The secret cause of Psychological Safety

I saw a post by Professor Rob Briner about the enigma of psychological safety, and in the replies it was discussed that in fact PS isn’t so much an enigma, there’s evidence that it is the output of group identity. It felt important to talk to Katrien Fransen about her work exploring this.

This conversation (and the papers that led into it) were real penny drop moments for me.

There’s a full transcript below.

Check out more:

Here’s Rob Briner’s post about psychological safety being hard to reproduce on demand.

More about Professor Katrien Fransen

I talk about a podcast featuring the boat race, you can check that out here.

We spend a lot of time talking about Katrien’s paper: The impact of identity leadership on team functioning and well-being in team sport: Is psychological safety the missing link?

We also discuss Unlocking the Power of ‘Us’: Longitudinal Evidence that Identity Leadership Predicts Team 5 Functioning and Athlete Well-Being
Her website focuses on the services that she and her colleagues provide for organisations.

Katrien is the co-author (alongside former guest Alex Haslam and Filip Boen) of The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise: The Social Identity Approach

Transcript

Bruce Daisley: Thank you so much for joining me. I wonder if to kick off, you could introduce who you are and what you do. 

Katrien Fransen: Good afternoon. I’m Katrien Fransen. I’m a professor in leadership and coaching at KU Leuven. And my research mainly focuses on leadership in teams, so particularly the role of of peer leaders inside of teams and how they can influence team functioning performance and well. So most of my research has been conducted in sports teams because there are such a fascinating environment to study team dynamics, find, uh, but we’ve also looked at the same leadership processes in other contexts like organizations, academic teams, even walking groups in and what’s actually striking is that many of the same principles seem to apply across all these different settings.

Bruce Daisley: So we are gonna go into some specifics about sports teams, and you’ve bridged it a little bit there. when you are thinking about the application of discoveries in sport and applying them to the workplace, are there any health warnings that we need to have before we start considering these things? 

Katrien Fransen: I thought there would be like more major but whenever we look at the things of like leadership, of shared leadership of identity leadership in sports, but then also in organizations for example, we see that the same principle applies. So the same Yeah. Theoretical framework and its applications. Can be very worthwhile teams, organizations, but also in other context. 

Bruce Daisley: That’s quite helpful, isn’t it? Because I guess sport gives us a straight line where we can see results. Straight line, where we can see rapid evolution of practices. But if we up concluding that broadly these are human that we’re witnessing, sport gives us the opportunity to h house them to some extent. 

Katrien Fransen: Yes, that’s absolutely true. Absolutely right. We have for most sporting competitions, each a very clear win or loss. And those things might be less visible in organizations. I think might be a bit of a difference obviously, that people choose to belong to a and often they also choose to belong to work teams.

But some people might just do it to earn a living, for might not really feel they belong there or want to be there. Uh, and often if you have that in sports teams, it might be easier for them to quit and to go look for another team.

Bruce Daisley: We’re gonna go in depth and look at two papers in particular. And I’ve also linked to those papers and I’ve linked to your book in the show notes. I guess one of that really comes out from the work that you’ve done exploring this is that the notion that leadership a complex. That leadership is quite a complex idea to understand in that quite often when we’re thinking about leadership, we think about in sport, but quite often in your paper, the most effective leaders are actually not the people who are nominally the boss, but who have some sort of leadership role inside the team.

And I wonder if you could use. That to describe this idea of identity leadership and where leadership actually lives. 

Katrien Fransen: yeah, that’s absolutely right. And it’s a very good point that you’re making because if we think about leadership and leadership across all different kind of settings, whether, organizations or whether it’s in sports, we think about. The coach, we think about the manager, the CEO, et cetera. But what see from our research, and we’ve compared it quite a bit like the leadership of the coach and the leadership within the teams, is that actually the leaders teams have an. Absolutely incredible impact on a various number of things on the performance of their teams, on, on how they function on, on how they collaborate, even on the wellbeing of the people within the team.

So those, those leaders within the team. can definitely not be underestimated. Yep, that’s very correct. 

