The Trust Dividend: Healing Betrayal to Unlock Authentic Leadership

Burnout doesn’t always start with too much work. Sometimes it starts with a trust injury we never finished healing. We sit down with Dr. Debi Silber, founder of the Post-Betrayal Transformation Institute, to unpack how unhealed betrayal quietly sabotages leadership performance, workplace communication, and employee engagement, even when you look “fine” on the outside.

Debi explains post-betrayal syndrome, the very real mix of physical, mental, and emotional symptoms that can follow betrayal trauma for years. We get specific about what leaders see in themselves and their teams: inability to trust, overwhelm, sadness, conflict, and the kind of brain fog that makes delegation feel risky. She also walks us through the neuroscience, including how a hijacked stress response can narrow thinking and drain executive function, leaving you with a fraction of your usual capacity.

The turning point is a clear roadmap. Debi shares the five stages people move through to fully heal, why stage three keeps high achievers stuck in survival mode, and what changes when you reach stages four and five. We also dig into rebuilding the “trust dividend” brick by brick: owning your part, validating impact, telling the truth without corporate polish, showing what you learned, and making specific commitments you actually keep. If you’re trying to create psychological safety after a broken promise or an organizational betrayal like a layoff, this conversation gives you language you can use right away.

If this resonates, subscribe to The Communicative Leader, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find it. Where have you seen betrayal show up as burnout at work?

Transcript

When Trust Shatters At Work

Dr. Leah OH 0:00

Welcome back to the Communicative Leader. We often talk about how effective communication builds trust and engagement. But what happens when trust is shattered? Today we're diving into a powerful topic that often flies under the radar, unhealed betrayal and its devastating impact on leadership, performance, and burnout. I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr. Debi Silber, founder of the PBT or Post-Betrayal Transformation Institute, a renowned TEDx speaker and a best-selling author whose work has been featured everywhere from Forbes to the Dr. Oz show. Dr. Debi's groundbreaking research, based on over 100,000 data points, reveals that unhealed betrayal doesn't just hurt relationships, it silently sabotages leaders and fuels the very burnout we're trying to avoid. She offers practical science-backed tools to heal these hidden wounds, rebuild self-trust, and transform betrayal into a source of authentic power and clarity. In today's episode, we're going to explore the hidden factor behind workplace burnout, how to cultivate a betrayal-safe culture, and the key to earning your trust dividend back. Let's dive in and have some fun. Hello and welcome to the Communicative Leader, hosted by me, Dr. Leah Omilion Hodges. My friends call me Dr. OH. I'm a professor of communication and a leadership communication expert. On The Communicative Leader, we're working to make your work life what you want it to be. Debi, thank you for joining us on The Communicative Leader. I'm so excited to hear more of your story and to learn from you today. And your research is really groundbreaking because it identifies this hidden factor behind so many of our struggles. We're going to focus on professional struggles today, but I can certainly see how this would underlie personal struggles as well. So, Debbie, can you give us a little information? Like what is it that led you to investigate betrayal so deeply? And, you know, how is it that you made that critical link between this these unhealed betrayals, these, these, you know, these wounds that we have, and how it can be connected to burnout and disengagement in the workplace?

Dr. Debi Silber 2:22

So you don't think I just like the topic of betrayal? Weird. Yeah. I've been in business 34 years, health, mindset, personal development. Uh, I had a really painful betrayal from my family. I thought I did all I needed to do to heal from that, and then it happened again. This time it was my husband. So that was the deal breaker. Got him out of the house and looked at the two experiences, thinking, okay, what do I do now? You know, I I always sort of read a book or study something or take a course to help me. And I couldn't find anything. This was so big that I decided I had to study it so big. So here it was, four kids, six dogs, a thriving practice. And I found myself enrolling in a PhD program. And it truly was just so I could feel enough to do it for my kids and my clients. Yeah. And really the intention was just to get my head together so I could manage. And that that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changed my health, my family, my work, my life.

Dr. Leah OH 3:23

Amazing. And how strong are you, Debbie? I mean, you just demonstrated with the kids, the end of the relationship, enrolling in a PhD, wanting to learn more. And then getting to a place where you can share this. So thank you for all you've done and getting to a place where you can help us to understand this. Because I imagine when I was preparing for a conversation and learning more about the amazing work you do, I started to realize, you know, you can kind of see it in people. I can see it in things that I do. So I'm really excited to dive into this. So yeah.

