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If you are a leader or manager of any organisation, one of your key roles is to lead its culture.  Safe cultures are vital for staff and organisational performance, and achieving goals, as well as wellbeing and welfare.  Get your culture right, by investing time in its management, and success will follow.

It’s hard to believe it has been 10 years since unsafe culture was discovered at Little Ted’s nursery in Plymouth.  In this high profile serious case review it was reported staff felt unsafe to report concerns and challenge the practice of colleagues not following policies and procedures.  Professional and personal boundaries had become blurred, recruitment procedures were not evidenced, and Vanessa George’s change in behaviour was not challenged or changed.  Sadly, the result was a culture that allowed many children to become seriously unsafe under her supervision.

Cultural leadership is clearly vital for safeguarding children, that said, it also extends much wider across all aspects of an organisation.  Consider this question for a moment: How do you lead the culture in your organisation?  Did you reach a quick answer, or are you asking some of the following questions?  What is culture?  How do you lead culture?  Is culture too difficult to define, describe and recognise?

Well, I think it is important straight away to say that leaders must, should and always develop, demonstrate and protect organisational culture.  Here are what I consider to be the key aspects of cultural leadership we should be adopting:

• Effective staff supervision by a manager, colleagues and peers, and one-to-one opportunities regularly taken.
• Everyone being professional at all times in the workplace and beyond.
• Professional and personal boundaries protected and not blurred.
• Everyone clear about their roles and the roles of others.
• Everyone knows how the organisation is managed and its legal structure, and how decisions are made.
• Everyone knows who to talk to safely about concerns or complaints.
• People raising concerns or complaints should be thanked, valued and supported.
• The culture of concerns and complaints to be confirmed in policies including a whistleblowing policy (a whistleblower is a person who exposes misconduct, alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organisation).
• Agreeing codes of conduct or behaviour for all staff and management, to which everyone is accountable to everyone.
• Rigorous implementation of policies and procedures – that everyone should follow, with good quality open discussion about policies at staff meetings and training.
• Confidence in policies and procedures, with regular training.

As leaders, we should have no choice but to have a culture of safety, openness, teamwork, and partnership.  We cannot realistically operate without one, I hope this list offers some useful suggestions.

Today is a notable date in the early years calendar.  Like schools, we have been asked to prepare for fuller opening from 1 June 2020.  And now this day is upon us.  It was and is a big ask and full of difficult decisions, contradictions and risks.  There is much good we can do, and there is a moral purpose to our supporting of families; especially vulnerable children and the children of keyworkers.

However, we must avoid the potential pitfalls this new era brings, whilst fulfilling our role.  We need to keep our heads.  Reopening will be a long-term process, informed by very many personal and professional considerations.  We must approach this as informed and professional early years practitioners, and play our part in controlling the virus, whilst positively impacting upon the lives of children and families.

Extensive guidance, seemingly aiming to address all eventualities has been published by Government.  Information like the Planning guide for early years and childcare settings is designed to offer information and support for early years providers as they prepare to open.

It states providers can choose to use the guidance, or not.  And they should decide how best to use guidance in their setting.

The past three months were unexpected, unpredictable and unparalleled.  Many settings and schools have remained open and have provided vital services for vulnerable children and the children of keyworkers.  For that, we all thank them, including childminders.  These actions have made a significant contribution to so many lives: the experiences of children living in challenging circumstances; and those with parents whose vital roles have supported us all through this extraordinary time.

I also acknowledge that for many settings that did close, this was not only a difficult decision, but often one out of their hands.  The process of weighing up the considerations for opening and closing remain.  They are the same now and they were in March.  Of primary importance is the health and safety of children, their families and the early years and childcare workforce.  This includes their physical health and mental health.  And within the context of the virus, this also includes the appropriate use of PPE and safe working practices.

