Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture We-ness: The secret cause of Psychological Safety
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Mar 14, 2026 Katrien Fransen, professor of leadership and coaching at KU Leuven who studies identity and shared leadership in teams, talks about how shared “we-ness” shapes psychological safety. She explains informal peer leaders, the four leadership roles, and how identity leadership builds belonging and team resilience. Practical steps for mapping and training peer leaders are discussed.
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Informal Peer Leaders Drive Team Functioning
- Formal captains rarely cover all leadership needs; in only about 1% of teams does the captain meet all role expectations.
- Informal peer leaders often provide the task, social and motivational leadership that teams actually rely on.
Identity Leadership Is A Controllable Pathway To Safety
- Identity leadership increases team identification, which then increases psychological safety.
- This pathway makes identity leadership a controllable antecedent of psychological safety with downstream performance and wellbeing benefits.
We Produces Me Rather Than Me Producing We
- Shared team identity often creates individual mattering rather than the other way around.
- When people see the team as 'our' endeavour, individual contributions feel meaningful to something bigger.