Dr. Debi Silber 4:00

Yeah. And thanks. And I feel like with your audience, these are leaders. We can't afford to check out. We have people counting on us. We we have responsibilities. And I think just throughout my life, I've trained myself to look at what's the what's the cost of staying still or staying stuck versus the the the cost of the unknown. And I guess I've trained myself to just realize that the unknown is only unfamiliar. Will it be hard? Will it be new? Will it be different? Yes. But we've done that so many times. And if we can be okay with the unknown and the unfamiliar, it's got to be so much better than the pain. Yes. The struggle that we're in.

Dr. Leah OH 4:48

Yeah. And I think the word train is a really important one that you use because you're not saying, like, I love this. I cannot wait to embrace that unknown, but you recognize it is a concerted choice that you have continued to select and recognizing that, like you said, it's not necessarily good or bad. It's unfamiliar, but it's likely going to cost us less than sitting where we are, especially when we're in an uncomfortable place that we're just stuck.

Dr. Debi Silber 5:17

Exactly.

Post Betrayal Syndrome Warning Signs

Dr. Leah OH 5:19

We know that, right? We know what exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's so helpful. So let's think I love that you can talk about it as the silent saboteur. And when we think of this unhealed unhealed betrayal, it can sabotage our performance, certainly our ability to lead. And I love what you've uncovered in your work. So you say, you know, you're interacting with executives who feel like they're doing everything right. I'm doing this in quote marks, everything right, but they're still feeling burnt out. So, Debbie, I'm wondering what are these subtle, these symptoms, these everyday signs that you have learned in your work that this is actually unhealed betrayal showing up and kind of dragging down their professional life and their communication.

Dr. Debi Silber 6:06

These are all signs of post-betrayal syndrome. And this that was the second discovery that there's this collection of symptoms, physical, mental, and emotional, so common to betrayal, is known as post-betrayal syndrome. And, you know, we think we've been taught time heals all wounds, or you know, it a new relationship will heal it, or whatever it is. And I have the proof that's not true. In over a hundred thousand people that we've tested, we see that's not that that's not the case. Like, for example, I'll give you just a really short story. There was a woman we were working with in her mid-80s, and she had a 70-plus year digestive issue. Now, 45% of everybody betrayed has a digestive issue of some kind. 70 plus years, she she was adopted, they didn't tell it was one like one of those kinds of things. Two weeks into healing the root cause, which was the what she experienced, she healed. So when you think of a leader who's walking around with these physical, mental, and emotional symptoms, it's they could be walking around like that for decades. And it has to do with the unhealed trail. You know, I I'd love to show you this. This is, I don't know, yeah, please. Yeah. So the and and I'd love to get to the discoveries, but briefly, these are some of the most common symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome. We'll read some of them. And the third discovery was that while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime, and most people do, if we're going to fully heal, we will move through five proven predictive stages. And most people get stuck in stage three. But it and and that's where we have the most symptoms. That's what costs companies the most. That's where we're the most stuck in healthcare costs. So if you look here, uh and I'll show you symptoms, yeah, and you'll see this right here where we stay stuck. This is also where we go to therapy. Well, meaning therapists, they're not if they're not highly skilled in betrayal, we're actually paying to stay stuck because we're feeling heard and validated and understood. But for example, to answer your question in a very long-winded, let's say 84% of everybody betrayed uh has an inability to trust, right? Lisa, right? Yeah, so impaired team collaboration, resistance to feedback, increased conflict misunderstandings. Right. Yeah. Uh 88% struggled with extreme sadness. So now picture how that's going to show up in the office, reduced motivation and engagement, withdrawal from colleagues, impact on creativity and problem solving. And maybe you're in a role where you need to be creative. It's been shut down. 47% weight and digestive issues. So think about it. If in your role you have to present yourself, let's say you're a salesperson, right? You don't feel comfortable, right? And uh increased medical leave, that's an issue. Impact on professional image, of course. 78% feel overwhelmed. So now increased mistakes and errors, yeah, missed deadlines, increased risk of burnout. So all of the, and I can go on and on. Yeah. Symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome, that's greatly impacting how they show up at work.

