The Six Pillars of Trauma-Informed Management with Holly Dillon | Your Trauma-Informed Career Guide Ep. 008

The Six Pillars of Trauma-Informed Management: Creating Psychologically Safe Workplaces with Holly Dillon | Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide Ep. 008

Have you ever received feedback that left you feeling shattered for days? Or watched a workplace change send colleagues into anxiety spirals? In this comprehensive episode of Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, I'm joined by trauma-informed leadership expert Holly Dillon to explore why traditional management approaches often re-traumatize employees—and what leaders can do instead.
We dive deep into SAMHSA's six proven pillars of trauma-informed management that transform workplace dynamics and create environments where everyone can thrive:

Safety: Building psychological safety through predictable communication and clear expectations
Trustworthiness & Transparency: Creating trust through honest, bounded communication—even during difficult situations like layoffs
Peer Support: Establishing workplace communities that provide co-regulation and mutual support
Collaboration & Mutuality: Involving employees in decisions about their workload and career development
Empowerment, Voice & Choice: Giving employees control and options in how they accomplish their work
Cultural Considerations: Understanding how personal history, military background, career transitions, and trauma experiences shape workplace needs

Holly shares specific scripts for difficult conversations, including how to say "I'd like to discuss something I've noticed" instead of "we need to talk." We explore real workplace scenarios, from managing trauma survivors to navigating organizational changes with compassion.

Welcome to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, the podcast reimagining career development for trauma survivors. I'm your host, Cyndi Bennett, founder of the Resilient Career Academy, helping create workplaces where healing and professional growth coexist.

🔗 Download your FREE Trauma-Informed Management Quick Reference Guide: https://resilientcareeracademy.myflodesk.com/timqrg

📱 Connect with Holly Dillon: https://www.linkedin.com/company/recentreltd/
email: holly@recentre.uk
https://instagram.com/recentreltd?igsh=OG05emJwdWVmbmI4

🌟 Join the Resilient Career Academy: https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com/rcalearningcommunity

00:00 Introduction to Trauma-Informed Management

03:04 Understanding Psychological Safety

07:40 Trustworthiness and Transparency

17:36 The Importance of Peer Support

26:09 Collaboration and Mutuality

27:38 The Impact of Unfair W

When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you grow your career journey:

1. Free trauma-informed career development resources from my website! Visit https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com for always up-to-date tips.
2. Ready to build a fulfilling career with trauma-informed support? Join The Resilient Career Academy Learning Community, where trauma survivors support each other, share resources, and develop career resilience in a safe, understanding environment
3. Ready for personalized trauma-informed career coaching? Explore my range of virtual coaching packages designed for different stages of your career journey. Visit my website to find the right support for where you are now. [Visit my website: https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com/1-on-1-coaching]

DISCLOSURE: Some links I share might contain resources that you might find helpful. Whenever possible I use referral links, which means if you click any of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation at no cost to you.

Transcript

The Six Pillars of Trauma-Informed Management with Holly Dillon | Your Trauma-Informed Career Guide Ep. 008

​[00:00:00] 

Cyndi: Have you ever received feedback that left you feeling completely shattered for days, or experienced a sudden workplace change that sent you into a spiral of anxiety? If you're a trauma survivor, these common workplace experiences can be especially overwhelming.

Today I'm thrilled to be joined by trauma-informed leadership expert, Holly Dillon. Together we'll be exploring the six pillars of trauma-informed management, practical leadership techniques that create psychologically safe workplaces.

By the end of this episode, you'll have specific communication strategies and frameworks that you can implement immediately. Holly will share her expertise on SAMHSA's proven principles, and we'll discuss how to translate these into real world management scenarios.

As someone who's navigated workplace triggers [00:01:00] while healing from trauma myself and who's worked with hundreds of professionals doing the same, I've seen firsthand how these principles can be the difference between a workplace that depletes you, and one that supports your growth and healing journey.

​Did you know that trauma impacts how we navigate our careers? But most career advice ignores this reality. Imagine feeling confident and safe at work while honoring your healing journey.

Welcome to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, the podcast that reimagines, career development for trauma survivors. I'm your host, Cyndi Bennett, a trauma survivor, turned trauma informed career coach and founder of the Resilient Career Academy. If you're navigating your career. While honoring your healing journey, you are in the right [00:02:00] place.

Management approaches often re-traumatize employees who have experienced trauma. When managers deliver critical feedback without considering psychological safety, implement sudden changes without proper context, or use language that triggers feelings of shame, they activate trauma responses in team members. Most managers have good intentions, but lack specific communication techniques needed to create psychological safety.

Holly, you're an expert on SAMHSA's six principles of Trauma-Informed Care, can you help us understand how these translate to management practices?

Holly: Absolutely. I'd love to do that. Should we take all six and. Just narrow 'em down one by one.

Cyndi: sure. One by one. That sounds great.

