Finding Our Voice: Multicultural Storytelling, Authentic Spaces and Psychological Safety

The Power of Recognition

"I've never seen you speak with such confidence and conviction," my former colleague Mantej Singh said on the Metro after watching me present at a panel on Strategic Communication & Storytelling. His comment stopped me in my tracks—not because it was criticism, but because it revealed something profound about the spaces where we feel safe to be ourselves.

My response was immediate and instinctive: "The crowd matters." This wasn't just any professional event. It was specifically for the Australian Professionals of Multicultural Communities, and the audience reflected that diversity. These were ‘my people’—individuals who understood the unique navigation required when you carry multiple cultural identities, who recognised the subtle code-switching that happens in different professional spaces, who could see themselves reflected in stories of migration, adaptation, and the complex journey of belonging.

In that room, I could speak freely about the challenges, lessons, and triumphs of migrant experience because the audience didn't just tolerate these narratives—they lived them. The connection wasn't theoretical; it was visceral, born from shared understanding rather than charitable inclusion.

The Boundaries of Australian Inclusion

This experience illuminated an uncomfortable truth: Australia maintains a false sense of inclusion. While we pride ourselves on being a multicultural society that welcomes diverse people, this welcome comes with invisible boundaries—unspoken rules about which stories are acceptable, which experiences deserve airtime, and which voices can speak with authority about the Australian experience.

When I address audiences with fewer cultural similarities to my own, the messaging necessarily shifts. Connection is still possible, but it cannot be built on the foundation of shared migrant experiences. Instead, it must navigate around potential discomfort, translate cultural nuances that might not resonate, and often dilute the very experiences that most shape multicultural professionals' perspectives.

Understanding Our Storytelling Zones Through Amy Edmondson's Framework

Amy Edmondson's framework of psychological safety versus accountability provides a lens for understanding why multicultural storytelling in Australia often feels constrained. Her four zones—Learning, Comfort, Anxiety, and Apathy—map remarkably well onto the experiences of multicultural professionals in Australian workplaces and public forums.

The Learning Zone: High Psychological Safety + High Accountability

The Learning Zone represents the ideal space for multicultural storytelling—environments where diverse voices can share authentic experiences while being held accountable for accuracy, impact, and constructive dialogue. The panel event where I spoke with such conviction exemplified this zone. The psychological safety was high because the audience understood the context of multicultural professional experiences. The accountability remained high because we were expected to provide valuable insights, practical wisdom, and honest reflection on our journeys.

In these spaces, multicultural professionals can share stories about:

• The exhaustion of constant cultural translation

• The imposter syndrome that comes from feeling perpetually "other"

• The strategic decisions about when to highlight cultural background versus when to minimise it

• The complex relationship with "success" when it comes at the cost of cultural authenticity

These stories aren't just personal anecdotes—they become data points for understanding systemic challenges and opportunities for improvement.

The Comfort Zone: High Psychological Safety + Low Accountability

Many well-intentioned diversity and inclusion initiatives inadvertently create Comfort Zones for multicultural storytelling. These are spaces where diverse voices are welcomed and celebrated, but often without the rigor of accountability that transforms stories into actionable insights.

In these environments, multicultural professionals might find themselves:

• Sharing sanitised versions of their experiences that don't challenge existing systems

• Being applauded for their "resilience" without examination of why such resilience was necessary

• Having their stories treated as inspiring individual narratives rather than indicators of systemic issues requiring change

While psychologically safer than hostile environments, these spaces can become frustratingly superficial, where authentic experiences are welcomed but not genuinely grappled with.

The Anxiety Zone: Low Psychological Safety + High Accountability

Too often, multicultural professionals find themselves thrust into Anxiety Zones when sharing their stories in mainstream Australian contexts. Here, they face high expectations to represent their entire community or culture while navigating environments where their perspectives might be questioned, minimised, or met with defensive reactions.

In these spaces, storytellers experience:

• Pressure to be the "voice" of their entire cultural group

• Scrutiny that wouldn't be applied to speakers from majority backgrounds

• The need to constantly prove their credibility and Australian-ness

• Fear that sharing challenging experiences will be perceived as ungrateful or divisive

The accountability is high—often unreasonably so—but the psychological safety is low, creating a perfect storm of stress and self-censorship.

The Apathy Zone: Low Psychological Safety + Low Accountability

The most disheartening spaces are those characterised by both low psychological safety and low accountability—environments where multicultural voices are neither welcomed nor expected to contribute meaningfully. These might be traditional professional settings where diversity is seen as irrelevant, or spaces where tokenism is so embedded that authentic contribution isn't expected or valued.

Creating More Learning Zones

The challenge for Australia's multicultural storytelling landscape is expanding the Learning Zone—creating more spaces where psychological safety and accountability coexist. This requires intentional design and sustained commitment from both storytellers and their audiences.

For Organisations and Event Planners:

• Design forums specifically for multicultural professionals to share experiences with peers

• Ensure diverse panels include moderators who understand multicultural experiences

• Create follow-up mechanisms that translate stories into policy or practice changes

• Invest in cultural competency training for audiences, not just for speakers

For Multicultural Professionals:

• Seek out and create communities where authentic storytelling is both safe and impactful

• Develop skills in translating multicultural experiences for different audiences without losing authenticity

• Build alliances with allies who can help amplify and contextualise multicultural narratives

• Practice moving between different storytelling modes while maintaining core truths

For Australian Society:

• Recognise that true inclusion means creating space for uncomfortable truths alongside celebration

• Understand that multicultural stories aren't just "nice to have" diversity content—they're essential data for understanding contemporary Australia

• Develop tolerance for complexity in multicultural narratives rather than seeking simple inspiration stories

The Path Forward

The morning after that panel event, I reflected on Mantej's observation. His surprise at my confidence wasn't really about my speaking ability—it was about witnessing what happens when someone can speak from their full self without translation, without defensive positioning, without the exhausting work of making their experience palatable to those who haven't lived it.

This is the goal: not to create separate spaces where multicultural Australians can only be authentic with each other, but to expand the zones where authentic multicultural storytelling contributes to our collective understanding of what it means to be Australian in the 21st century.

True multicultural storytelling in Australia requires us to move beyond the false choice between comfort and challenge, between safety and accountability. It demands that we create more Learning Zones—spaces where diverse voices can share their full truth, be heard with genuine openness, and contribute to meaningful change.

The stories are there, waiting to be told. The question is whether we can create the conditions for them to be heard, understood, and acted upon. Because when we do, something remarkable happens—not just for the storytellers, but for the entire community that gets to benefit from their wisdom, perspective, and authenticity.