Dr. Leah OH 9:19

Yeah, because when you when you read that list, you just think, you know, my heart goes out to anyone who's feeling like that, because you're just trying to exist at that point. Like leave, like innovation doesn't exist, creativity. Because it's like, let's get one foot in front of the next, let's get to this meeting. Okay, what's next? And that's a really, really challenging place to be in, let alone to try and thrive.

The Five Stages Of Healing

Dr. Debi Silber 9:46

Exactly. And one thing we do is it's so typical out of those five stages in stage three, and I'm happy to share the stages if you want to get it. Because we're so unhappy, but it's you know, as a leader, game on, right? We're it's like, how do I get through my day? So here's what we do we start numbing, avoiding, distracting. So maybe we were using food or alcohol or work or or TV or whatever method of mass distraction. And with leaders, very often they use work. So now they're working, which seems so productive, but they're using it to escape. And they're so they're not healing, they're using it as a as a a method to distract. So nothing is yeah.

Dr. Leah OH 10:31

I would love to hear the stages.

Dr. Debi Silber 10:33

Oh, sure, sure. So so this is I'll give you the most boiled-down version here. So out of so stage one, um I'll start there. This is where we have this is actually before it happens. And if you can picture four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. What I saw with everybody, me too, was a heavy lean on the physical and mental thinking and doing, right? Especially executive, we're so good at that, right? And kind of neglecting or ignoring the emotional and the spiritual feeling and being. Well, if the table only has two legs, it's gonna be easy for that table to topple over, right?

Speaker 2 11:10

Yeah.

Dr. Debi Silber 11:10

Stage two, shock, trauma, D-day, discovery day. This is the scariest of all of the stages, and it's the breakdown of the body, the mind, the worldview. So, right here, you've ignited the stress response. You're now headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition, and disease. The mind is in a total state of chaos and overwhelm. You cannot understand what just happened. Like, let's say you, your, your, your, your partner completely lied to you. The your coworker stole the company funds. Like it all, this is the shock, right? Here it's like someone took a mask off and it's and the bottom has bottomed out on you, and a new bottom hasn't been formed yet. It's traumatizing, right?

Dr. Leah OH 11:55

It's just fallen. Yeah.

Dr. Debi Silber 11:56

If the bottom were to bottom out on you, what would you do? You'd grab hold of anything or anyone in order to stay safe and stay alive. And that's stage three survival instincts and this is the most practical out of all of the stages.

Dr. Leah OH 12:10

Okay.

Dr. Debi Silber 12:11

If you can't help me get out of my way, how do I survive this experience? Who can I trust? Where do I go? Here's the trap, though. This is the stage we all get stuck in. And here's why. Once we've figured out how to survive our experience, because it feels so much better than the shock and trauma we just came from, we think it's good. See? Yep, yeah. Yeah, and because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, yeah.

Dr. Leah OH 12:37

It's like I made it out of the woods, done. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Debi Silber 12:43

We're not supposed to, but we don't know that. And for the first thing is we start getting that, you know, all those small self-methodic secondary gain. We get our story, we get to be right, we get to you know to sympathy from everyone we tell our story to. And because we're so shaken and unhappy, we that seems like a plus on some level. So we take it. So now that we're here longer than we should be, now the mind starts doing things like, you know, maybe you're not that great, maybe you deserved it, maybe this, maybe that. So we plant deeper roots. Yeah. And now because we're here, and these are the thoughts we're thinking, this is the energy we start putting out. Like energy attracts like energy. So now we're attracting confirmation and experiences and even relationships to confirm this is where we belong. Here's where we may join a support group. And now we found our people. So we will sabotage our healing because we found our people. Here's where we will go to therapy. And if that therapist is not highly skilled in betrayal, well-meaning, of course, we'll feel heard and validated and understood, and we're actually gluing ourselves into stage three, right? Yeah, and and here's where, like I said, we start numbing, avoiding, and now we do it for a day, a week, a month, a year, 10 years, 20 years. And I can see someone 20 years later and say, you know, that drinking you're doing or that emotional eating, do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal? And they look at me like I'm crazy. They say it happened 20 years ago. All they did was put themselves in stage three. That makes sense.

Dr. Leah OH 14:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Built a cozy little home, and yeah, that's it.