Bruce Daisley: I’d love to go in and explore that. So what do you we’re gonna go through the things that result from this, but what are the attributes that that build a that make be perceived as a leader? by their peers? I. 

Katrien Fransen: They’re quite different things and when we on what they expect from leaders, for example, from captain, they look at various number of behaviors. They say like, okay, them to give us technical advice, to, to make us play better on the team, to work better together, but.

We them to motivate us, make sure even if we are we still can be motivated do our job as good as possible, but we also need them to create a social atmosphere team to make sure we are a good group that hangs well together. And we also need them to represent us outside uh, to re represent the team to others to. Sponsors to media, for to the club management, et cetera. So we, um, a lot of different type of behaviors of the leaders. And actually we behaviors into four different leadership roles. So we have a task leader. Giving technical advice on the field. We have a motivational leader who’s really good in motivating them to do their utmost best. Um, we also have a social leader, um, who is responsible creating a good team atmosphere within the team. Also, a bit acting as a trusting person when some persons or players are in for example, Then they can help to it. And we have finally an external leader who is actually responsible for representing the team towards these outdoor parties, like club management sponsors, So these are a bit of the different leadership behaviors. And when you, when we think about leaders, we often only think about the task leadership aspect, like what they actually. Uh, do like giving advice to make the performance better, but what we see is that also these other leadership behaviors, leadership roles are very important.

So people can actually lead a big variety of ways. And each of these leadership roles is really important. 

Bruce Daisley: It strikes me that there’s a really interesting thing that we need to understand that’s often overlooked in the way that teams, in that some of these roles, motivational social leader, in many ways the, appointment of the team themselves. They you can’t, be appointed as the motivational leader quite often by a team.

You need to earn that position. You need to be perceived the group and this idea that a team.

Choose someone who represents them or can reenergize them in this way. It’s lost from the way that we think about management right now. A team will, a new team will be constructed or reorganized it will, and it will, a new, a team will be or constructed and it won’t take into account idea that someone previously was. Essential for motivation or someone was essential for making everyone laugh, and these things don’t seem to be adequately considered either in the world of sport or in the world of work. 

Katrien Fransen: Yeah, I think you make a splendid point there is that we often don’t look at those leadership behaviors or we don’t think about really appointing them, but I think there is exactly one of problems in utilizing the you have in the team because. If you ask people like, what do they expect from having a good team captain or a coach, et cetera, they mention all these behaviors. So what is actually happening is that we expect the formal leader of the team, whether it’s a coach, a captain, or um, a manager in the team to do all the, those leadership behaviors. And that’s actually, that’s just not possible. We actually have done a research sports context and we asked about, uh, 4,500 players and coaches like. To extent their captain was actually, um, the best leader across those four different leadership roles. So we asked who is the best leader?

Because we expect the team captain to provide technical advice. We expect the team captain motivate us when we are on the field, but also in the dressing room to make sure that there is like a good team atmosphere and when, for example, the press has to ask someone of the team to represent the team after the game.

That’s also often the team captain. So there’s a lot of pressure expectations from the But when we look in practice, that only in 1% of the teams, so one in a hundred teams, the team actually able to meet these expectations the other way around in almost half of the teams.

So us 44%. The team captain is not perceived as best leader, not in any of those leadership roles. So not on the field to give tactical advice, not to motivate the people, but also not off the field to create a good team atmosphere within the team or to EV even represent the team towards others. So really it is the leaders that are way more important than the team captain, for example, to actually do these leadership behaviors.

Bruce Daisley: It really springs to mind. I, did a podcast a few years ago now, which was talking about the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. I’m not even sure that you’ll have even heard of that outside of the uk, but there was a really interesting phenomenon I think the team in 2000 fired there. Their trainer, their coach, and they appointed someone else themselves.

And it was largely credited a really warm, entertaining, team member who was by no means the best in terms of the metrics, but he was like the the social leader, the motivational leader, in the team, and they just decided to reinstall this person into the team and to fire their manager. It was just a really interesting example of when the authority leader, when the named leader. doesn’t actually have the authority with a, in a group anyway, they ended up going on to, to win the boat race. But it was just a really interesting example for me places and often it’s a coincidence if those two, two things lie together, in fact, quite often. It’s because we often perceive a high performing is when someone is able to manage to both the motivational coach the nominal coach. It’s those rare instances where one individual manages to do that, but your research seems to suggest that’s by no means the norm. 