We also need to develop a deep understanding of the demand from families for attending and using our services, especially for funded entitlements, and crucially for the essential income via paid-for childcare.  Demand, as ever, will drive supply, and providers will listen intently to the voice of families expressing what they want.  Such demand will determine when and how settings will open or not.  Childcare is changed now and has been for the foreseeable future.

We cannot have provision without our invaluable workforce.  And their availability is under-pressure.  Not all are able or willing to return, due to practical reasons such as their own lack of childcare, or their own children not being able to return to school.  They could also be shielding or have members of their household to protect.  Without clear information and reassurance from their employers, they may feel unsafe to return to work.  The available work may limit their choices, should full-time roles become part-time ones, or should they find being furloughed a better option for the setting or the team member.

The finances in early years are finite.  And one thing I truly hope comes out of the crisis is someone, once and for all, untangles the unnecessary complexity of funding.  It is far too complicated.  We deserve things to be better and simpler.  We need greater trust from government.  Over recent weeks, providers have not only managed early years funding, but they have navigated Govt. financial support, and changes in paid-for childcare.  The future will only bring fresh pressures and difficult decisions without a new funding offer.

None of our service delivery is possible without access to premises.  New working arrangements place great pressure on available space, and this in turn places limitations on what we are able to offer.  Many providers actually aren’t able to return as their shared community premises that are not yet open to the public.  I am sure this is frustrating to many.  Schools also need to ensure they look beyond their own immediate internal challenges and support their on-site and neighbourhood partners who provide early years and childcare.  We are in this together.

The most important consideration, of course, is practice.  This is where practitioners need to listen to guidance and use their own professional judgement to decide what is right for their setting, and the children and families they work with.  All decisions should be made with physical and mental health, and children’s wellbeing and positive learning in mind.  In early years, we have an important role in improving lives.  We should not be reinforcing anxiety, or making people believe they are behind and need to catch up.  Sometimes this could be the unintended outcome of following guidance to the letter.  Instead, we need to be investing in children’s social capital.  We have a new generation of children who have lived through this unique social experience.  What can they take away from this?  We should scaffold upon this to ensure this is a force for good.  Without due care and attention we will only reinforce the worst aspects of lockdown, storing up significant problems for later.

We are leaders in early years, not followers.  We should not wait for guidance to inform all our decisions; instead making sense of business and practice needs ourselves.  The danger of COVID-19 are real, and easily could return two-fold.  It has impacted upon hundreds of thousands of families.  That said, we must be proportionate in our management of risk and health and safety.  Our role is one that aims to counter the effects of harm, to minimise it, and to support people’s understanding and journey out of it.  These are difficult decisions and everyone should tread carefully, yet confidently.  So, let’s stay professional, control the virus and improve lives.

One of the basic premises of psychotherapy is the words we hear and experience cause us harm or otherwise, and are key to positive ways forward.  It is their positive use that can bring about change and our future development and success.  It is this principle that drives my desire to use positive praise with children, colleagues and learners throughout all my work.  And it probably does yours too.

In a work culture of always minimising risk, seeking continuous improvement and addressing urgent issues, we can often apply our time disproportionately to the negatives, when positive approaches are by far the best way of achieving our aims.  But it can be difficult without a determined effort to embed such practice and maintain the high levels needed for maximum effect. That said, it is a basic element of all our work – line management included.  In the workplace it can be the single most important and effective motivator you have.

Positive praise costs nothing but time and a little effort.  I hope this article will recharge your positive praise batteries!  Because, be honest, most of us are now thinking that we could do better with colleagues, team members and/or those we supervise.  We may fall short because we can be too busy, otherwise preoccupied, or we may even struggle to identify positives from various situations and scenarios. Some of us just aren’t used to being in such positive environments either, whether this was our experience at home during childhood, at school or in previous jobs.  If you have low self-esteem yourself or you feel embarrassed about giving praise, you will find it more difficult to give and receive it.  I have worked with people who are very hungry for praise and no amount ever seems enough for them.  On the flip-side, some people might actually be deeply suspicious that you are after something in return.  Well, you are, happiness and motivation and job satisfaction. That’s all!

