How To Be A Trauma-Informed Manager | Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide Ep 12

Episode Description: How to Be a Trauma-Informed Manager: Leading Employees with Trauma Backgrounds

Are you a manager struggling to support employees with sudden performance changes or unexplained workplace behaviors? This episode reveals how to become a trauma-informed leader who creates psychological safety while maintaining accountability.

Hosts Cyndi Bennett and Holly Dillon explore critical skills every manager needs to recognize trauma responses and respond with compassion and effectiveness.

What You'll Learn:

• How to distinguish trauma responses from performance issues
• Warning signs managers miss: hypervigilance, people-pleasing, emotional dysregulation
• Communication strategies that promote safety without requiring disclosure
• Language to avoid that triggers trauma survivors
• Giving feedback without activating shame or fear responses
• Creating accommodations while maintaining standards
• Building trust with power-differential awareness
• Managing team dynamics when trauma affects workplace relationships

Key Takeaway: Trauma-informed management isn't about lowering standards—it's about helping employees succeed by addressing their needs for safety, choice, and collaboration.

Perfect for managers, HR professionals, team leaders, and anyone interested in trauma-informed workplace practices and inclusive leadership strategies.

Subscribe for more trauma-informed career development strategies and workplace mental health insights.

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

How to Be a Trauma-Informed Manager: Leading Employees with Trauma Backgrounds |Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide Ep. 12

[00:00:00] 

Cyndi: Welcome back to your Trauma Wise career guide, Cyndi Bennett here, along with Holly Dillon, and we are continuing our conversation about trauma-informed leadership and management. And this week we wanna talk about what it's like to manage or lead an. Employee that has trauma. And I wanna circle back to last week we talked about the six pillars of trauma-informed care.

And I wanna talk about the four Rs that they also, that SAMHSA also talks about. The first R is realizing the prevalence of trauma. So we talked about how 70% of the workforce nowadays has some sort of trauma in their life. Over a lifetime. We talked about recognizing how trauma affects all individuals.

That's the second r involved in the, with the program, organization or system, [00:01:00] including its own workforce. That's really important to recognize there. Number three is responding by putting this knowledge to practice. And number four is resisting retraumatization. Holly one of the. Problems that I see, or challenges that I see for managers, supervisors, leaders, is the second R and that is recognizing how trauma affects individuals.

So if we tell managers to say yeah, recognize the signs of trauma that are showing up in your employees, how. Our managers supposed to do that if we don't tell them what to look for.

Holly: Yeah, it's, it's a good

Cyndi: So, yeah. So can you help us understand like, well, we, what's the difference [00:02:00] between, you know, a, a trauma response and maybe behavior that is not performing well?

Holly: Yeah. There's several things actually, and the first one I would, I would say, is this a. When you hired that person, or when they start working for your team, is there a change in behavior? So is this all of a sudden something's changed in their behavior or in their. Their work effort or their productivity or the quality of work, if it's, if it's something's all of a sudden changed, a great chance that there is something going on. Whether it's a new trauma, whether it's an old trauma, now they've been triggered. So that's number one as when you start to go, okay, this doesn't seem like the person, sometimes people will say, it's not even the person I hired. It's a completely different person. They're acting [00:03:00] so out of character.

Cyndi: Mm-hmm.

Holly: a number one, I would say is the first one. one's a little harder to see, and that's what the industry calls presenteeism, right? So they're showing up to work, but maybe their quality or their productivity's down, they're just maybe low, low energy. They're not as active maybe on team calls.

They're just maybe a little listless, and that's not something you've seen with them either in the past. Now, we talked about post COVID last time. There's a lot of that in the, in the world today. There's so much going on in the world. It may not be a trauma response. Or it could be a trauma response to even what's going on in the world today, but it's still something has changed. That's, that's the key is even noticing something has changed. All of a sudden if they are blowing up in a team meeting or they're acting, their behavior towards a very specific person has [00:04:00] changed. I will give you an example I'm not proud of, but it's happened to me, is I've had a. was a lead and I, there was two of us and our, we were in a meeting with our manager and after the meeting she said, are you upset with him? I said, no. And she's like, you need to tell your face, because literally I was coming across, I was really upset with him about something, but I couldn't feel it, and frankly, I was being triggered. And I didn't even know it. So if you have a good manager, if you're a good manager, and you can be like, okay, all of a sudden there's something going on with this team dynamic, possible that person's being triggered by somebody in the meeting.