Dr. Debi Silber 14:18

And so, in that thought, all they're doing is medicating and suppressing the symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome. They're there, and I would love to share how this is affecting the mind of the executive, and it's this they're just stuck in this like toxic soup of stage three, making stage three decisions, thinking stage three thoughts, having repeat experiences with betrayal, because nothing has really changed. Yeah, right. Can I get you out of stage three? Yeah, okay. Yeah, where do we? I'm gonna, yeah, let's max. I'm like, yeah. If you're willing, willingness is a big word right here to let go of your story, grieve more in the lost budget stage two. You move to stage four. Yep. Stage four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. So here's where you acknowledge I can't undo what happened, but I control what I do with it. Just in that decision, yeah, you're turning down the stress response. So you're not healing just yet, but at least you stopped the massive damage that was happening in stages two and stage three. Yeah, stage four feels like if you've ever moved to a new house, office, condo, whatever, your stuff's not there, it's not quite cozy yet, but it's this sort of hopeful excitement, right?

Dr. Leah OH 15:38

Yes.

Dr. Debi Silber 15:39

That's okay. You're right. It feels like that. But if you were to move, you don't take everything with you. You're not taking along the things that don't represent.

unknown 15:49

Yeah.

Dr. Debi Silber 15:49

And what I found was there's this one spot as people leave stage three and enter into stage four. If your friends weren't there for you, they don't come along. The therapist who doesn't understand betrayal, there you're done. That support group, you're done. And people ask me all the time, you know, is it me? Yes, it is. You're undergoing a transformation. Yeah, and if they don't rise, they don't come along.

Dr. Leah OH 16:12

You get to level up.

Dr. Debi Silber 16:13

That's it. Exactly. Yeah, it's a very not lonely time necessarily, very personal time. You know, when you think of the symbol of transformation, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon. They don't go in with a party with a whole bunch of people. Yeah, yeah. It's but they emerge as so when you settle into that space, you make it cozy and mentally home. You move into the fifth, uh, most beautiful stage. And this is healing, rebirth, and a new growth. I like that body starts to heal. Self-love, self-care, eating, well exercise, stuff like that. We didn't have the bandwidth for that earlier. The mind is healing, you're making all kinds of new rules, new boundaries, um, and you have a new worldview based on everything.

How Betrayal Hijacks The Brain

Dr. Leah OH 16:53

Yeah, that is amazing. Yeah, that's so cool. And I can't wait to hear. I know in our in our questions, you're gonna be able to pull and threads throughout these. So it's gonna be fun to see, you know, what this looks like and what you've experienced. So, Debbie, you do this, you know, what I love about your work is that you're blending psychology and neuroscience. And when you are taking the scientific perspective, I'm hoping you can kind of help us understand what's happening in a leader's brain when they experience betrayal. And how does that neurological response? So you've mentioned before that activation of stress response. How does this directly undermine their ability to lead, to communicate clear, clear with clarity, and to delegate?

Dr. Debi Silber 17:41

Yeah, it's such a great question. The mind is hijacked, hijacked. So your amygdala, it that's it's on high alert because you're now on high alert, everything is perceived as dangerous. That's how you're moving through your day. It's not conscious, completely subconscious. Your prefront frontal cortex is impaired, so your executive functioning is gone. This is you just don't have the the capacity. You're you're hyper-vigilant. So if you're hyper-vigilant, you're not trusting anyone. Everything. Everything is a threat. Everything is a threat. You're a cognitive, you, you're you're just everything is rigid and and like narrowing. It's cognitive narrowing where you you really have a much narrower, narrower perspective. You can't afford, you think, that ability just to look at the whole perspective because you're you know, you're in danger. You have to just focus on what's in front of you. You're as far as delegating, there's a breakdown there. You don't feel safe delegating because trust has been shattered. Yeah, you don't trust your own discernment, you don't trust anybody or anything you because you don't trust anyone's intentions, and your working memory, your memory is impaired. So now that creative thinking, that critical thinking, like it's all completely off. So you imagine trying to do all the things you need to do as a leader with like just picture if if we have a hundred percent capacity, imagine at best 50% capacity. You can't be creative, you can't trust, you can't allow for great things to flow in and flow out because you're not working with everything you need to lead effectively.

Dr. Leah OH 19:32

Yeah, and that's perfect. Because I wanted to ask you about the trust dividend. And so we know trust is this bedrock of effective leadership. It's really the bedrock of effective relationships, right? And so when betrayal shatters trust, that's where I think you bring in this trust dividend. So I'm wondering what are these specific actionable steps a leader can take, not just to forgive the past, like you said, not just say like time's going to heal this, but rather to rebuild self-trust first. And I'm hoping too you can help us understand why this internal repair is so crucial before we can kind of move forward and engage in trusting relationships with others.

