Follow up Friday: Trauma and The Workplace

Monday my reflection questions were: Where are you challenged in your own leadership with bouncing back from set backs or traumatic events? What can you do to foster more open dialogue and listening in situations that involve tension or trauma?

The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. While these feelings are normal, some people have difficulty moving on with their lives.”

Trauma is an extreme term that many leaders, if you are not working in fields directly that manage trauma (such as healthcare, the military, security, etc.), shy away from. And yet leaders or office workers are traumatized everyday – because of situations that happen at work – or because of toxic relationships with bosses or co-workers. Ultimately it comes down to the nature of the situation and that person’s make-up – if they are a sensitive person or not.

A traumatic situation at work could be where your life is in physical or emotional danger, or both. Examples could be a bomb threat, shooting or emotional disrespect or abuse. For example, years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter there was a gas leak in my company building. Ironically I was working for a healthcare company at the time. HR evacuated everyone to investigate and, those who had any physical reactions were sent to the hospital. Given my condition, I wanted to make sure nothing happened to the baby.

When I got back to the office, I told my boss I wasn’t comfortable working there that day, even though the inspectors cleared the building. She asked if I wanted to see the EAP (employee assistance program – counseling). I was taken aback. No, I did not. I said there was nothing wrong with my being concerned – it was based in reality not my feelings about reality. I felt my perspective was invalidated. I am not against counseling at all. As a matter of fact, I was trained as a therapist early in my career. In this instance, counseling was not the solution. I didn’t think I was traumatized by the gas leak, just appropriately concerned.

Different situations will trigger different people, based upon their history and sensitivities. You can also be traumatized by abusive or disrespectful relationships.

Here is what I realized this week: if you experience trauma in the context of a relationship, you can do your own work within yourself to come to terms with the relationship going forward. Yet the greatest reconciliation takes place in dialogue with another person.

What do I mean by trauma in the context of a relationship? We all have different levels of where we feel a trauma or not. A colleague and friend of mine uses this term to refer to a situation with a former boss. She says she was traumatized by how she was treated when she worked for that company – blatant yelling and swearing and sabotaging of her work. Sound crazy? It’s not as uncommon as you think. And this person worked in human resources! A key question is, why does the people system allow behavior like this to continue?