In the book The Body Keeps the Score, author Bessel Van Der Kolk lays out plentiful evidence for widespread and often unrecognized instances of trauma in the lives of the vast majority of everyday people. In his research, he describes big T trauma, easily recognized by many people as experiences like war, sexual and other physical abuse, addiction, and extreme neglect to name just a few examples. He also describes developmental trauma, a type of psychological injury also incurred simply from conventional ways many adults raise and educate children that also result in toxic ways leaders manage people in their workplace.
 
A trauma-informed approach is a strengths-based framework that recognizes trauma's widespread impacts, including in our workplaces, social, governmental, spiritual and other organizations and institutions, so that sensitivity to this knowledge informs policies, procedures, and practices that foster safety, trust, empowerment, and collaboration. Instead of focusing on "what's wrong with you?", a trauma-informed approach considers "what happened to you?" making it a priority to understand underlying issues in the lives of people. In doing so, leaders then consciously adopt conditions and conversations that avoid re-traumatization, creating win/win environments that foster healing, recovery and robust morale and engagement. 
 
When such healthy, psychologically safe, and emotionally and socially intelligent systems are in place, everyone in these organizations has the opportunity to expand into their greatest human potential and lead peaceful, purposeful, values-based lives. This also has a profound impact on the stability, innovation, creativity and resilience of organizations despite the challenges of growing complexity, speed of change, new technologies, diversity, globalization and more. Trauma-informed approaches applied real-time are the topic of our episode today and why I’m so excited to introduce you to my guest, Dawn Emerick. Let me tell you about her…  
 
Questions we may cover include: 

1. You often describe leadership as a “nervous-system experience” rather than just a behavioral skill. How does shifting from power-over to power-within begin with regulating our own nervous systems?

1. How does our social location—our lived experience with privilege, marginalization, or trauma—shape the way we lead and interpret the behaviors of others at work?

1. You focus on the importance of shifting people from compliance to collaboration. What does it look like when an organization truly moves from compliance and control to collaboration and co-regulation?

1. Many organizations teach emotional intelligence as the leadership gold standard. What’s missing when we stop there and don’t include a trauma-informed lens?

1. You often say, “Not everyone who is difficult is toxic—sometimes they’re just in survival mode.” How can leaders discern between trauma responses and true toxicity?

1. You write that post-traumatic growth isn’t about “bouncing back” but “transforming forward.” What does that look like for leaders and organizations coming out of crisis or change fatigue?

1. You use a framework called The HOPE framework and it focuses on positive experiences as buffers to toxic stress. How can leaders embed HOPE principles into daily workplace practices?

1. HOPE emphasizes safety, relationships, and social connection as protective factors. How can leaders intentionally create those same protective factors for adults at work?

1. In your LinkedIn article, you said the future of leadership depends on relational intelligence. How is that different from emotional intelligence?

1. How can teams practice power-between—especially across hierarchy, identity, or lived experience—to build mutual trust and shared accountability?

1. In The Hurt Leader, you say, “If the culture can’t hold truth, it will never hold transformation.” How can leaders stay in the room when feedback, emotion, or conflict get uncomfortable?

1. You teach organizations to “celebrate errors.” How can embracing mistakes actually strengthen trust and psychological safety in teams?

1. Your Trauma-Informed Change Management framework highlights how unhealed trauma creates resistance to change. What happens when organizations ignore this?

1. How does a “pre-mortem” exercise—imagining failure before it happens—help leaders and teams build foresight and compassion instead of fear?

1. If every leader listening today committed to one trauma-informed shift tomorrow—a single move from power-over to power-within—what would you want that to be?