Holly: I want to talk about why implementing these six principles will actually help you as an employee as well, or even as a manager. So I'll give you a word that goes with each one that really links [00:03:00] to employee engagement. Hopefully that'll help as well.

Cyndi: Perfect.

Holly: All right, so the first one is safety. Safety is not just when we think of safety. Sometimes we think about physical safety, but this is psychological safety, which has been a term that's really come up a lot in the last, five years. Covid really brought a lot of this out. That's when I started really focusing on this work was post Covid. So psychological safety means yes, I want to be safe that I can get to my desk. There's not loud noises around me. If there is, I'm instructed to wear headphones, whatever that looks like. But it's also the safety to be able to speak my mind or share something and know that I'm not going to get punished for that or written up for that an example. It's the ability for me to go to my manager and say, Hey, I feel safe with you, so I want to tell you about something that is going on at home. So safety covers a big piece of it. But [00:04:00] when I walk into work, do I have a calm nervous system, do I feel good about being at work that, you know, you've implemented safety. And why this is going to help you from an employer is if I feel safe at work, then my productivity's gonna be up, my engagement at work, my morale. So it's really linked to employee engagement.

Cyndi: Yeah, this is so, yeah, this is so fundamental. What does safety look like in practical terms for a manager? I think you covered how that looks like for an employee, but what does that look like for a manager?

Holly: Yeah, I think as a manager, one of the best things you can do, and I had an employee when I first hired her, we had a kind of a conversation about what the structure looks like when we might talk, and she said to me, if we're going to have, if you call me and say we to talk, please first give me an opportunity to say, now is not a good time or, [00:05:00] yes, that's great, and also a hint of what it's about. So if I just said we need to talk, you immediately might get nervous as the, if I said that as the the manager to you, you might be like, I'm in trouble. I've done something wrong. I'm getting fired, right. We go through all those extremes. If you just said, Hey, I want to talk about the account you're on and how things are going there, it's gonna take us 15 minutes, you have the opportunity to say, great, let's talk now, or even better, you may say, you know what, I'm not in the frame of mind right now. Can we talk in an hour? And you have the option to say that.

Cyndi: Yeah, that's so important, right? Because I know I've experienced that myself where, you know, I get a ping from my manager, saying, Hey, can we talk in 15 minutes? And I'm like, what did I do wrong? Right?

Holly: Yes.

Cyndi: And it brings anxiety like immediately and I've had lots of clients who've also experienced that "we need to talk" message when there's nothing really wrong, they're just checking in or [00:06:00] whatever but it, it makes you feel like you're coming before the judge.

Holly: Yeah. And as we talk through the six pillars, this particular pillar of safety and be a string through all of them and that'll make sense as we kind of keep linking that back.

Cyndi: Safety is super important, because we bring in our bodies to the workplace, this feeling of not being safe in our bodies and so, for trauma survivors in particular, when they come into the workplace, they have to really work at feeling, safe enough in the workplace. And that is safe enough, not only in their physical environment, but also in the environment that they're in,... the workplace environment.

Holly: What's interesting is this six pillars came from Samsha and it was really built for healthcare and it was built to say, if you're a healthcare organization, this is the six pillars you should have implemented. It's called the six [00:07:00] Pillars of Trauma Informed Care. I personally like to call it the six pillars of human kindness or humans, because no matter what industry you're in, no matter what type of experience you've had, these six pillars are fundamental to a work environment, in my opinion. We just haven't really experienced them or taught them in the past..

Cyndi: Yeah, there, there's an opportunity here, right? I mean, an opportunity to really positively impact the workplace, and to help not only managers, but also for employees as well.

Holly: Yes, and leadership teams for sure, which we can cover at a later date.

Cyndi: Okay. The second pillar:

Holly: The second one is trustworthiness and transparency. So this is all about, being able to say, as a manager, " Hey, I am being held accountable to ensure we get X number by the end of the month, therefore, I'm gonna start really maybe [00:08:00] putting some pressure on you as a team, or you, as you know, my, first, person I want to go to, to help me make that number, and this is why. This is where it's coming from and if there's more to say about that, if we don't make the number and if you can add some information to that. And there's always gonna be things you could say and things you can't say. We know that as managers, you are expected to tow a message, but you can't always tell the exact reasons, that's just factual. Figure it out, figure what you can say, so your team actually trusts you. So that's number one is, if you're transparent, they will trust you. The more they trust you, the more they want to show up to work, show up for you as a manager. Also, having trust means I can go to you as my manager and tell you what's happening with me. I feel safe, because I trust you, that I can tell you what's going on and how it might affect my day-to-day work, if it's temporary or even if it's long [00:09:00] term.