So that's another one. Or if all of a sudden you're walking on eggshells or your team's like, I'm feel I can't approach this person. Another good question. What is happening with them? They don't wanna work with a specific person. All of a [00:05:00] sudden they're like, you know what? I don't wanna work with that person.

It might be even outside of the team, right? Again, they feel triggered by them or don't feel safe, or they're not wanting to work in a team environment. They're asking for individual work. Maybe they're asking to work at home more. I bet there's so many things that we might take for granted it's. Just stress at home, normal stress, or all of a sudden they're being lazy or, so there's lots of tip or lots of S warning signs.

Cyndi: Yeah, so you just said lazy, right? So there's a lot of things that we hear. I mean, specifically as trauma survivors, that that's the story. That's the nomenclature, right? That's the language that is being used by managers related to employees that are in a trauma response. Oh, they're just being lazy.

Right. It's a, [00:06:00] there's a negative connotation to what they're seeing.

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: Right. So it, so there, so I don't even know where I was going with it, but, but that whole conversation then ha is being interpreted. You take that as a manager to an employee saying, you know,

Holly: What's going on?

Cyndi: why are all of a sudden you being lazy? Right.

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: lazy is so negative and that's the, exactly, that's not the word you wanna use. Right?

Holly: Yeah, the word

Cyndi: So,

Holly: what's going on so

Cyndi: yeah.

Holly: to that would be, Hey, I observed very important to use

Cyndi: Yes.

Holly: here because you don't know how they're feeling. You don't, you might've heard rumors. It doesn't even matter I observed. Or it was observed 'cause you might not have observed it, but the team has. X, Y and Z [00:07:00] very specific behaviors, right? Or, I was told you no longer wanna work with A, be very specific that that's to how to get away from

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: like lazy, disengaged, know, whatever the word is. The other thing I just wanna mention is if it's a one-off, it's one day or it's a week. It's very possible. They don't feel well. There is something going on at work. There's heavy or at home that there's high stress. So it's not an immediate, you know, one day they're different and it's, go have a conversation with them. This is, you've noticed this behavior ongoing for a little bit, right?

Like it's, it's ongoing or it's very specific to a interactions between two people, but it's not. A one time thing and you go to them and say it's, you know, expect it's trauma.

Cyndi: Yeah, we, we've exper, I've experienced [00:08:00] this in talent planning, even though I don't have a team sitting around the talent planning table, listening to my peers talk about their employees and saying those things like, I don't know what happened, but they. Are a different person and they're, they're not meeting deadlines and they're not showing up appropriately or there there is this tension that is the, that they bring, that they're bringing to the table.

And, and the response then from managers is we disciplinary action. Right. Okay. What are we gonna do? Write them up. Right? And so having this trauma informed lens without having, you know, just being a peer saying, Hey, can I bring something to your attention that is apparent to me as a trauma informed coach, right?

Is, hey, it appears, and I don't know this [00:09:00] person, but it appears that they're different. Then when you hired them that their act, their actions and behavior is much different than when you hired them. That they were a full on employee that wanted to do extra, they were doing all the things, and suddenly something happened.

So this is a sign that they've been triggered by something. So something happened with that person where they no longer feel safe and and the actions, maybe they tried to tell you but they couldn't, or maybe they can't tell you. Right. They don't feel comfortable talking to you about what happened. But you might wanna consider that.

Right? So then the next, the next piece of that conversation is, I see that there's something wrong, but they won't talk about it.

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: do you handle that?

Holly: Yeah. So. Again, it's

Cyndi: I.

Holly: conversation and I think we talked about it last [00:10:00] time, as with the, with the lens is, you have some time to chat? I wanna chat with you about and be specific about what it is. And if they're like, now's not a great time, because they may now be triggered from that conversation. them set a time. So that's number one. Get a safe space and then just go back and share with them what. you just said. Basically, you know when you started, you were fully engaged, I saw X, Y, and Z, and now things in the last month, two months, however long it's been, has started to change. Is there something going on? That's it. And then they'll either say no, which will lead you down one road, or they'll say yes and share a little bit about what's going on. And what I wanna say about that is. Some managers don't want to address it because either they're scared that something's happened at work they don't wanna get into it, or they think it's gonna be something really personal and they don't [00:11:00] wanna be the therapist for this person. Right. So really staying, and let me just step one step back one minute before you have this conversation with the person. It's really important that you yourself have Reg are regulated. if you're nervous about going in there or you've got something else on your mind, it is best to postpone that meeting. And before you have the meeting, taking a couple deep breaths and just making sure you can approach that person with a nice, even voice. good eye contact, you know, relaxed and that you're going in there with an open heart and empathetic because if you're going in there charging at them, you won't get them to chat with you.

