The critical leadership skillset needed in modern workplaces

There has been an interesting conversation on Substack in the last week about the term “trauma-informed leadership”

I’m so immersed in this area that I forgot that many people wouldn’t be familiar with the concept of trauma-informed leadership. I was aware that not everyone would gel with the idea. Put simply, it is incompatible with authoritarian leadership which is still widely practiced. I see plenty of commentary about why people should ‘toughen up’ and get over themselves.

But disagreeing with the core concepts behind trauma-informed leadership is different to having no idea that it exists.

I admit I found that I was in a social bubble.

In first article on Substack about why all organisations need trauma-informed leadership, I wrote about all the people I had spoken with in the lead up to deciding to create a framework for trauma-informed leadership.

“Since 2020 I’ve had hundreds of conversations with leaders about a growing need for trauma-informed organisations. The same themes keep coming up: staff are exhausted, burnt out, and acting from a constant threat state which affects staff satisfaction, productivity, and turnover. Without the right resources leaders feel stuck. They want to best support their teams, but there is little evidence-based guidance on how to do that effectively.”

Those hundreds of conversations lulled me into a sense that these ideas were widespread. I’ve come to accept that they are not, although there is probably more awareness where I live in Australia due to legislation that workplaces need to provide a psychologically safe environment.

Read the full article at The Trauma-informed Leader on Substack.

The Trauma-informed Leader on Substack