There are some basic principles, questions and guidelines that help me to ensure I practice what I preach:

• People who feel they are noticed, appreciated and respected are more motivated than those that don’t.
• Science tells us that when we hear something we like, a burst of dopamine is released in our brains. It’s a neurotransmitter related to feelings of well-being and joy.
• As a manager or leader, be more available. Walk around, share break times with colleagues, talk and listen more.
• Don’t let anyone get the impression that something or someone else is more important than them at that very moment.
• Do it often. Praise three times more than you criticise or identify areas for improvement. That’s called the Losada Ratio.
• Match your method to the individual or team. Some will love the attention, profile or a bit of fuss, others not so much, so a quiet word, text or email will do wonders!
• Are some team members more likely to get praise? Why is this?  Who is missing out? Is your team culture the right one?

Remember these simple ideas, and use them as much as you can.  You will find the results are transformational, and will support your whole team to behave in the same ways.  Which means you will have created a culture of praise that could last for a considerable time, and one that will carry on when you are not there.  Try it.

Now we are tentatively thinking about coming out of lock down, how will we look back at our time spent?  I urge you not to look at it through a lens of judgement and disappointment.  What we thought we might do could be very different to the reality.  It is a tough set of circumstances.  Hopefully one we will not have to repeat.

So what if you haven’t put those shelves up, or lapsed in your fitness regime?  Perhaps you’ve not learned Spanish, knitting or Creole cooking.  Who cares?  Congratulations if you have and if you’ve watched old classic movies, re-read a favourite book, or binged (let’s reclaim that word as a positive) on boxsets courtesy of Netflix.  But how has it affected your work – whether you have continued to work in your usual workplace, or through this working from home lark?

A period like this, and one that will continue in some form or another will be difficult. It will extend in different ways for different people, such as those who may lose their job, or be asked to shield for longer.  Our personal lives, routines, behaviours, work and social lives will all be changed.

But reflecting on things so far, it does reveal our instincts and behaviour patterns.  Working from home, I think a lot of people have come to learn, is not an easy option.  And it has been compounded by restrictions of lock down.  And how will it change once we start to return to work in different ways, perhaps in different teams and with new tasks to be responsible for.  I am particularly interested in our concepts of time and how we use it.  “They are invisible lines that separate the participants in a relationship and allow them to take responsibility for their lives and to meet their obligations.  Your boundaries are how you keep yourself physically and emotionally safe”. Talking Therapy (2015)

Here, I am thinking about common ways we waste time, or make our own choices.  As is said, no judgement here, just things to think and reflect upon.

• Constant interruptions: have you relished being constantly interrupted by family at home, friends on Skype or colleagues’ emails and ‘phone calls?
• Indecision: have you been consumed by a mire of indecision, or used new arrangements or new attitudes to deadlines to fuel your need not to decide?
• Meetings: have you filled your days with online meetings and calls to avoid getting the necessary and un-enjoyable things done?
• Changing priorities or lack of objectives: have you not identified what the new priorities are? Have you struggled to let go of the previous goals?  Are you rudderless in your direction because of the uncertainty about what may happen next?
• Personal lack of organisation: Has the new routine caused you to be less organised that usual? Without familiar structure to the day, week or month, does every day feel the same?  Are you struggling to recall what day it is?  Do the weekends feel just like weekdays?  Are the boundaries between work and home blurred to such an extent they are indefinable?
• Management of self: pyjama days are natural, expected and okay. They really are.  But is this everyday?  Getting dressed for work is one way to separate work from life.  One to think about.
• Ineffective delegation: well, you might not have anyone to delegate to at the moment or are painfully aware of the pressure that colleagues are under personally and professionally. Or are you holding onto things you don’t want to let go of?
• Attempting to do too much: we all want to do our bit to help others and many are felling guilt about being able to continue to work, or having more opportunities than others, and/or being safe and healthy. We might actually be enjoying lock down, yet very aware that others are not.  These can all fuel our motivations to do too much.  Is work so uncertain in the future we are attempting to demonstrate our work and commitment so much that it is damaging us?
• Butterflying and fire-fighting: these are signs of lack of direction. When we enjoy the freedom of flitting from one task to the other without purpose or a plan.  Or we relish getting involved in an emergency or drama more important than our core tasks – the perfect avoidance excuse.
• Socialising: spending so much time at home does run the risk of distorting the boundaries between our work self and our home self. Even though we are in lock down, getting involved in family life (children, partners, parents, flatmates), chatting over the neighbour’s fence, accepting personal calls, all represent a constant barrage of distraction opportunities.
• In and out of comfort zones: one thing that occurs to be is the loneliness and isolation in lock down and the reduced ability, despite technology, to work collaboratively in teams. To thrash our ideas and plans, and share tasks and roles that play to our strengths.  We are being asked to work out of all our comfort zones and preferred working styles.  This directly impacts on our work and home happiness.