They're not gonna tell you anything.

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: they're not gonna feel safe. going back to that, it's just asking and, and if they say, well, yes, there's, you know, I'm, I'm triggered. I've had some trauma life and I've been triggered. Do not ask them what it is [00:12:00] that's, unless they share it with you, it's really none of your business. Right. But it's good to know. Okay. Can you tell me how that affects your work? So how does that trauma, whatever it is, right, affect your work? And hopefully they'll share with you I'm triggered by a certain person. am, you know, not feeling really safe in, in a team environment. So hopefully they'll share with you what, how it's affecting them, and then you can continue to ask some questions around that.

How could you support them differently? What, what would they like to do or see to be able to work efficiently? Again, you don't have to know what the trauma is to be able to support them, and I

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: that's the key is to not dig in under any circumstance. Never ever ask for details. You're not,

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: don't try to fix them, right?

It's not about that. It is really keeping it [00:13:00] focused on work.

Cyndi: And that's if a person knows what's happening. Right, so there we're, we're assuming that people even know that they're trauma survivors because there may be people out there that have no idea that they're trauma survivors. Like I didn't for a long time,

Holly: I

Cyndi: didn't consider myself a trauma.

Holly: I knew I

Cyndi: I didn't.

Holly: idea how it was affecting me at work. Right.

Cyndi: I didn't even, we have similar history

Holly: Yeah,

Cyndi: didn't consider myself a trauma survivor.

Holly: that's

Cyndi: I thought that had to do with just being with the military, right? So I didn't consider myself a trauma survivor. I was like, oh yeah, that happened in the past, but moving on, right? Put that behind me and moving on. Never thought about it, didn't know how to talk about it,

Holly: Yeah,

Cyndi: right?

These things were popping up.

Holly: I had the opposite, which was I'm gonna be a high functional. A powerful [00:14:00] employee that'll never, I'll never let that touch me. So I went at it such a different, I knew it. It was like I was fighting it every day to be the best I could be, which also did not show up well sometimes at work. So I think that's a great example of coming from two different places. I.

Cyndi: Yeah. Yeah, so like not even having that conversation. I think the other thing that's coming up for me is. Creating a psychologically safe relationship with your employee, right? So that it fosters the ability to have those kind of conversations without them shutting down, being judged. And the, the, the challenging part of this relationship is that there is a power differential there.

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: Right. So if they're at all triggered by power differentials, that could [00:15:00] influence or impact that conversation.

Holly: That's right. Yeah. And that, that starts with, again, with the six pillars of how do you start building trust before you know any

Cyndi: Mm-hmm.

Holly: does start early in your career or with your team. If you're a new manager, I. Building trust with people in general so they can come to you and to your point, be open about what's going on with them.

That they trust you and they trust that you won't hold it against them, and that you will maybe find some support and one of those ways to do that. I, I think, and I, I tried to do this a lot in my last part of my career. Was educate my, my team members. And then I had a, a pretty large team on our team meetings, letting them bring things to the table, letting them share personal things you know, about their families, what was going on with what their life looked like. It was [00:16:00] fascinating as they shared those things on team meetings and brought some personal stuff in, how that developed trust, more trust in the team and, and in me as a manager that people would, would tell me pretty much anything 'cause they knew it was the fostering. That's how I was fostering the team.

Cyndi: Do they care that, that you care about them personally

Holly: Yes,

Cyndi: Yeah, a hundred percent. We saw that. I saw that in particular. During COVID we would have, because we were now all working from home. Our manager who was type A, like, you know when, when you're a woman in business, in corporate specif specifically, you have to be all focused.

You have to be that person, bus, all business all the time. Right. And she, and she was like that prior to. She was just like, you know, all business all the time and not nothing personal [00:17:00] would ever whatever get in the way. But when we went to COVID and we went home, she change in a good way so that we had daily standups.

As our team, we had daily meetings where we had meetings, where we talked about nothing about business at all.

