I am a Psychological Safety and LGBTQ+ Inclusion Consultant and Trainer with almost 25 years of experience working for multinational corporations, Fortune 500s, TV, film, radio and the global press. Pioneering the field of Psychological Safety for more than 14 years, I am also the Founder and CEO of the Psychological Safety Institute.
With an early career in education as an FE teacher in the workplace, and having worked with some of the most dangerous ex-offenders in Northern England, I have in-depth and direct experience working with physical, mental and psychological safety. I know first-hand the pressures and challenges that people face in the workplace, having experienced both a safe and unsafe work environment myself.
At just 22 years old, I was teaching people who had committed crimes involving drugs, alcohol, violence, theft, criminal damage and sexual abuse. My workplace was a hostile, aggressive and nerve-wracking environment, but at the same time my protection, safety and well-being were taken very seriously by my employer from day one. It had to be, given the potentially life-threatening nature of the job.
Two years later, I moved into teaching adults in the workplace for a college, where I experienced an intense period of bullying, daily harassment and intimidation for being gay from my manager. The contrast between these two different work environments was striking.
When I reported these incidents, providing evidence through emails and communications, I was shocked to learn that the woman involved was promoted while I was instructed not to pursue the case further, as it would reveal my sexual orientation to colleagues. The whole situation had a dramatic impact on my physical, mental and psychological health, which in turn affected my performance at work.
My own life experiences and personal challenges are why I am on a mission to cultivate workplaces where people thrive – through creating safer, more open, inclusive working environments where ALL employees feel safe to bring their Authentic Self to work.
I believe we all have the right to feel safe at work. Recognising that there is no legislation in place to promote and enhance psychological safety in the workplace, my aim is to lobby the Government to introduce psychological safety legislation, to bring about worldwide change and protection for employees. Since this protection doesn’t currently exist, I have been working for the past 14 years with CEOs, senior leadership teams and HR teams to educate, support and advise on how to nurture psychological safety in individual teams and across organisations.
To collect the data needed to lobby the Government, I developed a powerful psychological safety diagnostic tool that we use at the Psychological Safety Institute to measure psychological safety in workplaces, with advice from researchers at the University of Cambridge. Data is being collated from organisations worldwide to build up a picture of the levels of psychological safety in workplaces. Not only does this give us the data we need, but leaders are understanding for the first time how psychologically safe their organisations are, as assessed by their employees, as well as receiving recommendations to create a safer workplace. This information has a huge global impact on equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging.
Represented by the UK’s leading Speakers Bureau, Raise The Bar, I have spoken on stages around the world. I was awarded Speaker of the Year in 2015, after delivering speeches and presentations internationally to global organisations and their employees.
My work has been featured in the media including; Sky News, BBC Radio, Forbes, The Telegraph, Huffington Post, Psychologies, Cosmopolitan, The Times, Metro, Pink News, Vice, Gay Star News, Diva and Curve.
I was also honoured to advise ITV and BBC on LGBT+ related issues and I continue to do that to this day. I have steadily built a global following on LinkedIn with 20,000+ followers and have a reach of over 150,000 on social media platforms, where I challenge and speak up about inclusion and belonging issues to a global audience.
I am also a best-selling Author of “The Authentic Organization”, published by Wiley, and “Beat The Biscuit Tin Blues”.