Cyndi: Yeah, I've experienced that too. Like, when you have a manager who , you can feel as a trauma survivor, you can feel they're, they're struggling. You can feel the struggle between wanting to tell you everything that they know and not being allowed to tell you everything that they know. And, and it's almost like they're speaking in code, right? They're, like there's some things that are coming down and I can't talk about them, and that's the helpful part, when they say, I can't talk about all of it right now, but we will eventually talk about what this looks like. But right now I cannot do that, but what I can tell you is this, and this is what it's gonna mean to you. That is so helpful because you know that they're being as transparent, as they can, but also that there are certain things that they're not allowed to say.

Holly: And, you know, some people are like, well, why can't they say it? Well, they can't say it if they're publicly held [00:10:00] company. There is huge implications and I think when you're new in the workplace, you might not understand. You just think they just don't want to tell you. That's not what it's about. There are huge implications of what managers can and cannot say that frankly could get them terminated, could get your company in trouble. So when they say there's things they can't say, they're not choosing not to want to tell you. That's not what it's about. 

Cyndi: Sometimes though, I've experienced this myself and some of my clients have experienced some betrayal, right by employers and they're not told anything at all. And then they're surprised when there's a layoff and they're selected for the layoff. And I've experienced that and it, hits you in the side and surprises you and it it stirs up the betrayal trauma in you. And I mean, that's something that I'm still working through in my experience with being laid off the first time. I was totally surprised by it and not expecting it at all. And [00:11:00] to have this happen at a surprise is never good for trauma survivors, and yet, that's how they handle things, right? That's how they have to handle things.

Holly: What year was that?

Cyndi: Oh, that was 2001.

Holly: The reason I ask that is I think what's important for employers and employees is: employees give yourself grace. 2001, over 20 years ago, this happened to Cyndi. She just said it still shows up for me. So for an employer, when someone says they have trauma at work, it definitely might not have happened with you, with your workplace, it could have happened in Cyndi's example 20 years ago, but that that experience inside of us still feels pretty fresh and can be triggered at day-to-day work. And so it's important to know that. Organizations have told me I don't need this training, we are really good. We don't have trauma [00:12:00] at work. It's not about causing the trauma, if you're an organization. It's about the team, the people.

Cyndi: And it just triggers that, right? And then it really changed how I showed up in the workplace. Because before, I was, like this was my family and I belonged here, and I was so happy and I thought I was gonna spend my whole life here with these people. And then when that happened, I was blindsided and then all the hypervigilance takes over. And it could not only be directed at you, but you could observe that happening in somebody else where, you know, my daughter experienced the same thing around Christmas time and it brought up all these old feelings for me, right? So like you could see that happening. And it makes you even more paranoid about what's happening and you're looking for clues that you're not gonna be surprised and you're not gonna let them hurt you anymore. I mean these things happen, like the cutting staff happens and for them, it's not really [00:13:00] personal. It's just part of business, but it's personal for us.

Holly: Yeah, it's a big one. I think across the board, if you're an organization, you know, last year or the year before, tech were getting ripped constantly. And it really causes a lack of trust in the organization, but you know, that you have to keep working, and so the employee engagement piece to this is fairness. Right. So you didn't think it was fair. You're loyal to this company and then they let you go. That's not fair. So now you've lost the thing about my company or my manager treats me fair 'cause that's the employee engagement. With that said, if you are an manager or a company that has these pillars built into their organization and you know, trust and transparency brings someone to be able to come to work and think, I know you're fair, you're gonna do the best you can. I might not like it, but I know that if I had to be the one that got laid off, I think you would've done it in a fair manner. It [00:14:00] goes back to building trust..

Cyndi: Maybe we could talk about that, because I think being a manager, this is one of the suckiest things that they have to do as managers, is to lay off people. It's not fun because you can see the hurt on people and really having compassion as a manager. And I, you know, I've had experience where they're saying, look, there's going to be layoffs in a department. And this has happened to me again because I've experienced this multiple times, even in the place that I'm working right now, where I've been cut or they closed the whole department, but also now companies are starting to realize, hey, if we're cutting a whole department, let's give these people who know our culture, who belong to our team, the opportunity to maybe take a crack at some other role that's available and giving them first priority over the open roles that are there. That is a big deal, for us as trauma survivors, to say, "Look, we're closing this whole unit, but we value you. [00:15:00] We value what you bring to the table, and therefore we want to help you find another role in our company, one that's gonna meet your needs and where you're gonna excel at. That speaks huge volumes, that shows compassion for that difficult situation. So, as managers, wherever you can bring compassion into those kinds of situations, please do, 'because it really makes a world of difference.

Holly: Well, I'll tell you a story that's bringing up when you say compassion and talk about compassion on both sides. I remember, several years ago, I got called out of a vacation. I was part of a wedding. I got called out to lay off seven of my team members. I remember this so clearly where I was standing outside of a nail salon on the phone and having a conversation with one of them, to let them know that I had to let them go. Whatever the way and the words I chose on that day [00:16:00] were, he said to me, Wow, that really sucks, but are you okay? This must be awful for you. The employee being laid off said that to me. He goes, this must be an awful experience for you. And that is because he knew this employee knew I very much cared for my team. I had shown that through and he knew that yes, it was a horrible experience to have to be the one. Even through his own pain, he came back because I had compassion when I was giving the message, he had so much compassion for me. It was a really interesting experience and made me think about how I have these conversations every time, and I prep for hard conversations, just as much as I would for a customer conversation. If it's a hard conversation with my team members, I'm prepping for it for this exact reason.