Holly: I love

Cyndi: Nothing. And so we got to know each other deeper and more personally. And it wasn't all the bad things. It was like fun things. What fun things did you do today? Or what's a funny story that you heard?

Or did anybody hear a joke or it was just that personal connection? So that was super powerful and I think COVID was great at pulling ourselves together. I'm really super close to those people now because of that personal interaction.

Holly: Yeah, I love that. And actually, Brene Brown, I remember reading in or listening to one of her podcasts and she [00:18:00] talked about was that manager. She was that person that was all business. And during COVID, they. Insisted, everybody shared when they went around the table, one work thing and one personal thing that was going on at home, whether

Cyndi: love that.

Holly: birthday or the dog had to go to the vet or whatever it was, and that she kept that going throughout for that exact reason, is how do you dig deeper get to really know your team?

And for me, I had a consulting team. I never saw them. It was all online. In fact, I had never met some of them in person. Right. And. It's one thing I feel proud about, to be able to develop a pretty deep relationship with each of them. And some of them I had never met in person, so there's really no excuse.

'cause some people will be like, oh, I never get to see them. We don't have budget to have team meetings. It doesn't matter. It, these relationships can be built for sure. And it's how you show up.[00:19:00] 

Cyndi: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So I.

Pivot just a second to really talk about that, building that relationship. Right. How do you, how does a manager start building that relationship? So when, when an employee has trauma and it's relational, usually it's relational, right? Meaning that they were traumatized by a person. There may be some.

Challenges with connecting with relationships, especially with power differentials in those relationships. They may be really closed down and not being able to connect with people. So you could talk about how, from a manager's perspective, how might you [00:20:00] establish. Some sense of safety with them to know that I know that my manager has my back because I've experienced that before.

But I'm curious about how, how you would go about doing that. I.

Holly: Yeah, well it comes down to trust. always gonna come down to trust. And trust is not just what you say to them, but it's what you do. So, example, if you have a team member that is not showing up or is causing issues for the other team 'cause they're having to do their work for them or whatever, part of that is. that. So some managers will just kind of, you know, put it, it under the table and ignore it. 'cause they don't like conflict. But part of creating a relationship across a team is to take care of the things that everybody can see. I, there is nothing more frustrating to me as when everybody [00:21:00] knows there's something going on and the manager's not resolving it.

Right. So that's number one. Making sure. care of the team as a whole and they all know that's what's happening. Right. Again, like I said, I was having team meetings. I think having team meetings are important with agendas so they know what's happening. having one-on-ones is really key.

And again, I had a consulting team. They all traveled and you know, sometimes we could meet weekly, sometimes we had to meet once a month. And the way I handled that was each person was individual. So. Teach or treating each person as an individual so you can do your team stuff. But still, everybody has individual needs. has in to your point, some people wanna meet with you once a week and tell you everything that's going on, and some wanna be left alone. And being able to respect that the best you can with still knowing what their work is asking how their [00:22:00] family is. How's the family doing? You know, what's happening?

Knowing something that's going on in their family. Hopefully they'll share if they, whether they're have a family or if they're single, whatever that looks like. Understanding what joys they have, what's a good hobby? That's a great team question. What's your hobbies? So just again, getting to know them personally and then if they. Are not somebody that is opening up sometimes, and there's a fine line to this is sharing what's going on for yourself will sometimes open that up. And so there's boundaries around that that you're not gonna share 'em all the dirty details of your life, there's nothing wrong with telling them what's happening in your life or what some of your history might be, whether it's work or not work related. I had a pretty public, I had TEDx, spoken several times, so mine's pretty public, my [00:23:00] background. So they knew that. They knew that. So if someone wanted to ask me questions around how that affected me in my life, I was open to those questions, right? Because I publicly was pretty open about my own trauma. So I think just. Also how, how do you show up? So how are you leading with heart? How are you leading with empathy? how do you speak to them? Do you have a low voice? Are you coming in with a harsh voice? You know? So what is your leadership style? Is gonna have a lot to do with this. What happens when they make a mistake? And trust me, this was a big one. I. You know, and I was actually accused of, at times being, too many chances. That would probably, if I looked back at my management style, too many chances for people, you know, I really had to be, it was about [00:24:00] three before I was like, okay, now I'm done. But giving a lot of chances when people make mistakes, realize they're human, and to come from what happened?

How can we not have it happen the next time and move on? I. Right. I think

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: sometimes we're pretty hard on people when they screw up at work.

