here; to recognise the responsibility we have to one another and the wider school community, even when that means taking the road less travelled.

5. Reinforcing a culture of psychological safety:

Regular opportunities for stakeholders to share feedback and reflective practice will help to foster a culture of psychological safety. Crucially we want create opportunities to listen and learn from each other and utilise our existing school systems to do this. This helps us to ensure it becomes part of the ‘daily routine’ and doesn’t fall by the wayside when competing priorities inevitably arise. Simple exercises, such as adding ‘lessons learned’ as an agenda item for team meetings, can transform practice over time.

Our vertical and horizontal relationships are valuable because they fulfil different needs. When people feel seen heard and valued, they know their experience matters. This is also where we begin to see discretionary effort; a strong culture of psychological safety mobilises the workforce and employees want to contribute to something greater than the sum of its parts. (Macleod & Clarke, 2009).

Peer support builds a robust, dynamic and inclusive organisational culture. We have a responsibility to each other, this is the social contract we’ve entered into.

'“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

―Martin Luther King Jr.

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