There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon Johnson

Belonging goes to the heart of our existence as humans. It’s a foundational layer of the Maslow hierarchy and it explains why Covid was so hard for so many. We know the WhatsApp groups to which we virtually belong, while at school, attendance – the most basic measure of the social contract – is in crisis.

Here are four steps to help build belonging for staff in our schools and Trusts.

Belonging #1 Meeting & Sharing
What I thought then:
I believed regular Teams catch ups and virtual CPD sessions would help people feel connected. I thought system leadership meant we come together when either there is something we need, or where there is something we do which we feel is good enough to share. With the former, we gain and improve our practice; and with the latter it helps confirm who we are (‘our identity’) as we tell our stories to outsiders. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it only goes so far. Here, the lens is focused on us and our performance, instead of the depth of the problem.

Peer review is a perfect example of this: I suspect 80% of our energy in peer reviews is focused on ‘how good will we look?’  and only 20% on ‘how can we solve this problem together.’

What I know now:
We need to meet. Edward Hallowell (Harvard Medical School) speaks of the basic human need for connectedness and community: “We need face-to-face interaction; we need to be seen and known and served and do the same things for others.”

This year we’ve intentionally arranged lots of face-to-face get-togethers. We invited all our chairs of governors together to a face-to-face gathering recently – talked about our plans for the year and we listened to each other. This Friday we met with our headteachers and SENCOs and Trustees to think together about our inclusion strategy. We shared experiences and learnt from each other, then had time to reflect and think how best to apply it into our own context. I hope we are listening to each other a little more, to find out what people really need. I hope we can create a sweet spot where the learning environment and the belonging environment meet.

But what these get-togethers also enable us to do is to gather, eat and drink, and connect further than the transactional metric of email. It’s the place where unexpected conversations and unforced sharing can bear fruit. I smile as colleagues warmly greet each other for the first time for weeks, share honestly in friendly but focused meetings, generate ideas and hatch plans which could not otherwise have taken place, but for being physically together.

Listening to Jennifer Barker (Dean of Learning Design at Ambition Institute) recently taught me more about what real system leadership could be. I think at its best it’s more of a symbiotic relationship, and it may begin with a degree of honesty with which I am only just comfortable. We will never truly belong together you and I, until we allow each other to see what we are struggling with. Where I hear your pain and you see my soft underbelly. Anything less than this open-hearted exchange is simply business as usual.

Belonging #2 Holding and Backing
What I thought then: I once worked with a team who were simply watching and waiting for me to fail. Every time I got something wrong – each miscommunication, or presentation glitch, or decision which didn’t land – was like a ticking clock on my time with them. The feeling was like the scaffolding being pulled from under your self-esteem. This only happened once in my career, and I was lucky that I had a boss who could see what was going on, but it has been branded in my memory. It serves as my personal reminder for how not to look after newcomers.

What I know now: Remembering how you were made to feel, can become the primary lesson in helping you support others. Never underestimate the power of the psychological safety you provide for your team in enabling others to fully flourish. When you know you are professionally held, this enables you to perform your challenging role without fear. For leaders, it means being there for people, available in the key moments. I’d say in no other leadership situation is the phrase ‘you cannot over-communicate,’ more true. I need to operate from the security that I am safe doing this work, with people right behind me and a team I can trust. Only then can I begin to shed the self-protection mode I throw on most of the time. Being held helps me lose my exoskeleton more quickly.

It also means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues before, during and after inspection. While yet making it abundantly clear that it’s not all about inspection.

But it also helps me improve my school. Let me explain. When you want things to shift, leaders will ask colleagues to work in a different way. If it’s teaching, you may expect better planning, if it’s behaviour you may impose clearer standards for pupils, if it’s parents you may demand more support. The most effective leaders balance these raised expectations with increased levels of support, and put people and resources around their colleagues to support this shift. Inevitably there will be push-back, but the knowledge that  people are right behind you means you have the confidence to stick to your guns in the interests of children and not pull back.

Belonging #3 Listening & Moving
What I thought then: Listening means running a staff survey or a 360 review – this is the way to gauge the temperature of how people are doing.