Cyndi: Yeah, so talk about that because that goes to having psychologically safe environments, right? Creating a psychologically safe environment where you are not afraid to try something in it not work because there is learning involved, right? And so how do you balance. That Right. With the need to have attention to detail, for example.

Right. What, what does that look like?

Holly: so I worked for Microsoft and such, Nadella is all about fail fast, I love that, fail fast. So [00:25:00] I went through the team with that. If you're going to

Cyndi: Explain. Explain. For those who don't know, can you explain?

Holly: yeah. So fail fast is if. If you're gonna mess up, mess it up. If you're gonna take a risk, take the risk, see if it works, and do it quickly and acknowledge quickly. Tell your manager quickly if it didn't work right? So if it didn't work out, fail fast so we can learn. It's all about the sooner we fail, the better we can learn from that, right? And so having

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: with the team members is, if you mess up. Okay, just tell me about it. Don't hide it. Don't bury it. Don't ever let your manager be surprised, right?

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: and then as a manager, when they come to you and say, wow, this thing happened at a client, right? And I've had this happen lots. This didn't work out It's okay. You go, okay, let's talk about it. [00:26:00] And do we need to do anything about it? Do I as a manager need to go tell somebody else that something's coming down the

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: responsibility, right? We don't wanna surprise our leaders. So it's, it's about communication what it's about

Cyndi: Yeah. And making them part of the pro solution. Right?

Holly: Being part of the solution. Yeah. They might come to you and go, I don't know what to do. And actually that's great as well. If they're like, I really messed up and I don't know what to do. what? Let's talk about it and work through and get some steps and how can I support you? With that said, there's going to be some things that are, you can't recover from. I meant we've got, I've had those employees as well where it was just like, that was intentional, right? There's going to be ones that you can't recover from.

Maybe it's something that it was against company, policy, and they have to be let go. I meant that is

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: happen as well. So once in a while that will come up. But mostly [00:27:00] people are gonna come to you to help you to ask for your support and your help

Cyndi: Yeah,

Holly: fines.

Cyndi: you got me thinking about failing a little bit right now, and I love the quote by n Nelson Mandela, and he said that I never fail. He said I either win. Or I learned, and in those things, in those failures, there is a lot that we can learn not only as a individual, but also as a team talking about how can we, how might we do better?

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: Right.

Holly: Yeah, I love that. And, and some of that depending, you know, again, everything's in, you and I are speaking about is industry specific. Right? I bet. How one industry manages it and the type of team I had versus the type of team you would be involved in, where maybe you're seeing each other, you're in the office, will [00:28:00] change some of that.

But yes, if you can share these learnings with the team, better and even better if the, if the team member will come on and go. Dudes, here's what happened. Boy did I mess this up. But it's great to know because it might happen at your client or it might happen for you in your role. So, and it's again,

Cyndi: Yeah,

Holly: can build this cohesiveness with your team, the better it's everybody's gonna be.

Cyndi: that, that's great. Let me go back, I wanna get a go back card and talk about something you said about the elephant in the room and how that. Not addressing those things because you could feel it right when there's tension in the room. Well, and especially as a trauma survivor, you can absolutely feel there's tension in the room.

Right. So how might a manager address when there's [00:29:00] tension in the room among their team, and and how would that contribute to psychological safety among the team?

Holly: Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes when that happens, it's. A couple examples I've got is one, when there's a lot going on outside our team, so maybe the company's doing layoffs and everybody is, know, sitting on pins and needles waiting for the, the HR email to come through. So the whole team is feeling a lot of pressure and you can feel it right as a manager, you know, everybody's worried.

Fear. It's usually fear based in those cases, right? The best thing. As a manager is to address it head on. This is, well, what my perspective is. Kindly again with that voice, say what you can say. everybody's gonna, every manager's held to accountability of what they can and can't say in these situations. Say what you [00:30:00] can say and be open to lots of questions. So if it's a situation that's being caused from the outside, that's what be really open to. Say what questions. Ask lots of questions. Probably say less 'cause you are probably bound to what you can say. And ask lots of questions and answer what you can. When you

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: a question, tell 'em I can't answer that right now. As soon as I can, I will as soon as I can get information on how I can tell, answer that question. I'll go get it and I'll come back. Right. Just of dialogue. If it's. Something on the team, it's a team member. And you know, because you've heard from the other team members that something's gone down or just know, and I've had this situation as well, then you have to have a one-on-one with the team member to kind of find out what's going on.

