What is Trauma-Informed Leadership?

As workplaces begin to understand the impact that trauma can have on workplace performance, I am asked more and more to share my thoughts and techniques for infusing trauma-informed thinking into workplaces.

This will be the first of several articles in which I share what I’m finding and what works as we apire to create more trauma-informed leaders and trauma-informed workplaces.

A trauma-informed leader is able to treat an employee's trauma response as an opportunity for talent development rather than as a problem, a liability, or a disciplinary issue.

Here are some realities:

Trauma impacts workplaces. Trauma impacts workplaces because it impacts our people.

A trauma-informed leader is able to treat an employee's trauma response as an opportunity for talent development rather than as a problem, a liability, or a disciplinary issue.

“Trauma impacts workplaces. Trauma impacts workplaces because it impacts our people. ”

The truth is that people who are suffering from the effects of trauma find it difficult to be at their best. They may avoid certain situations that are essential to the performance of their duties. They may do what needs to get done but with such excessive anxiety that they end up depleted by tasks. They may people-please to the extreme, perpetually viewing themselves as inadequate. In cases where the reasons for their difficulties are misunderstood--either by themselves or by others--they can find themselves in a downward spiral of blame and shame. Finding zero joy or satisfaction in one's work coupled with finding threats everywhere is a recipe for exhaustion, burnout, and perhaps even the decision to remove themselves from the workplace.

Leaders can't afford to have talented people remove themselves from the workplace.

Especially not when trauma can be effectively acknowledged, accepted, and accommodated. Especially not when traumatized people carry the potential for a phenomenon called posttraumatic growth when they find the support they need.

How Trauma Shows Up at Work

Trauma doesn't need to be of the extreme variety to affect individuals in our workplaces. Micro-traumas (small but nonetheless injurious experiences) can accumulate over time and result in significant impediments to one's success.

“Leaders can’t afford to have talented people remove themselves from the workplace. ”

The best example of this that I have seen was in a client who had spent nearly a decade reporting to an executive who micro-managed her, picked apart all of her work with unhelpfully critical detail, and blamed her for every complication that wasn't even under her control. When she finally found herself working for a supportive leader, her diminished sense of self, highly developed sensitivity to criticism, and extreme anxiety in the presence of authority all threatened to undermine her ability to perform.

Thankfully, through trauma-informed leadership coaching with me and the support of a patient and sensitive leader, she was able to emerge as a highly respected and powerfully performing leader herself. Her unique experiences fostered a kind of compassionate awareness that actually led her to become the kind of boss who could genuinely inspire others to THEIR best levels of performance, despite their own challenges.

My Guiding Belief as a Trauma-Informed Leadership Coach

My guiding belief as a trauma-informed leadership coach is that not only can individuals overcome the effects of trauma, but that in so doing, they can access levels of talent and capability they didn't believe they had in their possession.

Therefore, I view dealing with trauma as an integral and essential aspect of talent development.

In that respect, overcoming trauma is not just a matter of personal development but rather a critical element of professional development.

“I view dealing with trauma as an integral and essential aspect of talent development. ”

If we want to enhance the performance of our workplaces, leaders need to prioritize the development of the talent of their people. And that prioritization needs to include both an acknowledgment of the role of trauma in performance as well as a willingness to accommodate the needs of our people in overcoming it.

No, leaders are not therapists. And workplaces are not clinics. But if they are likely to see and be impacted by the effects of the potentially traumatic experiences of individuals they employ, they certainly have so much to gain by investing in the development of the whole person and by removing obstacles to performance wherever they arise. Everyone stands to emerge in a better place as a result of this awareness and these efforts.

Pretending that trauma and its effects impact only an unfortunate few and that trauma awareness is in the purview only of mental health denies its nature as a fundamentally universal human experience--one that follows individuals into work.

If we can understand trauma, we can understand people.

“Overcoming trauma is not just a matter of personal development but rather a critical element of professional development.”

Coming up in my next blog:

“But a trauma-informed leader not only assists where they can as their team members who've endured trauma navigate the workplace, but they themselves are able to notice how trauma affects their own performance as leaders.”

Jesse Katen is a leadership coach and consultant at his firm, Jesse Katen Leadership Consultancy, based in Binghamton, New York. Visit his website at www.jessekaten.com or email him at jesse@jessekaten.com.