Cyndi: Yeah, and these are hard conversations, right. But at, at the end of the day, we're all people.

Holly: We forget we are, and managers don't take that into consideration [00:17:00] that we are.,

Cyndi: Yeah, and I think that some managers may not know how to manage the emotions that are related to something that they have to do, and so they cut off the emotion and they steal themselves and say, " I know this sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do." And then there's no soft landing point there with a manager because they're protecting their own selves. It's just something that when done with compassion and showing up vulnerably with that and allowing that other person to see you hurting with them, it really helps.

Holly: Well, and interestingly enough, if we go into the next one, the next pillar, the third pillar is peer support. Peer support is giving the employee engagement and community, if you will. Employee engagement. But it's having a community at work and that community, I meant depending on what company you work for or what, what your job is, even within that company, [00:18:00] you may have different communities within that. Cyndi and I have talked about in the past, we really want to figure out a way, how do you have a trauma group and a trauma community, and we haven't figured quite out how do you make that at work that it doesn't cause even more trauma. But we talk about that because what we know about groups, whether you're in a small group at work, a book club, whatever it looks like is what's great about it is, we could say, "ah, me too, that happened to me too. Or I had that experience." Or, I feel that way. And it's so nice to know you're not alone. And so having some kind of peer support at work is huge. What that looks like is. Well, from the simplest, as as a project manager, I was a project manager for a long time, having a project management team. Having a team, so all the project managers from around the organization get to come together and they're a group and they get to share [00:19:00] resources, you get to talk about maybe those hard projects. Whatever it looks like. And so some organizations have, you know, things that are lined up with diversity, right? Diversity groups. Then there's sports groups, it doesn't matter. What is important about that is allowing and maybe even hosting some of these peer groups to come together and talk.

Cyndi: We have in our, company some mental health support groups, right, which are, which are brilliant. Disability act, action network we have at ours that are peer led, peer, you know, employee led groups that are sponsored by the company that allow us to find each other. But I think in those groups, especially from a mental health perspective, we have to use a lot of care and caution because, you know, especially HR legal are like, "Hey we are not therapists." We're not [00:20:00] therapists. Let me just say, there may be some therapists in where we work and, maybe we have them in other, depends on what industry you're in. But we're not trying to be therapists, right? We need to share common experiences with one another and share, experience, strength and hope, as they say in the rooms, with one another to say, Hey, I'm, experiencing this, or in our case as trauma survivors, "hey, I've been really triggered in this meeting and I need to borrow your regulation." So, can we help one another with co-regulation or can we help each other get grounded again? Those things are so really valuable and important, especially for someone who has trauma because those triggers can be the worst thing that just knocks somebody off of their productivity, and it's hard to get yourself back. You sometimes need another person to help you. I had a manager that helped me with this tremendously. And she was not a trauma survivor, but she was so regulated [00:21:00] that I can just text her and say, "Hey, do you got a minute?" And we could find some time that I can explain the situation, what happened, and borrow her regulation, which then I was back on track and I can just go on with my day. Right. But it was that significant other that that allowed you to be heard and understood and then, to move on with life, 'cause nobody just wants us to be stuck in trauma time. Right. So I think that's super important.

Holly: I love that about the regulation. I think that will be one of our future podcasts that we do together is how do I help regulate an employee? How do I even regulate my employer as a company? And I think that's really amazing. It goes back to safety. The number one thing we talked about, right? Feeling calm, I can do my work and we can do our work as a team, as an organization, so that will definitely be important future podcast. How do we do that with our team members?

Cyndi: [00:22:00] Especially, how do we do it as a manager who's also a trauma survivor ? Because I've had, I've had managers where, who's a trauma survivor, and we've just, we just kept triggering each other, so that wasn't good. How might managers facilitate this without overstepping boundaries?

Holly: Hmm. Yeah. Well, again, we're not therapists. You can give information. You don't have to give all the information. You can just say, so if it's peer, if I, you come to me and as part of that peer group, I could say, I can understand where you're coming from, i've had a similar experience. You don't have to tell everything. The boundaries are per person. I have boundaries. You have boundaries. I do need to respect how you might take something I share with you. But again, you also want to be able to be transparent enough that they can feel safe. It goes back to safety, safe with you, so you can just share with [00:23:00] them. Up to where you're comfortable without, you know, getting into gritty details. Sometimes I've heard people go, oh, I told them all the details of my experience with X. I'm like, well, maybe not all the details. 'cause nobody needs to know them. It's none of our business. Okay. And we don't need all the details. All I would have to say is, I had a similar experience as a kid as you. Cyndi and I have that experience and I don't have to say all the details and she can say, yeah this person on that team, his voice always just gets my goat. I don't know why. I get that sometimes voices can trigger me too. That's it. Without going into all the details voices trigger us, is ways to have boundaries. Also as a peer groups. Now if it's peer support, peer support means you are all responsible for yourself. Typically, companies won't get that involved. HR won't be involved in peer support groups because if they're [00:24:00] hosting them, then that's when legal and HR get worked up. But if you can say we have a group and then one of the peers is actually in that support group. We really don't have to have deep conversations on how to act. They will work it out within their peer group. Does that make sense?