Katrien Fransen: No and I think, yeah, the issue is a bit that we always expect everything from the leader and it’s clear the leader is not able to do it. And we could say we have to do about the selection for of our team captain, of our formal leader, and make sure he really manages all of the different aspects.

I think there issues there. The first is it’s not really feasible because expect a very different talents of our leaders. We would expect them to, to master you know, the skills that make us perform at the same time, having the empathetic talents to create a good team atmosphere within the group, to have really good communication skills.

And way too much so it’s not feasible in one person to have. Each of these different things and yeah, when we expect those things that also means that other people within the team might not get the, the, support base might not be. Legitimized as leader. Now, the cases that you, you told of the boat team, for example, there, they really said now you’re the social leader.

And that also some credit and that person knows, is supported to provide that leadership and that will also help that person to perform better.

Bruce Daisley: I had love to get into some specifics. So this idea of we, us, of like us feeling like we’re all in this together. We’re part of an us, we’re thinking about the collective identity rather than our own individual identities. It’s, it sounds like the sort of idea we can relate to, and yet when you describe it to someone or when I would describe it to someone, it’s same.

It sounds so vague that it doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s something that you can replicate. What do you think the stages are? To create. What do you think the stages are to create that ness, to create that sense of gathering? Is it just about these different leadership roles? What would help someone to start feeling like they’re part of a group in this way? 

Katrien Fransen: I think the leadership there is an indeed a very important angle. Again and what you mentioned there, the importance of those leaders create awareness is really essential. those four different leadership roles, but if we look at what makes these leaders Exceptional leaders, then it’s exactly the creation of that, ness that really matters. It’s the extent to which they are identity leaders, the extent to which they, they are able to create that sense of belonging, that sense of team within the team, what makes them. Exceptional leaders. So if you ask what are the different steps I would return to yeah, the, the, four different dimensions of identity leadership that are distinguished in literature. So the first one is, is identity. is the idea of being one So that means, for example, that an, that an athlete leader off to the same extent peer leader, a, team member in organizations show what it. means to belong to the team, for by modeling it. by working the team values and trainings and practices.

Then as a second, advancement. It’s the idea of doing it for us. athlete leader actually stands up for by representing teammates interests when decisions are discussed with the coach, for example. Then as a third dimension, we identity entrepreneurship. The idea of creating a sense us, and that’s the athlete leader that builds the feeling that we are one team that create, creates that sense of we, of us by reminding teammates of the team’s shared goals and what the team stands for.

And then finally we also have identity imp pre ownership. It’s actually, yeah, bringing that team identity into practice, making us as a team matter. So it can by leaders creating moments where the team identity really comes alive. For example, by organizing activities or rituals, for example, team dinners, pre-game traditions, et cetera.

Really things that bring the team together. So it’s actually by those Aspects, uh, four dimensions of identity leadership that leaders not only become perceived as better leaders, but also create a big leverage for important team outcomes such as wellbeing, performance, and so on. 

Bruce Daisley: There’s this extraordinary penny drop moment in, in one of the papers I’ve linked and about today. And it’s related to the idea of psychological safety and psychological safeties is certainly in the last sort 15 years, it’s been probably one of the most widely discussed areas of Not least the original research by Amy Edmondson, but then I think the Google. Implementation. The project Aristotle certainly helped make it famous, but one thing, the interesting conundrums about psychological safety is that it’s been very difficult to direct people how to create it. To say that are the components and there’s this remarkable penny drop moment in your paper where I think. It’s like all ideas. Once it’s been established, it seems immediately and transparently obvious, but you describe that this weer is actually the entry point to psychological safety. The idea that we can have safe interpersonal communication between each other. We can explore, can ex, we can speak candidly without consequence.

The idea that all of these things actually are by weers, once the entry point, you to just explore that, with us these other things that I think the absence of weirdness can cause a consequence of, but this idea that. is the prerequisite for psychological safety. I don’t think it’s been widely reported me it’s such an important part of your research. Can you just describe, can you just describe to me the processes in that are taking place? 

