Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve defined trauma-informed leadership and talked about why it’s important to be a trauma-informed leader – especially in today’s work climate. At this point, you might be saying, “Well Lisa, it seems important to be a trauma-informed leader – but what does it actually mean? What do I DO as a leader to be trauma-informed?” I’m glad you asked!
A couple of weeks ago, we defined trauma-informed care, and I highlighted the six principles that serve as a broad framework for organizations to integrate trauma-informed practices. While these are fantastic principles at the agency level, they don’t say a lot about the role a leader specifically plays in creating a trauma-informed environment.
I developed the “Four Pillars of Trauma-Informed Leadership™ to help leaders across all fields and organization types adequately support their teams. These pillars should be helpful whether you are a new or experienced leader and whether you are in a corporate or a non-profit.
These pillars are important because we know that individuals who have experienced trauma are impacted in multiple ways which affect how they engage at work. Each of these pillars highlight a specific way in which trauma fundamentally affects an individual and provides leaders with strategies to create healing working environments that can help mitigate the impact. Rest assured, being a trauma-informed leader doesn’t mean that you are responsible for healing anyone’s trauma – or even that you need to know what it is! You only need to have a sense that it’s likely that a good percentage of your team members have experienced trauma, which may impact how they interact at work.
The following is a brief introduction to each of the four pillars:
Pillar #1: Safety
The first pillar of trauma-informed leadership is, “Safety.” When someone has experienced trauma – whether it’s a natural disaster, physical or sexual abuse, or a global pandemic, their physical safety has been compromised. Over time, we know that after a trauma, even when you are physically safe, you don’t necessarily FEEL safe. Our brain has a hard time being convinced that we’re safe, so it continuously sets off alarms when there’s any type of reminder of the original traumatic event. This means that after trauma, we walk through the world highly vigilant of our surroundings, our brains queued to find any sort of threat. An individual who has experienced trauma, especially those who have experienced several types of traumas over time, may have difficulty distinguishing between safe and unsafe situations – which means that they are more likely to take risks or leave themselves vulnerable to bad things happening again.
In their text Restoring Sanctuary: A New Operating System for Trauma-Informed Systems of Care, Sandra Bloom and Brian Farragher defined physical and psychological/emotional safety:
· Physical – Freedom from threats of violence, whether from self or others. Physical safety includes being aware of risks in the environment and taking steps to ensure basic physical safety when there is a threat.
· Psychological – The ability to be safe within one’s own identity and the sense of feeling safe with other people and in one’s community. Your ability to create psychological safety in an interaction may increase the comfort that the person feels during the process.
This is a great starting point in helping us understand that someone might be physically safe, yet they don’t feel safe. When we don’t feel safe, we do a lot of things to create that safety, such as withdrawing from others, getting into fights (to not be victimized again), or just freeze. However, this understanding may not fully help us in the workplace when we are part of a team trying to accomplish a shared task.
This is where the term “team psychological safety” comes in. Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson has extensively researched this topic and defines team psychological safety as, “A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” According to her research, teams who are characterized by psychological safety are more likely to take risks, be innovative and creative, and support productive conflicts. She has identified several specific strategies that can help foster an environment characterized by team psychological safety. We will explore these strategies in future blog posts.
Pillar #2: Trust and Transparency
In The Thin Book of Trust, Richard Feltman defines trust as, “Choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” If you think about it, trauma is a profound violation of trust – trust in your environment, trust in a person or group of people, or trust in a particular situation. Trauma can profoundly impact an individual’s ability to trust in the world to be safe. Some types of interpersonal trauma occur when the individual a child is supposed to trust the most (e.g., a parent) is the person who hurts them. This can severely impair an individual’s ability to trust in others over time. In our workplaces, a lack of trust can mean that team members don’t communicate with each other, engage in conflict frequently, or just disengage from the work altogether.
On the other hand, when a team is characterized by trust and transparency, there are several benefits:
· Team members have clarity on what’s expected of them
· Team members understand why the organization has made certain decisions (even if they don’t agree with them)
· Team members are less likely to make unfavorable comparisons to others, “why did XX get this, but I don’t?”
· Team members know that their leader will do what they say they are going to do
There are several strategies that leaders can do to foster trust and transparency. We will review those strategies in future blog posts.
Pillar #3: Autonomy
Autonomy refers to an individual’s ability and right to make decisions, and to have voice, choice, and control over their own lives. A hallmark of a traumatic event is that an individual or group’s autonomy has been taken by them through physical or emotional coercion. Their sense of control over their environment has been compromised. This occurs in cases of physical and sexual abuse but can also occur to a collective group in response to an environmental disaster. As I write this blog post, several states in the southeast of the United States have been devastated by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. These horrifying events have taken away the autonomy of an entire population to have shelter, safe food and water, and even electricity.
When an individual has had their autonomy taken away because of a traumatic event, they often spend much of their energy trying to regain that control. At work, this might look like a team member being overly rigid with their schedule or trying to have complete control over their work product, even when they are part of a larger team that needs to participate in the process. A trauma-informed leader actively works on identifying ways in which team can meet business requirements while also retaining a sense of autonomy and control.
There are several benefits to championing autonomy, including:
· Team members feel like they have unique skills that can contribute to the success of the organization
· Team members feel a sense of control over their own successes, and their own challenges
· Team members are more likely to be innovative
· Organizations are more likely to be creative and adaptable
There are several strategies that leaders can do to foster autonomy. We will review those strategies in future blog posts.
Pillar #4: Connections and Relationships
Many of the most complicated and challenging types of traumas occur within the context of our connections and relationships over time, referred to as complex trauma. This type of trauma deeply impacts how we see the world, how we define positive and stable relationships, and skews our ability to determine if someone is safe and trustworthy. While complex trauma occurs within the context of relationships, it is also healed within the context of relationships. No matter what type of trauma someone has experienced, feeling connected and safe with another person, or with a group of people, is a fundamentally healing experience. In the workplace, a trauma-informed leader actively works on creating opportunities for connections and relationships within their team and organization.
There are several benefits to cultivating teams characterized by connections and relationships:
· Team members feel like they are a part of something bigger and are better aligned with the Mission and Vision of the organization
· Team members are likely to feel more supported, especially after dealing with a tough client
· Organizations are more likely to have better engagement and less turnover
· Organizations can manage concerns regarding burnout and secondary traumatic stress more quickly
There are several strategies that leaders can do to foster connection and relationships. We will review those strategies in future blog posts.
These four pillars serve as the foundation of a trauma-informed leadership approach, providing a roadmap to support leaders in fostering safe, productive, and engaging work environments in which team members feel appreciated and motivated to do their best. In future blogs, we will dive deeply into each of these four pillars and talk about how they show up in organizations and how a trauma-informed leader can support their team using these pillars.
If you have thoughts, questions or ideas about these four pillars, I would love to hear them in the comments below.
· Let’s connect on LinkedIn™ to receive the blog every week
· Join my email list to get my weekly blog delivered to your inbox by clicking here.
· If you’re interested in any training or consultation, click on the “Work with me” tab