Cyndi: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. I used to host a call as a leader and I called it Mental health Minutes. And it was really just me holding space for whatever was happening in the workplace during that day. And it was show up however you are and check in. Like, how are you doing? How can I help? How can I support you as a leader? Now, I didn't have any direct reports, but as a leader, I was hosting this because. You know, I'm like also a coach but to have a place where they could drop in if they needed support and also giving them the permission, look, if you're struggling, just text me [00:25:00] and we can pull up. Right. And getting them to feel comfortable that there was no threat there or you know, that something was gonna get out.

Holly: That's the part of the peer support. Number one, whatever peer group you set up, if you're hosting it, or part of it is confidentiality. It has to be. No matter what we're talking about, it doesn't matter if it's the book club or some type of mental health group. The core agreement has to be confidentiality. You know, what's heard here stays here, period. Once that is built and people start seeing after a couple times, that's what's really happening, then people will start to release some of what's really on their mind and hopefully in a safe, appropriate way. So building community, like I said, that's the employee engagement. If I know I'm gonna come work for your company and maybe I'm new to the company, maybe I'm new to the town, but I can get into some community groups 'cause I don't really know anyone. It's a great way [00:26:00] for me, as an employee, to feel welcomed, safe and connected with these support groups.

Cyndi: Okay, we're on a roll now. Fourth pillar.

Holly: Okay, collaboration and mutuality, and this is about what's in it again for the organization is as an employee, I know that my workload isn't going to be just what you put upon me, but it's gonna be something that maybe I love. You are not gonna make me maybe do the things that "God, I really hate that type of work," things I'm really good at, the things I'm highly skilled at, the things I'm not so skilled that we'll be able to have a conversation. You'll be like, yeah, you're right. It's not your best skill. Let's see if somebody else can do that piece. It's having a conversation about my work. Which I love this, right? Because, we come to work, we have a job description, we're hired for a job description. But we all know, and actually I'll give you an example. I have a friend here in [00:27:00] town that has been working for an organization that almost since the beginning, she has been getting overburdened with other people's work because she's good at her job. She comes from corporate, now she's working at a charity. And because of that, people are piling on work on her and she's been so good about setting her boundaries that,

Cyndi: Mm.

Holly: You know, got to do this work first. Right? Can we have a talk about what you want? Priorities. Okay, you've given me this, this, and this. Which one would you like to do first? Which one do you want me to do first? What's most important? all of them. a great answer. 'cause that's sometimes will be like, all of it you figured out. No. Can

Cyndi: Yes.

Holly: we collaborate and mutually agree because I don't want to figure this out on my own. It's not fair. It's not even my work. When that happens over and over and someone's just given work, with no conversation there, what you're going to [00:28:00] see is their productivity, what used to be a A player may slip down to a B or C player in your mind, and the reason why, you've made it a no-win situation for them. So anybody that can come in and have a conversation about their workload is brilliant. And again, if I feel safe with you, if you're my manager and I feel safe, I will come in and have these conversations and you are going to get that A player's gonna become an A plus player because you know, he or she had choices as well, which we'll talk about.

Cyndi: Yeah, I'm seeing that a lot in, in my own company where there's reorgs and now the manager has a specific remit and they just need warm bodies to fill a role. It's not what these people were hired to do, and it's not within their skillset, even, but it's like, no, we need somebody here and you're the best person to do that. And it, it creates such dissatisfaction in the work, [00:29:00] right? And so then you see, that's why you see mass exodus, right? Because they're not, you're not setting people up for success. You're not doing something that is valuable to progress their career. You're doing something to get the work done. And, I've seen that a lot, right? Or we put people in roles that they're not skilled at and they don't know how to do, and they feel like they're working from behind because that you're setting them up to fail. And I've seen that, and it breaks down the confidence of those employees when we're doing that, right?

Holly: We see that in the halo effect. Right? The halo effect

Cyndi: yeah.

Holly: you are the best architect I've ever seen. Great architect, great at tech work. You're so good. I'm sure. Let's make you a manager. And then you just see collapse.

Cyndi: Yes.

Holly: Because they've had no training.

Cyndi: Yes.