Katrien Fransen: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. We found that in our and I thought it was very interesting too because a lot of Edmondson look at like the benefits of psychological safety. And know that if, athletes, if team members feel comfortable speaking up, asking for help. Admitting mistakes, but also like taking risks that has, this has, a lot of benefits for performance, for so we were actually curious and yeah, to look at like what are the antecedents and, and what makes a team, members feel psychological safe, and how we can help leaders in developing that psychological safety. So what we found was a team identification, sort feeling that people have. That they belong to a team, that a team is important for them that led to psychological safety. So in other words, it’s actually of Yeah. Of. Common belief and a shared confidence that all members, uh, concerted effort to do their best and, and to help the team to be successful. That’s actually a high team identification, that athletes also perceive that they can take risks, discuss problems, and, and engage in constructive conflict. Um, so yeah, this really helps. And also the fact that. Identity leadership, we know if we yeah, can help leaders to better identity leaders then that will, uh, increase the, the extent to which athletes or team members identify with their team.

So that is actually a very nice precursor because this is something that we can control, work on, would then lead to higher psychological safety with all its benefits after it.

Bruce Daisley: There’s an interesting bifurcation that you describe that when athletes or team members don’t necessarily feel respected considered. Part of a group, largely because of the coach’s actions, the leader’s act actions. That’s one of the things that can contribute towards burnout demotivation. That’s really interesting for me, the idea that sense of from the group, or in particular from the leader, is one of the things that activates burnout. Could you that for me and describe what you’re seeing there? 

Katrien Fransen: I it’s, it’s, what people also feel, whether it’s in a sports team as or, or an organization. If you don’t feel safe to risks, to, to make risks to voice your opinion, for yeah, you also don’t, don’t feel well and you might be more prone to, to as well, I think. The teams in really thrive are that they feel safe.

So they can take risks, they can try out new things, and even if they they won’t get punished immediately. So they will and try again, and that is the only way in which they can improve, get better individually and as a team as well. And that’s actually what we found in this model as well. 

Bruce Daisley: Because the thing that got me thinking in my head was I wonder me before the we the sense that I needed to feel like the coach. Cared for me, respected for me, that I mattered to the coach, that was an important entry point to then feeling part of the we. So it was, like me feeling seen as an individual was an entry point to then me feeling part of a group. you see it that way, or is just semantics? How do you see that 

Katrien Fransen: It is interesting. could be that it’s a bit of an antecedent but what I would say is more of, more often, uh, the other way around. So see in our research, but also some more research, around it, is going the other way around. So when leaders create a strong of we, of us in the team, people start to feel that they matter to that group.

Because what we do always, always, or nearly, nearly help Yeah. Works in context groups. Because suddenly at that point their contribution becomes meaningful bigger themselves. So rather than individual mattering being a Um, the shared identity often creates that feeling, I feel. So when people feel this is our team, naturally start thinking, my role here matters. So the identity can actually be, I think, the engine of it that generates that individual mattering.

Bruce Daisley: The interesting way that I would bring some anecdotal data to that is that quite often when you witness professional sports teams, the person who’s on the sidelines who maybe isn’t getting to play as much or maybe isn’t starting or maybe is an unused substitute. The fact that they don’t feel spot lit or they don’t feel like they’re getting attention or they don’t see that their contribution is as much to demotivate them.

And, the elite managers are the ones who really make those players feel a sense of me, of a sense of contribution, even if they’re, on. Pitch contribution isn’t as strong. So that was where I was specifically on that, 

Katrien Fransen: No. 

Bruce Daisley: in as much as the leader there could really try and amplify the group and celebrate the importance of the individual doesn’t necessarily feel like their own matter sense of mattering was important, it could be one of the things that serves to demotivate them. 

That was where my perspective was there. 