And again, it goes back to that practice of, something's [00:31:00] changed. I'm feeling tension with the team, or the team has told me, shared with me that. These things have been happening, what's going on? And it comes back to that and working one-on-one. Now you have to keep confidentiality. This is the one thing if you're working one-on-one with someone and if they disclose to you, the number one thing always is you have to be con keep confidentiality for that employee period. They're telling you something that is so hard. It is so hard to say, I have trauma from X, Y, and Z. And it is a, it's a privilege to hear the information. It's a privilege when someone shares it with you. your number one is to keep it confidential, so you can't go back to the team and say. Blurt it out and here's what's happening and here's why they're acting like that. So you can work one-on-one with the employee and say, okay, we know the team is affected [00:32:00] by this. are some ways you think we could change dynamics in the team? Do you want to change the dynamics in the team? And again, collaboratively work with that employee on how to do that with the team.

Cyndi: I am so glad you said that. It just reminds me of a conversation I had with my manager when my zip file opened up and the workplace really, and having to. Being challenged in how I showed up at work because I went from, you know, high achieving or high performing, overachiever to not being able to function in the workplace, like over Christmas break

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: having to have a really hard conversation with my manager going into the conversation from the perspective of.

This is what happened, and I'll understand if you need to find somebody else to do the job like that. Having that kind of conversation and the words that she used [00:33:00] really saved my life and my career because what she said is, I hired exactly the right person for this job and how can I help?

Holly: Love that.

Cyndi: That was so life giving to me to say, I've got your back.

I'm in it with you. How can I help? Let's figure it out together, because I didn't know. There was so much I had to learn about how to manage, you know, emotional triggers in the workplace and how to manage my reactivity and my nervous system, and I didn't know that at that time. So like, how, how can we do this together?

How can we go to get in a medical accommodation together to help you function better? Right. What does that look like? And so it was so helpful for me to have that and to know that if something [00:34:00] happened in my work with the business partners and I was triggered in a meeting, I could just, you know, connect with her and say, Hey, this happened and get, get rebalanced, borrow from her regulation, and then move on.

I wasn't blown up for the whole day.

Holly: Can you actually talk about some of those, though that you, what were some of the things she did? Because I think, I love that you just brought that up. What were some of the things she did for you? What were some of the accommodations? I.

Cyndi: Yeah. So one thing was we, at the time, I was in a cube farm, right? So there were no doors, it was just cubes, right? And the way that the, the cube was set up is my computer was in the corner with my back to the door. And so people would come into my cube without knocking and, and my startle response was to the ceiling.

Right? [00:35:00] And so, one of the accommodations, now listen, if you need accommodations, it's, you know. You have to negotiate. There's some negotiation there, right? So be be willing to ask for what you need. And if you don't know, then if you have some doubts about, because the first thing that the person wanted to do was to put a, a curtain across my door.

And I thought to myself, you know, that's gonna bring up all kinds of questions that I am not ready to answer right now. Right. And so, but as a process designer at that time, someone who had 12 whiteboards in her cube, okay. I said, what if we just got a very long whiteboard on wheels and I can put it in front of the door to create some space for myself where I'm saying.[00:36:00] 

Don't stay out. I'm working here or I need time. They're not gonna think anything else of about me having another whiteboard. In my office, right? But that gave me some space. So that was one thing. Rearranging my workspace so that my back was not toward the door was another thing. Creating having, noise canceling headsets because having all the noise in the environment was so disruptive to my nervous system. It was just like a thousand pins and needles on my nervous system. So those types of things. But like when we moved as a team to an open floor concept. I was like, yeah, that's not gonna work for me to be right next to somebody without any, any space.

There's no place where you can process. There's like, what happens if you're triggered by some like that? That would not [00:37:00] work for me. And so. Instead of like, you can even hear the fear in my voice of that. Right? So a lot of people are going through that. They're, they're throughout the whole company.

They're doing this open office concept now across lots and lots of companies, right? And. And there's a lot of fear, like, I can't work with like that. I don't work well like that. And so to be able to ask for some, ask for what you need. So at the time this was pre COVID, I went back to my accommodations person, my representative, and said, look, I can't operate in that kind of environment.