Holly: They don't even have the people skills maybe to be a manager, oh, I've seen this so much. Right? And you're like. Stop [00:30:00] it. Do they want to be a manager? How many times did you see people be promoted and they weren't given an option, they were just promoted not told or talked about. It's,

Cyndi: Oh it happens so many times with trauma survivors because we have so many trauma survivors who were overachievers and they are really good at what they do because they are, they are going to get stuff done right, and they are really good at what they do. And then we put them in this management position where they've even struggled with power differentials, which is normal for trauma survivors. They've usually been on the wrong side of those power differentials and now they're in a place of power and it's really conflicting inside of them and they don't know what to do with it. I have this story when I was growing up, i'm the oldest of three children and as a sixth grader I was put in charge of my brother and sister, which I had all the [00:31:00] responsibility and none of the power to make them do the things that I was being held accountable to do. And so that's, I call that the babysitter, right? So like I'm the babysitter. And that's how you have your management practices. You feel like I have all this responsibility to get all this work done, and I have no power to make them do it. You know what I mean? So it's like, wow. There's, there's so much involved in that transition, and, and I think we have a ton of trauma survivors that are in my group who are begging, saying, how do I do this as a trauma survivor? How do I manage my team? I don't want to be that manager. I want to know how to do this. You know? And yet we see the trauma coming up, over and over again. Right. And so they're begging. They're begging for, please help me do this better.

Holly: Well, and I think one of the other things when we talked about regulation and dysregulation, so you [00:32:00] said trauma survivors are usually really good, they're really good at the job. When we live in dysregulation, one of the things why we're good at our jobs is because we want to keep busy. And if we're not busy, we're gonna ask for more work, or we're gonna pick up more work, or we're gonna do more work better, we're going to study to get better, so we stay dysregulated. Now you've taken a person who lives in dysregulation because that's their baseline and given them a manager role. So dysregulated person, a manager role, and as we know, we can't feel, we can't hear, when we're dysregulated. So it goes back to, if you are one of those managers that you just mentioned, who you have a trauma background and you lived in dysregulation and now you're the manager, the best thing you can do is really start working on your window of tolerance of staying within what I call the green, right? Stay out of the red, in [00:33:00] the green, staying in the green more, and staying regulated more because then we can bring this calmness to our role and we'll be talking about that in a future podcast.

Cyndi: Listen, you've already done a workshop on window of tolerance. So if you're, if you want to know about how to increase your window of tolerance, then, then go into the career, go into the RCA Career Academy Library and sign up for it. And you'll get, you'll have Holly's recording of her doing that webinar on window of tolerance. So that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Holly: Alright. Yeah. So this kind of goes to the next pillar, actually, the fifth pillar, they're very similar. Empowerment, voice and choice. This is all about control. So what the employer gets is giving some control back to their employees. Okay. Boy, did this come up around Covid? I could give lots of examples, but I [00:34:00] think the most common example, and this has affected employees, employers, is we were all sent home through Covid and we didn't love that, but we had no choice, right? It was a global decision. Everybody's home. We learned, gosh, being at home, I don't have to commute anymore. I saved so much money. I'm not having to pay on the train. I, know, can go do laundry instead of, you know, things that you would never think of if you had never worked from home.

Cyndi: Mm-hmm.

Holly: Then what happens is organizations are now saying it's time to go back to work.

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: And some organizations, waited a really long time. Some haven't even said it yet. I was actually at a company doing some work in Germany with the team, and one of the big issues coming up was the CFO had sent a global message to the whole company, a very large tech company, and said everybody's back in the office [00:35:00] five days a week, no questions asked. Pretty much that's what the message said, and I was with a bunch of the leaders. They were absolutely frantic. I've got teams of people that'll quit. I've got people that live in San Francisco that if they're in the office, you know past a certain time, it adds two hours to their commute.

Cyndi: Mm-hmm.

Holly: Just all these different things. So talk about not reading a room or reading an organization culture. There was ways that that leader could have handled that. If we need to bring people back in the office. Why? How? Can we roll it in? Can we be on some individual basis? So many different things, but that choice. 

Cyndi: Flexibility

Holly: yeah. The voice of being able to say, when you do this, this is what's gonna happen with me, all taken out of their hands and taken out of not only the CFO took it out, [00:36:00] employee's hands, he took it out of the manager's hands. The managers felt very betrayed because they were the ones going to have to really work with the fallout. So any time you can give your employees some choice, it could be the simplest thing of, it doesn't have to be this large thing of, do I work at home or remote? It could be how you do your work. You do your work differently than me, that's okay, as long as it meets the deadlines and it meets the quality, You go do it as you need to do it. So giving them choices, empowerment to make decisions. I think Cyndi's heard me use this maybe more on a personal basis, but giving people their capable card. Give people their capable card. They can make choice for themselves. Empower them on how they do their work. And I, again, when someone feels a sense of control, productivity will go up. You'll see it. You'll see B people become your A people.[00:37:00] 