Katrien Fransen: Yeah, that’s great. And I think a ve a great example and something that yeah, really often happen and where leaders struggle with it is the people sitting on the Ben bench not enough or having the feeling that contribute. I think there is, it’s absolutely the key responsibility also for a leader to make sure that these um. Really perceive as being part of the team, and by being part of the team, they might also feel more valued. So this is really a relationship that I think can go Uh, even though there’s more evidence for like the pathway of, of yeah. Feeling as part of the team. And by doing so, also. Feeling that they matter if, if I think of own experience, I used to university here at K Luen for over a decade. And I think what made that team so special is that we had a very team, so we would. Train weekly, but then when there was a competition, also some elite players would join the team to make it better. Also members of Kai Lun couldn’t come to the weekly trainings. So that was actually a situation where we had yeah, a team with a lot of bench players training every week, but still you needed to keep them motivated, even if they knew they wouldn’t be playing at the major competitions.

So at that time to invest a lot of. At that time I was not doing my PhD and my research, so I, I didn’t know how to label it, but when looking back, that was actually the thing that make a difference to really invest in that leadership in creating rituals, making sure that everyone was feeling really part of the team, whether they played or not.

But comes with really emphasizing that, for example, at games even. If like only a core set of players played and won the championship for us, that we would say this is really the merit of the entire team. And everyone whether it was on the field or whether it was on the sidelines, to give feedback to motivate the other players.

So I do think that as a leader and it becomes, yeah. Especially true in in the dimension of identity leadership that as I told you before, that really making us matter. So when leaders create moments where the team identity really. Comes alive by organizing rituals, team dinners, traditions.

Yeah, those shared experience actually reinforce the feeling that this group matters and that each person’s roles within it matters too, so that they, feel that they matter, that they are seen. 

Bruce Daisley: I’m interested in sort of the things that might serve to undermine identity leadership. Of the things that you’ve described is like this idea, it’s a touch jargony, but this idea of, the idea that the leader feels like one of us. And I think in all manner of places leader doesn’t feel like one of us. In sport. in professional sport. the leader can feel a long way away from us. It can feel like elevated or in work. Wage inequality be something that makes the leader feel like they’re operating in a completely different economy to us. What are the things that serve that that, prototypicality, that sense that the leader is one of us.

Katrien Fransen: Yeah good question. I think there are, yeah, quite a lot of ways in which you can undermine the team identity. It’s basically by doing the yeah, thinking, for example, in terms of your own benefits. And I think that happens So for example, someone wants to make a promotion and would ask that much of to get that promotion for his individual benefit.

But that would not about. To be like, as a team, how can we perform better? But also like, how can I help you as my employees, for example, to perform better as a team and to make fe everyone feels well. So I think thinking of their own benefits instead of, uh, those of the team is a very important one.

Bruce Daisley: One of the things that often is a trigger of identity, especially in close knit team, if we’re thinking of sort of groups of, seven to 20 people, one of the things that often signals whether people are in group is humor. Whether people get in jokes, whether people know which things are funny or which origin are sort of part of the legend of a team. Do you see that as something that’s culturally universal or is that just specific to certain is that just an Anglo-Saxon lens or a British lens that I’m, I’m applying to that. Are things like humor an important part of team identity?

Katrien Fransen: I think it could be one of the things, it could be one key value a certain team identity, but I think team identities also have very. Different natures. For example, other team identities could be like, you know, we’re all really putting in as much effort as we can or, we are known because we persevere when things get difficult. and even in those difficult.

situations, we still stand each other and motivate each other. So I’ve a, a, couple of different teams, like in sport teams, but also in organizations and, and one of the exercises from our leadership program that we then actually do with the people. think about their values. It’s like what makes your team unique and what key, key norms and values that, that we want to model as a team? And humor could, could definitely of them. For some teams that might even be the that really unites them. But at other teams it could be entirely different values and as as it has meaning is important for that particular team.

It doesn’t really matter what those values are, and it might be different for each of the teams. So I don’t think it would help for a team that might not be so humorous or not share the same humor to really, impose that top down. It’s really important that it comes bottom up, what is important for the team, and then we can further strengthen those things. 