I need something else. Like I need, I need to have space. I need my own space where I can manage my symptoms. Without, you know, the shame of having to be in front of everybody while I'm managing my, my symptoms, right? In having the support of my manager to have [00:38:00] that conversation and to allow me to have the, have what I needed in order to be successful, because that's the thing, right?

You want your people to be successful as a manager, what do I need to give them in order to help them be successful?

Holly: Yes.

Cyndi: So it's that combination. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna treat you any different. It's like, what can I give you to bring you up to the performance of everybody else to help you be level with everybody else?

Holly: Yeah. And, and did she then talk to your team or, I mean, I am sure the team had questions, right. Why is Cyndi having this different space than the rest of us?

Cyndi: Yeah, and I was, at the time, I had learned how to be a little bit more open.

Holly: Hmm.

Cyndi: With my trauma and saying, Hey guys, I, I can't, I don't work really well with that. I have trauma and I need to like, take care of myself. It, it ended really well. I got my [00:39:00] own office, which was awesome. I was like, I'd never had my own office.

I was at the bank for over 20 years and never had my own office. But then COVID happened three weeks later and I did.

Yeah. I was like, oh dang, I'm totally fine. I'm the only person on the floor. I'm, you know, no. Had to go home.

Holly: Very

Cyndi: So there's that.

Holly: thank you for letting me question, question the questioner because I think it, it's important for our listeners to hear both sides of,

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: you know, if someone came to them and said, now you just, great. Gave a great example of a great manager who is really open and gave options, that's the kick, that's the thing, right?

How can you give options to people if they come and ask you what, when they tell you what they need? Can you be open and flexible to figure out what, and I like the word you use negotiations. [00:40:00] because they say they have trauma doesn't mean you have to give them everything that they ask for. And I think that's really important is, you know, you want to, but you're not gonna be able to, and that's okay.

So to negotiate and collaborate, that's the kicker. Yeah.

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: I love

Cyndi: And I know we have a lot of listeners who struggle with working in the workplace and and companies are taking hard lines about not working from home.

Holly: Oh yeah.

Cyndi: So this is a big topic of conversation right now, and as a manager who is hearing the top bosses now put this policy in place, like as a manager, you're, you're responsible for deploying the policy, right?

Even though you may not agree with it. Right. So [00:41:00] then how, how do you as a manager help your employee understand that you get it like that, you get the challenges of having to do that. For example, in our workplace, you have to be in the office three days a week, right? Without an accommodation, right? So in if you don't want to out yourself by requesting accommodation, right?

If you're not open about your trauma or you don't want to admit to other people that you're struggling in the workplace, now you have to show up three days a week. But those three days a week are in an open floor concept where you struggle to perform. Right. So then how might a manager have a conversation with that employee to say, okay, I hear [00:42:00] you.

I understand that you're struggling in this kind of concept, open floor concept. How might you be able to utilize the space on the floor differently? Right. Can you find a conference room to go to? Schedule a conference room to go to on in a day or sit in a private space. A lot of times they'll have this private space that you can have to sit there and have conversations or whatever.

There might be those types of things like how might you do that? Right?

Holly: Yeah.

Cyndi: But being partners with that. Employee to to help them come up with solutions with the mandate.

Holly: Yeah, and I think also being willing to fight for your employees, right? It's as a manager, [00:43:00] okay, this is my perspective again, and not all managers are gonna be like this. And frankly, not all companies will allow it, right? Because it depends what. What your leadership looks like. I've been fortunate enough to work in leadership that I have no problem managing up my leaders welcomed it. Right? I had great relationships with them. If you can go and say, for your employees, Hey, for this person, this is what's happening. Again, don't have to share details, but how does it affect their work? Right. You are confident. It is based on past trauma, so it's. If, if so, you can back them. You have their back and to say, can they come in two days a week instead of three? Can they do half days? they work on another floor? Can we get them an office? You know, what can we do for them? fight for them. And then you may,

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: [00:44:00] again, that shows for that employee. It just goes to say she, she has my back. The team will know if she shares with the team. If the team knows about this, they know you've got that, you'll fight for them. Now, it doesn't mean you're gonna win that battle, right? But. Ask. I think it's so frustrating to me when, you know, my, my favorite line I've learned since moving to Northern Ireland is don't ask, don't, don't get. So you don't ask, people might not know. So it doesn't hurt to fight for your employees. And I think that's number one.

