{"id":498,"date":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/finding-the-link-between-psychological-safety-and-personal-development\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:01","slug":"finding-the-link-between-psychological-safety-and-personal-development","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/finding-the-link-between-psychological-safety-and-personal-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Link Between Psychological Safety and Personal Development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Feb 09, 2021 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Finding the Link Between Psychological Safety and Personal Development<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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Principal Stuart Worden explains how the BRIT School cultivates a sense of safety that allows its students to express their creativity in a consequence-free development environment.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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Social issues have increasingly come to the fore and, like most sports organisations, the BRIT School was quick to recognise their significance.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

Each year, the world-renowned performing arts and technology school, whose alumni include music artists Amy Winehouse and Adele, as well as Hollywood actor Tom Holland, organises a Little People\u2019s Day for infants in its local community in Selhurst, south London. In 2020, the event was forced online due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went online to provide a creative space for everyone to talk about prejudice for people to talk about social justice, there was a lot of opportunity to for students to discuss what Black Lives Matter meant to them,\u201d says Stuart Worden, the BRIT School\u2019s Principal.<\/p>\n

In September, Worden, a former Leaders speaker<\/u><\/a>, appeared on the Leaders Performance Podcast as part of the Leaders Performance Institute\u2019s State of Play Series<\/u><\/a>. \u201cThe people spoke and it was a great day of celebration, of using arts and creativity to talk about the social circumstances,\u201d he tells co-hosts Michael Caulfield and Matthew Stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn adversity, young people usually have the answers – they\u2019re amazing, they\u2019re extraordinary, if the conditions for their creativity are there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this edited excerpt, we reflect on Worden and the BRIT School\u2019s efforts to provide an environment that gives their pupils an opportunity to express themselves and risk failing in their pursuit of creativity and development.<\/p>\n

Stuart, you once suggested that leaders should \u2018start with kindness, then encourage adventure\u2019. Do you believe that kindness can bring that much adventure, and courage and help to develop young people?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

SW:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll always believe in that because I think even poverty comes second to bullying as the absolute obstacle to young people being able to be a success and be the person they want to be. Bullying can take many forms; it can take physical bullying, verbal bullying, it can take structural bullying e.g. a school that is set up not to help a child. When bullying is reduced and when it\u2019s removed as an obstacle in the environment in which you exist, everything becomes more possible.<\/p>\n

Kindness, by the way, doesn\u2019t mean \u2018soft\u2019. It is very kind to turn around to a dancer and say \u2018I\u2019m afraid to say your ballet isn\u2019t good enough.\u2019 That\u2019s kind because it allows that dancer to say \u2018cool, great, I need to work on that\u2019. Kindness isn\u2019t just about hugging and forgiveness, it\u2019s also about truth, but it\u2019s the way that it\u2019s done with heart rather than sometimes aggression. So kindness, I do believe in it, we have seen it during lockdown, we\u2019ve seen extraordinary things. Kindness becomes confusing when it\u2019s seen as the soft option and it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s actually very difficult.<\/p>\n

For example, when a child messes up in a school, they will often be excluded from that school in a way like a footballer might be sent home if they mess up in training. That is an easy option; send the problem away, cast it aside. It is much harder, as a leader, to say, \u2018actually, we need to work with this and we need to face this challenge rather than just chuck it out of the room\u2019.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t take stock with the idea of \u2018be tough on people, it will help them\u2019. There is an alternative to that, which is to be clear, kind and honest with people and authentic. I do believe it can move mountains of relief for young people who are so battered by structural bullying and individual bullying, whether that\u2019s societal or individuals.<\/p>\n

The adventure thing, just to move that along, is that you can make adventures because you don\u2019t feel threatened or judgement. If you\u2019re given freedom in the theatre room then you can probably create extraordinary things; if you think the teacher is going to belittle you or humiliate you or be deeply critical in public with you, then you\u2019re never going to take risks. And if we don\u2019t take risks as artists and as humans then nothing ever changes, it just stays the same.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often thought with sportspeople they must be terrified, they must be full of fear. I think fear needs to be removed in order for expression to take place. It\u2019s not a bad thing but it\u2019s about how it\u2019s shaped and who\u2019s in control of that fear.<\/p>\n