Bruce Daisley: You described something interesting there, so you know when you’re create this or embed this or train this, and asking a team to articulate what’s unique about them, it requires a degree of team formation before they can articulate that. You can’t ask a team that’s freshly assembled, standing in a line, meeting each other for the first time. describe to us what’s unique about them in anything other than aspirational sense. And I suspect these things work best when they’re not aspirational. We’re gonna be the best team ever, but rather memory and learned experience. Do you just talk about, I’m interested in the idea that you might teach this, train this, develop this. Do you wanna talk about the process and the stages that you would consider when you’re trying to embed this, 

Katrien Fransen: Yeah. So you’re right. I think the timing is, is an important one. But it’s also not just a one-time thing, so it’s a bit of a recurrent process. So if you can start early with it, I think to build the team as well. It’s a bit the same as, as you know, with our leadership, for example, at the very start of the season, we might have new players.

So people cannot really assess the qualities of the new incoming players. do is to wait a bit like after. A few months in the season, for example, they have had their preparation, they have had their practice games, some competition games as well. And I think that would be a very good moment to start.

So what would be the different phases there? Is that, um. As I said, it’s not just a coach, it’s definitely just a captain, but it’s really an another layer of informal leadership that we really want to capture and make the um, what we do is we ask all of the players to rate the leadership of the other players. So that can be as a task leader, but we the motivational leadership of each of their teammates and so on. And with this information we can actually some visual networks that, uh, visualize the leadership structure within the team. So that makes it very clear, like who actually is in the center of that leadership network, regardless of roles of vice captain, et cetera. But who is the real task leader in the team? Who is motivational leader, et cetera. And based on that, we actually implement the structure of shared leadership. So we really appoint the best task leaders, the best motivational leadership and leaders and so on. And then in the next phase of the program, we would actually train those leaders how to become better identity leaders.

Bruce Daisley: That’s interesting. I think when I read that in your paper, that’s done anonymously initially. Is that right? That people they rank their colleagues initially without everyone knowing what the scores were. 

Katrien Fransen: Yeah. That’s right. And we do that on purpose, and I think it’s an important aspect because you could, discuss it openly in the group, but what you’ll probably hear here is the loudest voices. What you not might not hear is the, people really think but don’t dare to speak up because their captain or vice captain is on the room in the room, difficult then to say, I’m really not behind you. So we feel that we get the most honest answers when organizing it in an individual anonymous way. 

Bruce Daisley: seek to try and develop, enhance what they’re already telling you. Is there. 

Katrien Fransen: Yes, that’s right. It might be there to a certain level, but what we often see is that people that are not assigned as a leader they don’t Yeah. Dare They’re to demonstrate that leadership because they think it might not be accepted by their team members or, or, they’re afraid they’re missing the, the support base, or it’s not allowed from the captain or the coach. Actually, from my own experience be, story there. I used to play in volleyball team quite a long time ago. And it was on, yeah, nearly elite level. So we played at a quite high level. we had a captain there. The captain was really one of the the four roles as I discussed.

There was to a certain degree, informal leadership in the team at the time. So I could say I the task leader because at that point, my master in movement sciences. I had almost the highest. Degree in training, so even a Degree as my coach. so it was only logical when the coach had some questions about choices.

For example, he would come to me and for advice, but at that point it was not really accepted by the team members all the time because I would think like, why would you go to Catherine? Why would you not go to the captain? Obviously the captain had not at all the tactical insight. But it was very difficult for me to actually do my role, even if I wanted it, even if I dare to do it.

It was just not possible because it was not accepted by the teammates. And then the next year actually the captain was, yeah, she had to leave, uh, the team because she was not playing that well. And that was the first time that people actually thought about like, oh, we don’t have a captain, we should, could, um, should, choose one because. the captain that left, she had always been the captain. So the question was never asked before, whether good choice or not. Then the team chose, I was lucky to become, uh, as the team captain and I noticed myself the immense difference. So once I got that formal leadership position, Everything that was not just accepted, it was also expected. So that meant that I also could do way more with the expertise that I had so I could really feel the difference when you do have the qualities, but you’re not nominated leader versus when you actually are nominated, and more importantly, when you’re nominated based yeah, the support base that you have in the team. 