We, that's part of our job is to

Cyndi: Yes.

Holly: wait for them.

Cyndi: So let me ask you this question because I feel like there's some managers out there who maybe, perhaps might be trauma survivors as well,

Holly: Yep.

Cyndi: who are very sensitive to the power differential. Of the folks that are o above them [00:45:00] who don't feel like they have the ability to fight for their employees, how, how might a manager in that situation handle it?

Holly: Yeah. Well, one, if you, if you're comfortable getting HR involved, and again, every HR is different. Sometimes hrs com organizations are there for the employees and sometimes they're there for the company. So you'll probably know what your HR organizations like, and that will help help you decide if you can use HR as part of this. You know, one of the things. If you are a trauma survivor, as a manager, I think getting a mentor right off the bat is really key. a mentor, someone you trust. Okay, so there's coaches and there's mentors, right? And a mentor is someone, in my opinion, that you do not have a power differential with. You have a equal, relationship with that you can go to and, and run by them. Okay. I really wanna talk to somebody about [00:46:00] this. I am a little afraid to bring it up, but I know it's important for my employee. What would you suggest? Will you role play something with me? Will you go with me to the conversation? Have you ever had this? Having some mentors in your work is so key. So key.

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: if it's not a, if it's not officially where someone assigned you a mentor, find yourself a mentor. Find that person that you really trust to talk over work things, whether it's a coworker on your team, somebody on another team that might have your same role, right? It doesn't even matter who it is, but find someone that you can chat with so you're not just stuck. this will really help you, help your employees as well.

Cyndi: That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. I wanna talk a little bit about the trauma responses that managers might miss sometimes. Can you, can you help us [00:47:00] like understanding and, and noticing different things that maybe the employees not, not, doesn't even know, right? So maybe, perhaps, people pleasing or you know, hypervigilance or something like that around not just emotional dysregulation because that's kind of normal, right? I mean, that's the one that we always talk about. But what about the people who have no boundaries and like always accept all the extra work and Right. And then they take on too much and they over-function and then they can't meet any deadlines or.

Right. They can't say no. So maybe what are some of those things that are real, subtle, subtle behavior that maybe a manager might miss when it shows up?

Holly: the boundaries is number one, right? So when we are dysregulated,

Cyndi: I.

Holly: unfortunately our boundaries go right [00:48:00] out the window. And so, that I. Often does show up as taking on too much work. Yes, I'll help you. Yes. This damn the no doesn't even, because there's fear base behind that. The other thing that shows up as when you're dysregulated or hyper aroused, hyper aroused is when I am, I, I keep busy. So I take on all the work because I have to stay busy. 'cause if I stay busy, I. Don't feel right. And so they A, they will volunteer for every project there is. I know several people, I might have been like this myself for sure. Volunteer for everything. So as a manager, it's important to say, Cyndi. You volunteered to do two extra things last week. If I give you these two things right now that you're asking that you can take on, how is that gonna affect that? How will you prioritize that? What happens to your [00:49:00] other work? So you don't have to say, oh, you must have trauma, you wanna take on everything?

It's back to the work, right? And be

Cyndi: Load balancing.

Holly: Low balance around your team. 'cause this is the other

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: it I, I love the word enablement card. You know, give others the enablement card. 'cause you'll also have the people who will volunteer for nothing. come to work nine to five, that's all they wanna do.

And they know Cyndi will take on all the extra work. I don't have to do that. And I have clients. I have clients, and if they're listening to this, they know who they are we talk about every week is about. Boundaries at work, and people are afraid to set boundaries for lots of reasons, because they're afraid to be fired. If I don't take

Cyndi: Mm-hmm.

Holly: who am I again? They wanna keep busy. their worth from work, right? That's where

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: from. Another one would be who [00:50:00] is, they're exhausted. taken on

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: work and now they're so tired and you can see it in them. They just almost are listless.

They, they don't have the life they had before the energy, and they might be getting the job done, it's not with that same energy, these people

Cyndi: Burnout. Yeah.

Holly: burn out. Yeah. This is so important because you run in dysregulation you drop to freeze. Right. You can't get out of freeze without rest. It's impossible.

Your body will not allow you to freeze to get out of freeze without rest, which means typically you'll get sick. You know how many times people get sick after big projects? And so you have to have rest. So if you notice someone in this or you know your team has been running hard and they've just been going and going and going without a break, offer them if you can, a day off. