International Women’s Day 2026: Psychological Safety is a B2B Growth Issue

At B2B Marketing, we discuss the importance of becoming a commercial marketer and mastering strategic skills. In this week’s blog, Beatrice Alabaster, discusses why psychological safety is essential to B2B strategy and growth. She says: “Debate shapes great B2B strategy. But if psychological safety isn’t evenly distributed, neither is influence. This International Women’s Day, it’s time to ask who really feels safe to speak.”

Healthy debate is the lifeblood of good B2B marketing.

As strategists, creatives, and client leaders, our job is not to walk into a room with fully formed answers. It’s to explore, to interrogate, to test assumptions. To say ‘I don’t know yet, but here are three possible ways through.’

The idea of the strategist as oracle is a fantasy. Good thinking is forged in discussion, disagreement and vulnerability.

I learned that early. As a teenager, I trained in competitive debating through the English-Speaking Union, a UK charity focused on oracy and public speaking. I spent an inordinate amount of time learning how to articulate an argument, defend positions I didn’t necessarily agree with, and examine issues from multiple angles. 

It turned out to be strategist training in disguise. I still rely on those skills every day, which is why I care so much about the conditions that make good debate possible.

Because this International Women’s Day, I keep coming back to an uncomfortable question:

Who actually has equal access to that kind of debate in B2B marketing?

Because this isn’t just a cultural issue. It’s a commercial one.

The best strategic thinking doesn’t come from dominance. It comes from considered challenge, from multiple perspectives colliding in good faith.

It’s no coincidence that Google’s long-running research into high-performing teams continues to identify psychological safety as the number one predictor of effectiveness.

Better debate leads to better decisions. But access to the room is not the same as safety within it.

We know the offline dynamics haven’t disappeared.

According to McKinsey and LeanIn’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report, women leaders are significantly more likely than men to experience microaggressions – including being interrupted, having their judgement questioned, or having their expertise undermined. 

Deloitte’s 2025 Women @ Work report similarly found that more than a third of women experience non-inclusive behaviours at work – and those who do are far more likely to withhold ideas.

Now layer that onto the online world.

Platforms like LinkedIn are, in theory, democratisers of professional debate. But we’re operating in a wider cultural moment defined by polarisation. The rise of the alt-right. The normalisation of incel-adjacent rhetoric. A general coarsening of online discourse. Argument as sport. Outrage as currency.

The UK’s End Violence Against Women coalition reports that, in some contexts, women can be up to 27 times more likely than men to experience certain forms of online abuse. UN Women likewise continues to report rising levels of digital violence against women globally, particularly those in public-facing roles.

It’s naïve to assume that tone stays neatly contained within politics or fringe corners of the internet. It seeps into professional spaces too.

Many of the smartest, most outspoken women across marketing and advertising are routinely met with performative devil’s advocacy, ‘well actually’ replies and pile-ons. Not rigorous intellectual challenge – which sharpens thinking – but posturing. Combat for the sake of visibility.

And yes, of course – not all men.

But when you look at who consistently engages in that style of debate, it is disproportionately men. And it is disproportionately directed at women.

Over time, something subtle happens. Women share the fully polished thought instead of the messy one. They avoid the contentious topic. They decide it’s not worth the energy.

And when that happens, B2B marketing loses out, because unspoken insight is lost opportunity.

So perhaps the opportunity for our industry in 2026 isn’t just representation – though that still matters enormously. It’s culture.

Are we creating environments – in agencies, in client teams, on LinkedIn – where debate is rigorous but not hostile? Where vulnerability isn’t punished? Where curiosity isn’t mistaken for weakness?

That question is what led my friend and former colleague Jen Law and I to launch The Strategals – a strategy safe space on LinkedIn for women in strategic and strategy-adjacent roles.

In our previous agency roles, we were part of an unusually balanced, female-led strategy team – one of the healthiest strategic environments I’ve experienced. The debate was rigorous but constructive, and we both learned more in that room than in many louder ones.

The Strategals is our attempt to recreate that kind of environment online: a judgement-free space to think out loud, test early thinking and debate without posturing or pile-ons. Not an echo chamber or a grievance circle – just a space where good thinking can happen without armour.

This International Women’s Day, beyond the panels and pledges, perhaps the question for B2B marketing is this:

Who really feels safe to shape the conversation?

Because progress isn’t just about getting women into the room. It’s about making sure the debate works for them once they’re there.

And if we care about better strategy, we should care about that.

Join the conversation

The Strategals was created as a strategy safe space – somewhere women in B2B and beyond can debate rigorously, ask honest questions and explore half-formed ideas without armour. If that sounds like the room you’ve been looking for, we’d love you to join us.