#130: Why "Kill Them with Kindness" is Killing Your Culture of Belonging Artwork

Coaching the Whole Educator

This podcast helps instructional coaches, teacher leaders, and school leaders improve their educators’ effectiveness and resilience, especially the ones who need it most by focusing on the mindsets and motivations that are at the source of unproductive behaviors. Each week, we’ll cover quick tips, strategies and coaching mindsets so that you can be on top of your coaching game.

All Episodes

Coaching the Whole Educator

#130: Why "Kill Them with Kindness" is Killing Your Culture of Belonging

March 30, 2025 • Becca Silver • Season 3 • Episode 130

Send us a text

If your school avoids hard conversations, you don’t have belonging. You have politeness.

We confuse being nice with building belonging. But “nice” often means silence, avoidance, and surface-level smiles. Comfort isn’t the same as safety. Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson coined the term psychological safety—the ability to speak up, take risks, and be vulnerable without fear.

In “nice” cultures, people feel comfortable... but not safe. Real belonging requires vulnerability, not just harmony.

Listen to this episode to find out how to move your culture from polite silence to real belonging—and why discomfort might be the missing piece.

Want more on this?
👉 Head to the blog: “The Culture of Niceness is Not Belonging” for a deeper dive and practical ways to shift your school culture.

👉 Want to know what’s really holding your team back?
Take the Catalyst Mindsets™ Quiz to uncover which mindset is missing—and what to do about it.
Because sometimes, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the mindset gap.

[Take the Quiz now]

Research: Psychological Safety Comes of Age: Observed Themes in an
Established Literature