Cyndi: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I just had a situation not too long ago where we had an assessment that we had to do on something that we were working on and it was a big deal that we needed to do in order to move forward. And so one of the junior members of the team volunteered because he wanted some practice and he wanted to prove what he could do. And so, I'm leading him through and coaching him through this assessment. The guy was former military and so they're used to like a prescriptive way of things being done. And when you're making that transition from military to corporate, that's not the way it works a lot of times, unless you're in an operations group, then it works that way, right? But where we were in tech, it doesn't work that way and I said, "look, you can do it however you want to do it, but here are the things that you need to include in this", [00:38:00] right? And just giving him coaching to say, "here are you, you need to be able to tell the story. You need to be able to communicate to our partners what we're doing and why we're doing it that way". So just kind of infusing that, but also giving him the ability to do whatever you want with the deck, it doesn't matter as long as you can tell the story. Right. And so for some folks, you know, that's difficult.

Holly: You know what I love about that, i'm gonna go to the sixth one because you just brought up military, but the reason I want to go to the sixth one is cultural, historical, and gender considerations. So you brought up military though, right? And how he learned to work, retiring from the military, is not how someone in corporate, or coming out of academia, same with academia, right? How they do the work is different. That falls under the sixth pillar. So when we think of culture, historical, and gender, [00:39:00] we think of diversity, right? And diversity is a tough conversation in some places right now. It's not just diversity, it's what is this person's history? So, their history, if you happen to have a relationship and you know their history is some type of trauma. It could be a car accident, it could be that they were military in the war. It could be many things. If it's trauma in a car accident, you know this about your employee. You may not say, "Hey, we're going on a road trip to the client and I want you to drive. You may not do that. Or you may say, "Would you be open to driving?" It's understanding about your employee, where they come from. Maybe it is a black man that works for you and you don't know some of the things where they come from, where'd they grow up, what did that look like? What are some things I should know about you? It's great question when you are getting to know your employee, maybe not during that straight up in the interview process, but once you've hired [00:40:00] them and you're getting to know them and you ask all the work questions, sometimes you ask the family questions. What else do I need to know about you that's going to help you be the best you can be at work? It's an easy question. I don't know that I've ever been asked that question personally, but it's a

Cyndi: I have,

Holly: and an easy question. That's good. I'm glad you have. 

Cyndi: I've had someone say, what do I need to know about Cyndi Bennett? And I was like, and then you're not expecting the question, so it's like all kinds of blankness comes on your mind, you know? I love this pillar, right? Because we have a lot of people who, at least for trauma survivors pivot in their careers. So for my job, I was initially in mental health and then I got burned out, and so then I pivoted to business and it's different, right? The way that you operate is different, and I'm coming across as someone who's trying to [00:41:00] show compassion and leaders has to do these hard things and you're trying to show compassion for the leader, and they're like, what are you doing? And you can really get into trouble. I know that I did, and I had a manager that says, "Hey, look, she's just new to the corporate world and she doesn't know that this how stuff works, right? And so, I think that's really good to understand people are coming from educational environments to then to corporate or whatever, right? So that, I think that's really important.

Holly: Yeah, expanding that six pillar, and to be honest, up until you kind of brought up the military, I hadn't really. Expanded it enough. So I'm gonna actually take that back now as I'm doing training is expanding it past the diversity. Because it's really, I think it was linked to diversity type of thing. But you know, I live in Northern Ireland, and the cultural situation of Northern Ireland is, there was so much trauma in this country. I left [00:42:00] tech knowing I was moving to Northern Ireland, because I did that for love, which was great, but I thought what a place to go become a trauma coach and work with organizations. I could not have been more wrong, because what now I know about the culture.

Cyndi: They're in denial.

Holly: They don't know that they have trauma. They don't know there's a better way, a different way to live. So even when you think you know about the culture that someone has brought in, you don't know, just because I could see it from the outside doesn't mean they can see it from the inside. And so really understanding and asking questions. Do not make assumptions about someone's culture, gender, or any of the diversity, their historical. Just don't make assumptions. Always have the communication with them.

Cyndi: Yeah. And listen, there can be different cultures within a company. I went from [00:43:00] tech to HR and that was a totally different culture, right? And, and now I'm back in tech and I'm like, okay, I'm in the right place for me. Right. But you could move, thinking you're doing something for your career, a transition in your career, but, but then you're in a culture that doesn't support you. And so you're like, oh, hold on, let me back outta this. We have to go back to five because you skipped it.

Holly: Five was empowerment, voice and choice. Yeah. So I just, maybe not, didn't say it was the fifth, but the fifth was empowerment, voice of choice. So hopefully we covered 'em all. Did we?

Cyndi: Yeah, I, I think we, I think we covered 'em all.

Holly: Yes. And going back to the sixth one really quick, which is culture, historical considerations. Again, the employee engagement piece of that, why that matters to an employee is about values. So it sets up to say, I'm an [00:44:00] employee and you care about my values, you respect my values. So that's how it shows up for the employee when you start implementing that particular pillar.

Cyndi: That's great. That's great. So we have covered a lot today.

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: We have a lot more to cover as we're gonna continue to move forward in this series of trauma informed workplaces and management routines. And we're gonna really try to focus on the manager and the company as we move forward to try to give people some tips and tricks about how to manage and what does that look like and and how to do this better, right? Because we're, we're trying to influence. Creating trauma-informed workplaces doesn't happen by accident.

Holly: no.

Cyndi: It's got to be intentional. It's got to be [00:45:00] implemented broadly across environments and communications. It's gotta be supported by leadership, right? So those are some of the things that, you know, need to happen for that.

Holly: Yeah, it's not easy. Even trying to get a corporation or a small or larger organization that is brave enough to even have the initial training is a tough call. You know, that the word trauma in front of their trauma informed scares people. They take it personal. They think it's going to bring up trauma. They often go, well then I don't need my whole team all traumatized because of this. So it's a tough decision, but boy, when they do implement it, it will affect your bottom line just from productivity alone and presenteeism. So, fingers crossed we get some organizations that are ready. You know, to do base one, which [00:46:00] is just the training on how to be a trauma-informed organization. It can start just from that.

Cyndi: Yeah. And, may start from the bottom up, right? So it may start with our managers saying, Hey, I want to be more trauma informed, right? We have a lot of managers who work in mental health that, you would expect that to be trauma-informed, but guess what? It's not. Right. And so how do we create or influence a trauma-informed workplace among those managers in those industries?

Holly: Yeah. Hospitals, woo. Yeah, schools. And not only big organizations. If you're a small organization, we've done some trainings. You know who needs this really badly, like should be in their base training, hair stylists, personal trainers, and masseuse. Why is that? Because when we start getting relaxed and we start developing a relationship with someone, we might see often we start [00:47:00] telling them our stories. When we start telling them our stories, if I'm one of those people, and I don't know how to react or do I react? Do I ask questions? So it's small businesses as well. We have a short little training of just, here's five phrases you can use if you're a small business that maybe has people who are actually telling you about their trauma in the chair,

Cyndi: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Holly: yeah.

Cyndi: Today, Holly and I have explored how SAMHSA's six trauma-informed principles translate into practical management actions. We've covered creating psychological safety through predictable communication, building trust through transparency, leveraging peer support, sharing power through collaboration, empowering through choice, and considering cultural context. You now have specific frameworks for [00:48:00] delivering feedback and implementing changes in ways that support rather than trigger trauma responses. Holly has shared exact phrases trauma-informed managers use, like I'd like to discuss something I've noticed instead of we need to talk about your mistake.

But knowing these principles and actually implementing them consistently are two different things, and that's why I've created the Free Trauma-Informed Management Quick Reference Guide that you can download right now. And this printable guide includes all the frameworks that we discuss today, plus additional scripts for difficult conversations and self-assessment to identify your trauma informed management strengths and growth areas. So, having this resource on hand will help you respond thoughtfully, even in stressful moments when you might otherwise fall back on less supportive management approaches. So download your guide today and take the first step toward [00:49:00] creating a workplace where everyone can thrive regardless of their trauma history.

So, Holly. As we continue to move forward in this series around trauma-informed principles and how they translate into practical management actions are there any things, any parting comments that you want to say that something that we've missed or how would you like to move forward with that?

Holly: Yeah, I think just, I think we've covered a lot today actually. It's been almost about an hour and we have covered them all in quite detail. So definitely get the guide. It'll help you just to have something on hand and like I mentioned, prep before some of these difficult conversations. Get ready, get prepared. Ask a lot of questions, ask your employees a lot of questions. And going forward, I definitely want to make sure we start. Talking about, you know, you talked a lot about managers want to know how as a trauma survivor do I manage. I think that's a great next topic. [00:50:00] How do we have that conversation? How do we get regulated? Yes. You can watch the webinar as well, but we can talk about some practical ways managers can get regulated, stay regulated, and what does that even mean to be regulated, dysregulated, and how do you know when your employee is, as well as what about your company as a whole? What does a dysregulated company look like? I think that'll be really important to talk about.

Cyndi: A hundred percent. And listen, we want your feedback, so if you have some things that you want to know, you want us to cover in our conversations together, please let us know in the comments below. That would be great. And if you would like to work with Holly as a coach or someone who can deliver training to your corporation or company however big or small you are, we're gonna put the link to her website below in the show notes, and you can avail yourself to her services as well. You've been watching Your Trauma-Wise Career [00:51:00] Guide with Holly Dillon, and we look forward to talking with you next week. So until then, enjoy and take care of yourself.

Holly: Take care.

Cyndi: You're not walking this path alone. Every step you take toward a trauma-wise career is an act of courage, and I'm here cheering you on. If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another survivor who needs to hear this message. Together we're rewriting the rules of career success. Keep rising, keep healing, keep building.