At some point in our lives, we all face trauma - difficult or unpleasant experiences that cause stress, injury, or other negative outcomes. Trauma can be physical, emotional, or both. It can be minor or devastating. Trauma can also be acute - resulting from a single incident; chronic - based on repeated and prolonged exposure; or complex - resulting from exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events. Trauma can also be experienced on individual, organizational, and community levels. But one thing is certain - we will all face trauma of one type or another at some point. Our ability to recognize, respond to, and move through that trauma will make the difference between successful or unsuccessful outcomes.

Almost everyone exposed to trauma has some kind of short-term reaction to it - an adrenaline rush, heightened vigilance, anger, depression, extreme mood swings, etc. Anthropologically, these reactions have evolved to help keep us alive, and are perfectly healthy responses to traumatic events. Vigilance enables us to detect threats, adrenaline helps us flee from them, anger prepares us to fight them, and even depression allows us to calm down and decompress afterwards. For a small percentage of those who experience trauma, however, these reactions can create long-term, unhealthy consequences over years or even a lifetime - such as an inability to adjust, poor decision-making, or crippling anxiety. So what can we do to take advantage of a traumatic experience and mitigate the long-term negative consequences while emerging more resilient than when we started?

In his bestselling book Tribe, Sebastian Junger explores why traumatic experiences can increase organizational loyalty, and why organizational belonging is so essential in overcoming traumatic events. Studying individuals and organizations as diverse as soldiers returning from war, Holocaust survivors, and communities recovering from natural disasters, Junger has found that hardship can turn out to be a great blessing, and that disasters are often remembered more fondly than exotic family vacations. The factor that makes the difference is “social resilience.” Adversity typically leads people to depend more on one another, and despite the individual stresses and dangers, there can be a net gain in social well-being. Individuals who are able to rely on each other and develop deep connections through shared experiences are much more likely to overcome and even thrive from traumatic events, in both the short- and long-term, than those who endure them in isolation. Contributing to the benefit of a larger community helps trauma survivors feel necessary and productive, greatly increasing resilience. Says Junger, “Humans don’t mind hardship...what they mind is not feeling necessary.”

As leaders, our organizations look to us to help guide them through traumatic events and get the team to a better place. We have the unique opportunity to either enhance the social resilience of our organization or to diminish it. It’s up to us to facilitate a sense of belonging, to offer everyone the opportunity to contribute, and to create an environment of inclusiveness. The good news is that these conditions are mutually supportive. Creating a supportive environment for the individual benefits the social resilience of the organization, and vice versa, helping the organization and individual alike overcome and thrive from trauma.

The way in which we perceive our experiences creates our reality. Said another way, it’s not only about what happens to us, but what we think about what happens to us. Because everyone perceives things differently, it’s not only possible, but probable, that a given event will create multiple perceptions of what caused that event and what needs to be done about it. Since no individual has all of the answers, collaboration is key. Collaboration allows an opportunity for all team members to contribute, provides a broader perspective of the environment, and places the traumatic event in the appropriate context. The critical first step to collaboration is listening. Listening leads to shared understanding, shared understanding builds trust, and increased trust, in turn, will ultimately increase social resilience, resulting in better decisions and outcomes.

This process can be painful. It’s never easy to hear about challenges - especially when, as leaders, we feel personally responsible (rightly or wrongly) for those challenges. But we have to be willing to accept the reality of the current situation. Before we can adopt behaviors to alleviate trauma, we have to understand the root cause or causes as perceived by our team members. When people tell you something’s not right, listen and take them seriously. Respect their opinion and try to find the validity in it even if you disagree. Being willing to accept various assessments of what went wrong and admit - or even embrace - the current reality is the necessary first step in developing an appropriate way ahead toward the desired end state. The more willing we are to embrace and share the pain of the current situation, the more likely we will be to arrive at a better result, and the more socially resilient our organization - and the individuals within - will become.

For an in-depth discussion on leadership in times of trauma, check out the Magic in the Room Podcast Episode 69: Leading When People Experience Trauma, with special guest Chris King, Licensed Professional Counselor, of Chris King Counseling, LLC.