What qualities do you see in young people? You\u2019ve spoken of teenagers developing big ideas and being rebellious in nature.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

SW:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0What I see is the excitement of the changing possibilities that teenagers are confronted with and the reason why the BRIT School doesn\u2019t have a uniform is because it doesn\u2019t make any sense to have a uniform in an arts school. I don\u2019t think it makes a lot of sense anyway. I know people say it\u2019s a big point but it\u2019s actually a small point. At the time where you\u2019re trying to figure out who you are why would you close that down by telling people to wear that tie or to have your hair like that and not to wear the earrings that you want to wear? I cannot see the point of closing that down; it denies self-growth, it denies identity, it denies questioning. I\u2019ve been at schools where students are told off not for wearing brown shoes but the wrong<\/i><\/em>\u00a0type of brown. Where have we got to that that\u2019s a critical point in a teacher\u2019s day? I don\u2019t get it, don\u2019t want it, don\u2019t accept it.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have bells at BRIT because everyone can read the time; I think the bell at the start of the day is a Victorian workhouse idea, which means that children believe they are different in different settings. \u2018At home I can be an individual or on the street or in my youth club, but in school a bell rings and I\u2019ve got to become a defined version of myself.\u2019 Although I do believe in rules, you can\u2019t get more rules than you get in the music practice room because there are rules of music and there are rules of dance, but stifling a young person because there\u2019s too many restrictions is unhelpful.<\/p>\n

How important is trust for your pupils?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

SW:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0I think it\u2019s hard to create good art in a group environment without trust. When you sing a song and you sing about how you feel, you\u2019re really exposing yourself. You\u2019re saying \u2018I miss my dad, I\u2019m going to sing a song to him after he left.\u2019 If you do that, you have to trust that the room is going to be with you through that process and, if you do a painting or you\u2019re one of our games designers and you design a character for a game, you have to trust that the people around you are going to support that creativity. Trust is essential. We don\u2019t really like to lock too many doors here because you\u2019ve got to have access. You can come and drum here at seven in the morning and no one is going to bust or steal the drum kit because why would they? It\u2019s their place of work.<\/p>\n

I want to be absolutely clear that this is a very disciplined school, there are behaviour codes and practices; all of that is followed and even if you\u2019re late, you get told off. This isn\u2019t some kind of boho experiment. This is the real deal, but young people, by their very nature, are very polite; as soon as you close the door on them and say you can\u2019t go in there, you\u2019ve asked them to lock that door over. I think that\u2019s probably not a great idea.<\/p>\n

How do you encourage young people to take risks and not be afraid to fail in public?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

SW:<\/b><\/strong> Pretty much all great art is surrounded by failure. If you listen to an artist like Nick Cave, it might have taken him 12 albums to hit his form. Longevity in the arts is something that sport doesn\u2019t have where I guess everything\u2019s compressed. But the theory of risk is that it will always happen when it\u2019s surrounded by encouragement and someone that will hold you. Risk will take place all day long if people think they\u2019re going to be held when it doesn\u2019t quite work; when they know they won’t be laughed at or humiliated.<\/p>\n

It might be quite unusual for a footballer to hear the word \u2018beauty\u2019, I don\u2019t know, but it is actually what gets us up in the morning, whether it\u2019s persons we love or the music we listen to or the trees or sunlight. Genuinely beauty does take place in sport. It\u2019s extraordinary watching a great runner like Usain Bolt. It\u2019s an act of beauty; and that\u2019s what\u2019s so gorgeous about youth is that they don\u2019t care as much as the adults; they\u2019re foolish and reckless and long may that continue. If anything, if youth is encouraged to be more reckless and youth encouraged to be more childlike and love play a bit more, it would help.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to play at the moment or to improvise. It\u2019s the greatest thing for an artist to improvise; just carry on, see where it gets you. I\u2019m not know how similar that is in sport, the idea of improvising. There\u2019s nothing more rewarding and successful than play; you\u2019re playing in industry, you\u2019re playing in sport, or you\u2019re playing with an idea. It\u2019s only through play that you will discover it, that\u2019s for sure. It\u2019s hard to continue that but it\u2019s essential that it\u2019s understood.<\/p>\n

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Listen to the full interview:<\/em><\/p>\n