Dr. Debi Silber 20:13

Right. You know, trust is trust is so huge. It is so important to any relationship. And when trust is shattered, think about it, the person you trusted the most proved untrustworthy, or one of the people you trusted the most. And then the next level of that is well, if I where was I? How did I not see? How did I not know? I don't trust myself. So if I don't trust the person I really put my trust in, and I can't trust myself, how in the world can I trust in anything and anyone? So I don't believe it can be repaired. It can be rebuilt, though. It's a big job. It's a big job. And I look at trust like a brick wall. The only way I know I have a brick wall being built is brick by brick by brick. Every opportunity someone has to show that they're trustworthy, that's one brick in that brick wall. So now imagine it could have taken a long time for the brick wall to be re to be built, and then in one earth-shattering moment or series of moments, the whole thing comes crashing down. The only way it can go back up again if the if the person whose trust has been shattered is willing to watch the brick wall the same way it went the first time, brick by brick by brick. But what I see with leaders so often is they completely miss the rebuild part. And it's so crucial because if you've shattered trust in your employees, in your team, these are crucial things that I see need to happen because then it can be rebuilt. The first thing is own it. Yeah, you take 100% full and complete responsibility, there's no blame shifting, none of that. Yeah, own it fully, fully and completely. The second thing is you want to. Validate it. Validate it. Yes. This happened. I did this. This stinks. Just be honest, brutally honest. Explain the why, but in a brutally honest way. Because here's the thing: people can be very forgiving if they know the truth. It does not have to be polished. And in fact, when it's polished, it's worse. You're so much better off tripping over your words, uh, stumbling, fumbling, because it shows you're new at this, but you care enough to just go there. Say what you've learned because of this experience, right? That shows, wow, you know what? I I took an action, it it really led to some mistakes. Here's what I learned. Because now they're thinking, what's going to be the difference between the old version of you and that new version of you? If they don't know there's any distance between those two versions, they can't trust again. So the more clearly the you as the leader sees this version of me, recognizes that was really, you know, that wasn't right at all. Now they can be like, okay, I they see I can believe in this person. And then specific commitments, but be specific and and make sure if you say you're gonna do something, do it. What you don't want to do, what you don't want to do, and I see this so often is don't hide behind you know any sort of corporate thing or whatever. Don't hide, just don't don't justify. Do not justify. People see right through it, it shows you're not taking responsibility. Don't give that false optimism either. Oh, it's gonna be great. This no, if people need to grieve, they need to grieve, and your false optimism doesn't give them that opportunity, and and it feels fake. So just just don't do it, exactly, you know, and and promising, don't promise anything you're not gonna do. So it really comes down to anything you'd want in a relationship, right? It's the same thing, exactly.

Dr. Leah OH 24:10

Yeah, yeah. I agree, and I I really want to raise up, I love the metaphor of the brick wall, you're right, and I and I think it helps to also illustrate how long it takes to build trust. Like you said, brick by brick, right? This is not something that happens overnight, but a wrecking ball can come and do some pretty extensive damage in a really short period of time. So thank you for that.

Dr. Debi Silber 24:39

Yeah, yeah. And and this is why you know, people always ask me about forgiveness because I founded National Forgiveness Day. And and forgiveness, it's this, it's a similar thing, it has a similar timeline to trust. And this is why, when, and of course, forgiveness is just for us, it really has nothing to do with anybody else, but even so, when we rush towards forgiveness for the wrong reasons, right, it backfires every single time. So these things take time, and and I found that trust and forgiveness share similar timelines.

Dr. Leah OH 25:12

Yeah, yeah. I I've never thought about it like that, and that's so insightful. And you're right, because if we try and rush that, we're it's not gonna be lasting.

Dr. Debi Silber 25:22

You know, I remember in in my study, uh studying forgiveness, and there was one study I read that said if you feel safe and valued and you forgive, you feel better. If you do not feel safe and valued and you forgive, you feel worse. So let's say in a situation, someone does not feel safe and valued, and just because they have to show up to work the next day, they're like, fine, I forgive. You know, they're not feeling what they need to feel to in order to feel safe.

