Psychological Safety Isn't Neutral: Meet the Caribbean Researcher Proving It
We are so excited to start our 2026 feature with an emerging voice for Caribbean leaders, women and business leaders.
Meet DOLE Contributor Crissy Belasse
We are grateful Crissy L. Percil-Belasse—our newest DOLE (Directory of Leadership Excellence) contributor, and living proof that Cultural Authorship isn’t theory. It’s a real-world transformation.
She has 15+ years managing $250M+ projects across continents. A Master’s in Business Psychology. Certifications in EQ Leadership, Logistics & Supply Chain Management and Psychological Safety.
Her recent dissertation is rewriting how organizations think about safety for those who’ve been systematically marginalized.
From the Floor to the Framework
Crissy’s journey mirrors what we teach at KDPM: that your lived experience isn’t supplementary to your expertise—it IS your expertise.
Currently a Material Requirements Planner at Heineken St. Lucia, Crissy didn’t just observe workplace dynamics from an ivory tower. She lived them. As a woman. As a Black Caribbean professional. As someone navigating male-dominated manufacturing floors where “psychological safety” was more aspiration than reality.
Her dissertation, “The Importance of Psychological Safety on Employee Well-being: A Review on Minority Groups,” emerged from what she calls the “darkest and latest hours”—those moments when you’re building something that doesn’t exist yet, guided by wisdom that hasn’t been validated by Western frameworks.
Until now.
The Research That Validates What We’ve Always Known
Crissy’s work confirms what Cultural Scientists understand intuitively: psychological safety isn’t neutral. It’s cultural. And for minority groups, the stakes are life and death.
Consider her findings on fatality rates:
“The Organizational Safety and Health Organization (OSHA) in their 2022 reports highlighted huge disparities in fatality rate and serious injuries among employees with differing race or ethnicities. Hispanic or Latino workers experienced a death rate of (4.5%) per 100,000 workers followed by Black or African Americans with a death rate of 3.5%.”
These aren’t just statistics. They’re ancestors who never made it home. They are representations of deeper, structural issues of organizations' care for their teams.
Her dissertation asks the questions most organizational psychology research ignores:
Can psychological safety be weaponized for employee malice?
Do minority groups experience limitations that majority groups don’t?
What happens when organizations say they have psychological safety but failure is still punished, employees are still blamed, and the 1% still don’t have a voice?
The answer? A 75-page systematic review pulling from research across 24 countries, synthesizing data from government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, Black queer employees, women in male-dominated fields, and LGBTQ+ workers.
The Framework We Helped Birth
Working with KDPM Equity Institute, Crissy developed what she calls the Psychological Safety Framework for Minority Groups—a tool that moves beyond Amy Edmondson’s foundational work to ask: What does safety look like when you’re building on borrowed soil?
Her framework centers six critical elements:
Make Psychological Safety a Cultural and Behavioral Policy — Not just HR speak, but embedded in mission, values, and leadership scorecards
Invite a “Speak Up for Safety” Culture — Reward vulnerability, create ally-ship systems, establish feedback loops
Promote Cultural Equity — Support for leaders AND employees introducing new cultural norms
Make Mental and Emotional Well-Being a Priority — Wellness coaching, therapists, check-ins that honor multicultural realities
Make Emotional Intelligence and Human Equity a Leadership Priority — Listening capacity training as standard leadership development
Build Trust Through “Always Learning, Always Growing” — Accountability via shared results, inviting employee voice throughout transformation
But here’s what makes Crissy’s work Cultural Authorship rather than just research:
“By positing that these suggested actions be anchored in a transformative framework like KDPM Equity Institute SELF-TEAM-SYSTEMS Transformation Framework, the study underscores the importance of an integrated, holistic approach to psychological safety.”
She didn’t just study psychological safety. She rooted it in a framework built by a Black Caribbean Cultural Scientist. She centered Integrated Intelligence—intellectual knowledge, emotional awareness, body wisdom, ancestral intelligence, and nature’s teachings—as the methodology.
This is what it looks like when you refuse to position Black/Indigenous/ancestral scholars’ work as supplementary.
Why Her Voice Matters Now
Crissy writes in her acknowledgments:
“I am overjoyed for this amazing journey and proud of myself and this paper that I have completed. I know it will be useful to many and is a start of many things to come.”
That joy and pride is what Cultural Authorship feels like.
Not the exhaustion of code-switching. Not the self-betrayal of making your research “acceptable” to Western gatekeepers. But the deep satisfaction of creating from your own cultural foundation while serving future generations.
Her dissertation quotes Martin Luther King Jr.: “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
And then she proves it—with data, frameworks, and a 10-article systematic review that business leaders, HR professionals, and consultants can actually use.
The Invitation: Become a Cultural Explorer & Access our Culture House
Crissy’s dissertation is just the beginning. Through KDPM’s DOLE, we’re building something unprecedented: a repository of Cultural Authorship research that refuses to treat Indigenous, Black, and ancestral wisdom as optional.
When you sign up as a Cultural Explorer at KDPM Equity Institute, you get:
Full access to Crissy’s dissertation and psychological safety framework
Research linking cultural abandonment to workplace performance
Tools for assessing psychological safety in your organization
Frameworks developed through 15+ years of SisterTalk research
Integration with KDPM’s SELF-TEAM-SYSTEMS transformation methodology
This isn’t just professional development. This is permission to stop building on borrowed soil.
Crissy’s work confirms what we teach: that when organizations move from cultural intelligence (adaptation) to Cultural Authorship (creation), minority groups stop being the 1% who have to keep their heads down.
They become Future Ancestors—people creating new realities rather than adapting to systems designed to exclude them.
From St. Lucia to the World
Crissy ends her dissertation with these words:
“I am humbled by this experience and know that it’s only upward from here.”
We’re honored to be part of her upward journey. And we’re inviting you to join us.
Because when a Material Requirements Planner in St. Lucia can synthesize organizational psychology research from 24 countries, root it in Caribbean cultural wisdom, and create frameworks that validate what ancestors have always known?
That’s not just scholarship.
That’s Cultural Authority in action.
Ready to explore Crissy’s full research and join the Cultural Authorship movement?
👉 Sign up as a Cultural Explorer at KDPM Equity Institute
Access the complete dissertation, downloadable frameworks, and tools for creating psychologically safe environments that don’t require minority groups to abandon their cultural selves to belong.
Because the most valuable research isn’t happening in universities that treat your wisdom as supplementary.
It’s happening in the “darkest and latest hours”—when Cultural Scientists like Crissy are building what doesn’t exist yet.
Welcome to DOLE. Welcome to Cultural Authorship.
Welcome home. 🌿
About DOLE (Directory of Leadership Excellence)
KDPM Equity Institute’s research repository centering Cultural Authorship, Integrated Intelligence, and scholarship that refuses to treat Black/Indigenous/ancestral wisdom as optional.
Led by Cultural Scientist Karlyn D. Percil, featuring contributors like Crissy Belasse whose work validates what ancestors have always known.
