A few months ago, an assistant principal at my school gave me feedback that I was not prepared for. This colleague, whom I manage, shared that during a recent meeting I had facilitated, my tone made them feel psychologically unsafe. His words and description of his experience at the encounter left me stunned, confused, and disappointed in myself. I kept thinking, “Me? Did I make anyone feel psychologically unsafe? But how?”
As principal, my job is to ensure the physical and psychological safety of every staff member and student in my care, and that includes our leadership team, which is made up of 10 assistant principals who train and manage teachers. For me, this responsibility goes beyond the job description. The safety of my school community, which I love, is deeply rooted in my purpose. In fact, it's one of the reasons I took the job: I believed I could create the right conditions for everyone to feel safe.
But I didn't, at least not that day. And when this colleague spoke up bravely, he helped me rethink how I approached the safety of my people beyond the physical.
When I thought about the meeting my colleague described, I remembered how difficult that day was and I must admit that I did not conduct that meeting with my usual warmth. He had a lot on his mind and, in retrospect, he was really nervous. That same day, I received an email from our district informing me that my school had the lowest completion rate on our beginning of the year reading test. Struggling with my own feelings about being “last place,” I was a little confused and wanted immediate clarity, which I thought this colleague could provide as she had a plan to administer more assessments to assess what was going on. At the same time, a professor in this colleague's department unexpectedly resigned, creating a mid-year staffing challenge that needed an immediate solution. I felt overwhelmed, so I asked many questions in rapid succession and, in my search for answers, ignored my colleague's need to feel supported because of my own internalized pressure to perform.
When she opened up to share with me what that meeting felt like, I knew she left our meeting feeling interrogated, disempowered, and frozen. Instead of being direct and efficient, she interpreted me as cold and abrupt. In turn, he closed himself off to protect his own sense of well-being. Without knowing it, I had created a wall that only I could break down. One of my teammates was injured, and as her leader, it was my job to fix her.
That I have to do? How do I recover? How do I rebuild trust within myself, with this person, and with my team? As I reflected on our meeting, these questions replayed in my brain like a tape screen at Barclays.
To begin with, I had to pull myself together. I felt terrible knowing that I made anyone feel uncomfortable or inferior. I wasn't in a good place. I had lost confidence, was beginning to question my suitability for the job, and began creating narratives about how I was perceived as a leader: It's so fake. It's not really equity work, look at the culture you've created. I was starting to believe these things.
What allowed me to refocus was a fact I learned during my days as a recruiter: there is no such thing as a perfect candidate. In this case, there was no perfect leader or perfect team. This meant that my imperfections and mistakes were actually opportunities for me and my team to become stronger. But the stakes were high and I didn't have the luxury of time.
Why it is essential to create conditions for psychological safety in schools
I was first introduced to the concept of psychological safety during the height of the pandemic. I was a teacher at the time and we had moved to remote instruction. During a training session, a social worker used the term, which prompted me to learn more.
When I started to unpack This concept Additionally, I learned that true psychological safety exists when the conditions within an organization allow for interpersonal risk taking. In an environment like this, team members normalize error, have open communication, and welcome healthy debate and discourse. This sense of security can also contribute to a culture of freedom and autonomy, which can motivate individuals and teams to do their own thing. the best and ultimately lead to commitment. That's key at our school because as we expand to serve more students in our community, we must think about innovative ways to retain teachers as we scale, literally, to new heights.
I understood the concept, so what was getting in the way?
In my case, I was so worried about the challenges ahead that I didn't consider the needs of my colleague, who was experiencing those challenges alongside me. I didn't think about the hard work she had put in to get 70 percent of our students tested in one day, or how the teacher's departure affected her and her team. And I hadn't considered how power dynamics related to role, race, and gender played a role in the interaction I had with my teammate. I wish I had.
As I delved into the literature on what leaders can do to provide psychological safety in the workplace, I learned that a key component is Recognize and account for the wide range of life experiences and perspectives in a group.. That helped me understand that I need to be much more intentional about how I occupy space with my team and how we occupy space together.
Make a plan to repair the damage
There is many resources who provide guidance to a team member or leader whose psychological safety has been compromised in the workplace. However, few provide guidance to leaders like me, who have the opportunity to recover after a breach of psychological safety has occurred, before irreparable damage is done. So I leaned on a formula I use when solving any challenge: collect data, distill the trends, and come up with an action and accountability plan.
To collect data, I began meeting with my team more frequently, particularly with the assistant principals I manage. This meant holding sacred space for each of them weekly and cultivating an environment where each felt constantly seen, heard, and valued. When we met, I simplified their results so I could spend more time listening to what they were going through.
Listening to my colleagues actively and consciously It has allowed me to gain greater insight, information and understanding of their ways of thinking, while developing a greater sense of empathy and belonging. These one-on-one conversations have been invaluable in understanding the people I manage, allowing me to see their humanity and learn so much more about myself, my leadership, and my own blind spots.
Interestingly, the inspiration for this essay came from a recent one-on-one conversation with the vice principal whom I unintentionally hurt. When he gave me permission to share this story, he also offered me an honest view of his experience with me, and as he opened up, I felt the wall I allowed to build between us fall. Instead, we were rebuilding a connection.
In an effort to build these connections across our team and foster a safe and caring environment, I created more space to connect, discuss, and solve individual problems collaboratively, and that became the core part of my action plan. To develop a path toward restoring psychological safety on my team, I relied on the “First team” concept – developed by Patrick Lencioni, author and expert in business management and organizational health – which prioritizes an inclusive and participatory approach to problem solving. This framework prioritizes collective, rather than isolated, decision-making, and that has made a big difference for our team.
Creating more space for pressure-free individual check-ins and placing more emphasis on problem-solving and decision-making as a team has helped me mitigate feelings of isolation and disempowerment across the team. In turn, I have seen deeper collaboration and greater knowledge sharing between departments and people.
Hearing that I had made my colleague feel psychologically unsafe was a deeply uncomfortable and difficult experience, but I am so grateful for it because it illuminated a critical misstep, sharpened my equity lens, and expanded my ability to keep my community safe. As a principal, I have the privilege of disrupting and interrupting patterns of inequality and inequity, even after perpetuating them. Creating and maintaining psychological safety in my team is not a destination, but a necessary journey that I am committed to taking.