Bruce Daisley: One of the things that becomes clear as you’re talking for me is that the, these processes require a sense of group and a sense of collective attention, really, that, we’ve gotta think about things. We’re go watch the dynamics and some application of this to the nature of contemporary work. Quite often we’re preoccupied, we’re doing other things, we’re distracted. We’re not necessarily giving full attention to things. We’re doing other things. at the same time. And it strikes me that actually intentional efforts of team building, the intentional efforts of trying to form a, we maybe neglected by a lot of leaders.

They’re not giving enough time to, these. Often seemingly unproductive things of just people getting to know each other, people interacting with each other. People may be disagreeing with each other. And I just wonder you are thinking about the applications work to the world of knowledge work, people sitting on Zoom calls all day is, there anything about the attention required to do this effectively you think about 

Katrien Fransen: I think there might be different stages there. I think you raise excellent, points. Sometimes when I talk about it with people, it’s they don’t know Historically, focused on the focused on the job of a leader and the formal leader, then the manager, CEO, we all know that it’s important.

We expect a lot of leadership behaviors, but we just have not consciously thought about the other options that people within the team can also contribute. I might even. Contribute more than the coach. So I think there’s a lack of knowledge that plays a part. I often hear when, for example, coaches follow some medication I gave, they say, Hey, know I’ve never thought about it.

That’s right. Now I think about it. My, my captain is just and already the captain for five years, 10 years. And we just never thought about it, whether it the right choice or whether there would be other leaders that might do like a way better job. So that’s a bit of an eye-opener sometimes, and that might help.

At the other hand, we’re all super busy. We never have time for anything, so we just focus on the. Priorities are the that we see. And those are often, yeah the things, the task aspects that need to happen at that point. Um, so it, the whole team building yeah. Experience or the time should be invested in that team building.

Might be a radar. and I agree that that’s a real if we see also from our research, the impact that you can get from really harnessing potential within your from really that, that shared feeling of and us for both, both, not just for feeling well, what people often think. But also for really performance that a team will perform better when you invest time in yeah, that, that’s a pity and I would definitely advise leaders to make more time for it because it’ll definitely benefit you in the end. 

Bruce Daisley: I’d love to think about those two. I’d love to impact specifically, which is sort of what comes from what you said there. I wanna think about it in two. ways actually. Firstly, of of work.

And so, you know what I’d love you to explore notions of resilience or notions team. Energization, like the, the emotional impact of work. I’d also separately love to explore impact in terms of results Is sense that a group that has this sense weirdness, this cohesion, this bond is producing better results. C, could we go through those in turn? So firstly, whether it’s resilience, whether it’s psychological safety, the outputs of feeling like a cohesive Are there any things that you think. We are not necessarily about enough or would you ascribe resilience an output of this, for example? 

Katrien Fransen: Yes. Resilience is definitely one of the outcomes. I think across our works, we have investigated really a number of different outcomes. We’ve looked at team cohesion, resilience, subjective performance, the actual performance, the wellbeing parameters like an health, a lower burnout, just feeling better, et cetera. Those are all different outcomes that we have found that team identification. There’s also, if I think about one of my practice examples is that we’ve worked with an elite level rugby team within Australia, and after going through that program. the coach came to us and said, you know, in all these years that I’ve coached the teams, actually this year, something specific happened. It’s like there wasn’t an in-group conflict had not followed the that were set within the team. And normally he said those people would always come to me and ask me to, as a coach, to and solve it. But this was the first time that actually the leaders that were appointed. Really yeah. responsibility and solved it, within the team itself, which is actually much more strong, strong for a coach as well. It’s a huge benefit when people Yeah. Will, will try to resolve things with within the team. It really makes the team So I think that’s also really one of the, the benefits, not just from creating that, that. Uh, shared sense of team identity, but also from creating that, uh, shared, shared, leadership structure empower those leaders within the team. if you do it based on like the support base of the team, they really feel is accepted by the team, what they do. So they will dare to, be leaders and, and to, do more of their But it’s also expected. So also in difficult situations see that those leaders stand up. And I think that’s the biggest difference compared to when you just on your informal leadership structure. It all goes well when everything is well You know, in sport teams, when you’re ahead, all the team members will motivate each other, give some technical advice, et cetera, and it’s all But when we. Get the to the problematic situations, the difficult situations. Then you see that you all get those isolated islands and there’s no one that at those difficult times will still stand up and take lead. And I think when implementing a real structure of shared leadership. Dividing those responsibilities, you’ll get a whole different situation and people will still take up their responsibilities even when times are tough and you’ll get on the sports teams.