Dr. Leah OH 25:48

Yeah, exactly. And then I love the advice you give leaders because I was thinking too, when they're when they're engaging in those stops and they're being honest and owning a mistake, they're also fostering psychological safety, which we know is just kind of a miracle worker in groups and teams. So, you know, it's it's such a great investment for self, for others, for the organization.

What Honest Leadership Sounds Like

Dr. Debi Silber 26:12

And it's real, and it's real, and that's the most important thing. Exactly. Where, you know, and I think so many leaders they they they want to look a certain way, they want to be perceived a certain way, but the trust, the trust is in the realness. So yeah, you know, you're you're owning it, taking responsibility, just being real, but do not wait to be polished and and or blame or exactly. None of that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 26:36

none of that.

Dr. Leah OH 26:36

Own it, own it, own it. So let's continue with this healing process and what communication will look like in the workplace. So if we have a leader or team that's recovering from an organizational betrayal, so may a layoff, a lapse in integrity, some sort of broken promise, how can or how should the leader's communication strategy change? And are there things that they should stop saying or start saying in order to can genuinely move this team toward healing and engagement, re-engagement, rather?

Dr. Debi Silber 27:11

Yeah. It's the the one word that comes to mind is honesty. That's it. When in doubt, be honest. And there's such an energy that comes from someone when you know they're genuine and they're honest and they're authentic and they're real. So whatever the scenario is, if that team member, if that employee just says, okay, clearly, you know, my my boss, my leader here is struggling over this. They're feeling it. You listen, you're not breaking down, you're still able to do what you need to do, but you're you're just you're being honest about what happened, about your mistake in it, your part in it, what you thought was gonna happen and didn't, what you've learned from it. But like I said, one of the biggest things I see that is to that leader's advantage is when they convey to their team the distance between the old version of them and the new version of them. And and I don't mean because they've run so far away from it, no, that they see the old version of them so clearly. When I, you know, when I said that I thought this, but what I see now is because it shows the growth, and then that's so people can say, okay, I can feel safe in that because yeah, they wouldn't do the same thing because there's they see the difference.

Dr. Leah OH 28:40

Yeah, and I I really love that, Debbie, because it's something that is simple, but again, so effective, and you're building trust, right? That's a brick that's going in. And I think too, so helpful for the leader to be able to have that honesty in the workplace, in themselves, to be able to acknowledge, oh, yes, I did say that, but here's why. Here's what I was thinking, and here's where we are today.

Dr. Debi Silber 29:07

And here's the simplest way to to as the leader to know what to do. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you want to hear? Yeah, what would you want to hear to feel safe, to feel valued, to feel like you matter, to feel like you, you know, you get it. What would you want to hear? And pretty much if you just use that as your base, there you go.

Dr. Leah OH 29:33

Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. So simple, so helpful, and not likely to lead you astray.

Resilience Versus True Transformation

Speaker 1 29:40

Exactly.

Dr. Leah OH 29:41

So let's think about authentic power. And I know that in your work, Debbie, you encourage moving beyond resilience to reclaiming that authentic power. And oftentimes as a society, especially now, I think resilience is it's a big buzzword, something we're we praise a lot. But I'm wondering, you know, what is the distinction between this idea of like just simply bouncing back, getting back on your feet, and then actually truly transforming that experience of betrayal into new energy, clarity, and more authenticity.

Dr. Debi Silber 30:15

Yeah, I love that question. People strive for resilience, and I think that's sort of like the booby prize. That's that's not, you know, that's sure, it's restoring, it's bringing back. But with betrayal, there is such a shattering of the old and such an opportunity to birth something completely new. So I'll give you uh this, and you will see it so clearly when I talk about the house. I did two TEDx talks and I talk about the house uh in uh in the second one. And it's imagine an old house. Here's the difference between resilience and transformation. Let's say the old house needs a new roof and you get a new roof, you're restoring it. That would be resilience. Let's say it needs a new paint job and you paint. That would be resilience. You're bringing it back, you're restoring it. Here's trauma and transformation. A tornado comes by and levels the house. Right? A new roof not gonna fix it, a new paint job's not gonna fix it. In fact, both together won't fix it. Now, you have every right to stand there at the log where your house once stood and say, Oh my gosh, this is tragic. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. You could be right. Yeah. You can call everybody you know over and say, Isn't this horrible and terrible? Yes, it is. And you have the right to mourn the loss of your house until your last day. However, should you choose to build the house, you don't have to. But if you choose to, why in the world would you build the same house?

unknown 31:37

Right?

Dr. Debi Silber 31:38

Why not give it everything the old house didn't have? The view that from the west or the whatever it is, right? Yeah, that's the opportunity with betrayal. There has been such a crash and burn that it's such a wasted opportunity of trauma when you don't rebuild everything. You know, there's a there's a saying, I've been saying a mantra in the 34 years of my business, I have yet to find a topic it doesn't work for. And it's this hard now, easy later. Easy now, hard later. Take your pick, it's going to be one of those two. When it comes to betrayal, what truly works so beautifully is hard now, easy later. And what I mean by that is every thought that comes in, you question with the old version of me, accept this, say this, do this, you're bringing along all the parts you love and you're leaving behind everything that no longer serves. And what you're doing is you're intentionally and deliberately creating a version of you that never would have had the opportunity to be created had that not happened. That's trauma well served.

Dr. Leah OH 32:47

Yeah, yeah. And I I I wrote down the word, I'm taking notes. I wrote down the word opportunity because I think that is not a word we usually like surround with this idea of betrayal. But when you're talking about it, you're right. Like there you could try to rebuild exactly as it was before, as you were before, as you operated before, but you've learned something new, right? You've gone through this healing in this processing, and it doesn't make sense to try and get back where you were, figure out where you can be.

Dr. Debi Silber 33:20

Well, you have access to so much more. But when you're stuck in stage three, you don't have that access. You're stuck in your trauma. If I tell you how many people we have seen within the PBT Institute as they move into stages four and five, new businesses, new passion projects, new levels of health, new relationships, new I mean, it's because you're bringing such a new, evolved, healed, healthy, whole, confident version of you into this new experience. So of course, like the PBT Institute, that was a stage five thing. You know, I haven't had earlier so so the version of you, even the relationships you have access to. You can't do that in stage three. That's stage five stuff.

Creating A Betrayal Safe Culture

Dr. Leah OH 34:05

Yeah, exactly. And so we're gonna get to the, I think in a few questions, we're gonna be closer to stage five transformation. Before we get there, Debbie, I'm wondering, you know, how can our leaders out there, how do we can create this betrayal-safe culture? So we've got these communicative leaders, you know, they're intentional. How do they build this proactive culture where betrayal is less likely to happen? And if it does, how do we then create these kind of norms where it's addressed quickly and ethically? Right. Like, how do we do this?

Dr. Debi Silber 34:42

Well, you know, we take it from two lenses, from the leader's perspective and then from their team, right? So, how do you prevent it as the leader? You don't do it. You just don't. You think before you say something, before you act. Will this hurt them? Will this, how will this land? What will be the consequences of this? And I think if we took just a little more time in thinking about the the end result of something before we made that move, we would prevent a lot of pain. Prevent a lot of pain. And it could be as simple as will this, you know, will this hurt? If yes, no, you know, yeah. Exactly. So it's just that's as the leader, I would implement, think of the consequences, think of the end result before you make that move, before you say that thing, before you write that email, whatever it is. Now, from the team's perspective, can you you you can, as the leader, encourage open, honest conversation, make it that you're approachable. If there is a, you know, if there is something. I will say though, so often a leader will look at a team member and say they're lazy, they're disengaged, they're unproductive, and they're burned out, and they're looking at it as a behavioral issue and it's not, it's a it's a betrayal issue. And I know this from so many people coming to us saying, My boss is starting to catch on, I can't focus, I can't concentrate, I'm in sales, I can't sell. And and it's because of the betrayal. So instead of just assuming they're just, you know, what's up with them? You know, it can very likely be a betrayal. And when that's the case, if that person moves through the stages, the type of talent you will have will blow your mind because they're because when they move through stages four and five, the morale, the productivity, the creativity, the engagement, the joy, the energy, they get that back exponentially.

Dr. Leah OH 36:48

Yeah. So it's like a new employee.

Dr. Debi Silber 36:51

It absolutely is, and it's a new employee with this renewed appreciation of all of it because of what they've healed from.

Dr. Leah OH 36:59

Yeah. Oh, I love that. So, Debbie, I think this next one will kind of, I'm hoping, bring us closer to that stage five that we've been talking about. So, like as you mentioned, you do work with post-betrayal transformation or PBT. So, if a leader wants to adopt the PBT mindset as a core component of their leadership philosophy, you know, where they're moving from simply managing people and projects to truly healing and being authentic, activating potential, what would you say is the single most important mindset shift or habit that they need to establish in order to facilitate this?

Dr. Debi Silber 37:39

You know, I think one of the most important things that I see and I speak all over. And and one of the one of the things that that I'm always told is they had no idea there was a roadmap for this. They didn't know there was a proven, research-based, predictable way to heal from it. So if you know there's a roadmap and it can shorten someone's you know pain by decades, move them through the stages. Okay, that's yeah, that's really it. The mindset, the mindset is really knowing that I think in the past we only we would think, okay, if if I I have a betrayal, I'm trying to help someone else move through or I'm moving through, what do we do? We the the options were join a support group, go to therapy, numb, outrun it. Yeah, none of those things work.

Dr. Leah OH 38:26

Yeah, none of them. Yep. Yeah. So exactly. Yeah. So I and I love that too, because I think you're right, people probably for long recognize there's an issue, and what was available, those tools weren't helping. And then at some point we kind of just throw up our hands because it's like, I've I've tried these things, I've thought about these things, I'm not getting anywhere. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

Dr. Debi Silber 38:50

And that's a stage three mindset.

Dr. Leah OH 38:52

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Debi Silber 38:53

Yeah, if you don't know, how could we know there's something else? Right. So then you think, okay, let me just make the best of what I have, the team I have, the the the scenario I'm in, because we don't know there's anything better. Transformation doesn't even begin until stage four.

Advice For Leaders And Employees

Dr. Leah OH 39:08

Yep, yeah, exactly. And so I have two final questions for you, Debbie. And I'm bummed because I'm I'm loving this, I'm learning so much. But the way we end all of our episodes of the communicative leader is with these two questions. So the first part is kind of advice for our titled leaders. So our friends who are managers, directors, supervisors, what is your, you know, your leadership or communication tip, advice, or challenge for them? And then the second part is for our employees of all ranks. What do you want to leave them with?

Dr. Debi Silber 39:41

Yeah. You know, I would say that the first thing is don't assume anything. Don't assume anything. Don't assume you know what's happening with your team. You have it's really betrayal, it's one of those things. They're doing all they can to compartmentalize it and keep it out of the office. But it's impossible. It's impossible it's coming in. So don't assume, because very likely it could be an unhealed betrayal. They're terrified to let you know they're humiliated, they're embarrassed, they don't know how to handle it, move through it, but don't assume uh it's it's something else because it could very likely be betrayal. If you're the employee, uh move through the stages, just know which stage you're in and know the worst of it happened already. This is nothing you can't do. You just need to, when you're in stage three, you only have access to stage three thoughts, stage three decisions, a stage three life. Yes, yeah, you know, it's it's almost like you're climbing a mountain, you have more better view, you know. You see more, and again, stage five. Yes, and that's where you're making all of your decisions from a place of clarity and strength versus scarcity.

Dr. Leah OH 40:52

Yeah, yeah. So helpful, Debbie. And I think too, I think reminding people for people out there listening that you get through that shock and trauma, you stage two, like you said, D-Day. That's the hardest part. We've moved past there, we're surviving, but we don't have to stay there, right? We can peek around that corner and recognize probably a lot better things waiting for us.

Dr. Debi Silber 41:16

Oh my gosh. The the best things are waiting for us. And you can, you know, when you think about it, betrayal is one of the most painful of the human experiences. This was the person, these were the people that gave you the sense of safety and security. So when this is the person or these are the people to take that very sense of safety and security away, it's absolutely traumatizing. So when you rebuild not just your life, but yourself after an experience with betrayal, yeah, you become a version of you that you'll be really excited to get to know.

Dr. Leah OH 41:47

Yeah, yes. Well, Debbie, thank you for sharing your time with us. Thank you for walking us through this. You do such fascinating and important work, and I love learning about it, and I'm really excited to share it with our listeners.

Dr. Debi Silber 42:00

Thanks so much.

Dr. Leah OH 42:03

All right, my friends, that wraps up our conversation today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. Looking forward to chatting with you again soon. I'm the communicative leader.

unknown 42:25

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