What has lock down told you about your relationship with time?

Once banished to the margins of business management and leadership, equalities and diversity policies have now moved from a niche to a central role of any leader, Chief Executive Officer, or politician and other roles.

We’ve come a long way from the days of the wave of legislation in the seventies; I’m thinking of things like the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), the Race Relations Act (1976) and Equal Pay Act (1970).  We have travelled far in the forty years since then with more nuanced legislation continuing to keep apace with social attitudes, which have also changed considerably. However, where conflict, uncertainty, fear and tension remains in society and the workplace, equalities issues, discrimination and prejudice will never be far behind.

Some recent events in the business and political worlds are useful examples of how such issues are now central to the work of all leaders; that equality and diversity is an essential part of every leaders’ tool-kit.  In the past, I’ve noticed how a bank published its approach to diversity and inclusion; how a gay CEO of a national airline spoke about the importance of being yourself at work.  And how an advertising agency chair was criticised for views about gender bias in the advertising industry, and an MP quoted as suggesting male childcarers ‘may be paedophiles’.  These examples demonstrate the benefits of being an aware and equalities focused leader, and the pitfalls of perhaps getting the message wrong.

In modern times, what has exposed many outdated and discriminatory views is the advent of social media, where public messages are not sanctioned or sanitised by corporate PR or policy teams, and people have access to methods to directly share in an unedited instant their own unaware views or conscious and unconscious prejudices.  Equalities is a journey, and people can make mistakes as their awareness develops and challenges the views and beliefs society and the media makes such a powerful job at entrenching in all of us.

Mistakes are fine to some extent, as long as we learn from them.  Mistakes can lead to lack of career opportunities, sackings or suspensions, a public message you are out of touch, and greater distance from the customer or service user.  They can cause share prices to plummet as well.

For early years, we must continue to place great emphasis on equipping everyone to be  confident anti-discriminatory practitioners (uniquely still a requirement of the Children Act 2004 on all our delivery).  We are also tasked with promoting British Values throughout all our work, and meeting the Prevent Duty (to identify individuals who may be at risk of being radicalised).  Many things that many other professional roles could learn from and support.

The gains are that children can be supported to feel safe and confident, and reach their full potential; we can attract and retain a diverse and happy workforce, with open and honest communications and thinking; and become close to parents and families, customers or service users and better understand their needs.  And in doing so, climates are created that achieve trust and safety.  The essential foundation required to achieve real change.

Never has equality and diversity awareness and training mattered most, especially as we are in an era where tolerance ensures everyone is respected and included, yet held to account for prejudice, hate-crimes and extremism.  Regular training is key, as is reflecting on ourselves, and the views of others – including our shared and real lived experiences.  What’s also important is teams, organisations and businesses create cultures where equalities can thrive in centralised culture of respect.  That’s the role of a good equalities leader.  Of any leader.