But I also strongly believe that will hold for organizations as well. 

Bruce Daisley: And so let’s round off. In terms of my main questions, The idea of evidence, of impact of this, have seen a direct line through to results of teams channeling this, does to greater effectiveness? I know, if all it does is makes teams might say, 

So far but, so irrelevant is there evidence that you’ve got that this cohesiveness, this sense of has a straight line through to better results? 

Katrien Fransen: And I think that’s something that we not just found in one study, really seen across of different studies. We found it in cross-sectional work, but we’ve also done some experiments for example, where we asked leaders to, show high confidence in team, really show that they believe in what the team could do in and the other side when they really.

Uh, lot of like negative leaders, and we really see in terms of performance that when the leader is confident that confidence travels, around the team and that makes players score as much free throws as in the other situation. We’ve also compared rugby Australia, absolute elite level of, of rugby teams. we’ve seen there that if. They have more leaders. They have better leaders. will also identify stronger, but we could also see this reflected the end classification, in the ranking of the competition of those teams. So we really have some very strong effects on the objective performance as well, not just feeling better.

But also functioning better as a team, being more cohesive working better as a team, being more resilient when things get tough. And all those things together leads also to a better performance.

Bruce Daisley: It’s so interesting an outsider who’s endlessly fascinated with social identity theory and the findings of this, the, results are continually so robust that it’s just astonishing that isn’t necessarily regarded as right at the heart of mainstream thinking in all these areas.

You know, you’ll talk about psychological safety, but they won’t necessarily do the joined up thinking of saying social identity is something that contributes 

To psychological safety and you know that final step isn’t there. I end up when I read through papers like yours, reading these tests, I think, that’s so fascinating and I’d love to, love know the interest that I have is if money was no for you as a researcher, would you be trying to research? What would you be trying to, What different methodologies would you be trying to think of to try and make this stuff more impactful and stand out more? 

Katrien Fransen: I think on the research side, we’ve already done a lot of research that provides yeah, very convincing evidence. And that’s not just our work. I think like groups of Haslam, Kat Haslam, they have done a terrific job. There is Met Slater, cetera. So there. A whole research community that has delivered a lot of great research evidence. I think what still needs to can be happen more is actually to bring it into practice. And I think, for example, you with your podcast, and, and, having interviewed people like Alex Jeremy Holt, et cetera, I think that really helps in, in bringing the message to the people. It should not only in research articles, no, it should be really practiced. Field and people that, that try to translate those feelings those research insights into practice, I think that’s massively important. 

Bruce Daisley: I am so grateful that you took the time to talk to me today. I’ve linked to a lot of the stuff that we’ve discussed in the show notes, including your book that you wrote with Alex. But I’m immensely grateful. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to someone who isn’t in the field, but greatly appreciative of. 

Katrien Fransen: Thank you very opportunity as feel humble and honorable, but also I, I really like that you are making in yeah, getting those research insights from these articles and really try and make them work within practice. I think that’s really for the field. So we are really thankful to you. 

Bruce Daisley: linked to your website and the work you do with organizations, you work with companies you work with a manner of different teams. So what sort of things should people get in touch if they’re interested in exploring? 

Katrien Fransen: I think we do have a leadership expertise center leading insights you have put. The website there. I think what we try to do is one, not make any I think it’s very clear don’t earn a thing of it. Our main aim is basically sure also the insights can be used in practice. all our research articles are there. You find lot of information But also how to implement the structure of shared leadership within your team. How to strengthen the team identity, that feeling of belonging. If you are interested, I’d say go and have a look and you’ll find much there.

Bruce Daisley: I’m so immensely grateful. Thank you. 

Katrien Fransen: Thank you very much.