What I know now: Because I want people I work with to belong, I work hard to listen to people properly and helping others to do the same. Then I try to respond by moving towards them, and then do something practical. This whole package is what Brené Brown calls ‘extreme listening’.

Most staff surveys get filed. Real listening means moving beyond any survey data and physically leaning in to hear the issues properly. It means moving my position to be nearer, to hear exactly where they are coming from. It might mean driving over to them rather than expecting them to come to me. Team meetings are good for many things. But when someone needs to be heard and understood, it needs to be on their own turf and face-to-face. And when most of the words are theirs.

Sometimes belonging means facing bad news head on. Accepting the pain on behalf of others. Sufian Sadiq, Director of Chiltern Learning Partnership Teaching School calls this taking a beating. Will I go and see someone who is frustrated and in pain, will I listen to parents of a child with SEND who’s had a bad deal? Will I drive to hear difficult feedback about something I got wrong? Did I notice that member of staff who’s had a rubbish week covering X for 5 days on the trot and I never thanked them?

Taking a beating on someone else’s behalf may feel like you have lost face but, in my experience, this simply lets the people you’re working alongside know your loyalty to them. You are demonstrating that this relationship is more important to you than your own pride.

We could call all of this feedback – it’s important information, and it’s what prompts you to reconnect where you haven’t. This prompts me to want to visit more, to remember the names of staff, to find out something personal about a colleague, to begin to try to walk in their shoes. At our best, we become part of the team, sense-checking and listening for the message of what people need help with next.

But, as Dan Morrow, CEO of Dartmoor MAT reminded me recently, guard against turning this data into some sort of RAG-rated spreadsheet. Instead, just let it makes you more human. For example, how I will I choose to allocate my time differently now I know this? How I will alter decisions to support my team? How I will email, phone, visit? How I will keep at the forefront of my brain that, while we have to keep improving our schools, there’s the cost of living crisis, and my colleagues have rents and mortgages to pay, families to feed and personal lives to lead so that they will thrive. What is my part is in this life-equation? When I begin to understand how I lead in this space, this is the beginning of cherishing those in my organisation, the beginning of belonging. We belong together because your joy is my joy, your pain my pain.

Belonging #4 Hiring and Checking in
What I thought then: A strong advert, interview and an enthusiastic induction are the ingredients for a good recruitment. I thought colleagues must go through a period of induction before the game really begins.

What I know now: One flaw in many organisations is that people who join after a dynamic interview and an enthusiastic welcome, are left underwhelmed by a lack of support beneath the promises. Against this inauthenticity of over-promise and under-deliver, they leave.

Once they’re with us, it’s easy to take for granted a new colleague. But what support is really happening for a new recruit six months into their contract? Do we cover our Early Career Teachers in cotton wool and then leave them hanging in their third and fourth year in teaching?

From day 1 as a new recruit, I’d want to know:
* I’m valued, appreciated and my opinions and contributions matter and are respected
* When you recognise me at my best you tell me, and when you see me when I’m struggling you reach out. I know you’ve got my back
* I’m included in meetings (you see beyond my inexperience), and I’m involved in the decision-making of things that matter (like hiring a close colleague)

These leadership behaviours help me feel valued and included. Sometimes the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion can seem a little cool, too objective, like you are doing this to check you’ve got your policy in order. Whereas when we think more about real belonging, it can mean you might actually do something practical about it. Like ask myself how representative are our leaders, governors and trustees of the communities we serve? Or, think more about the individuals in our teams, staff meetings and committees who are most likely to feel least connected and least-included. That I need to work harder to hear from these people, interact with them, sit next to them in meetings.

When I feel an authentic sense of belonging at work, I know that there’s more than one person looking out for me, checking in on me, and I sense this shared responsibility being talked about. It helps me feel more engaged, more confident and more secure. It brings the best out in me. And this is good for the organisation: when I know the feeling of belonging, I’m do my best work, and may go above and beyond. Ultimately, I’m more likely to stay. And something else happens of course: I’ll talk to others about what it’s really like to work here.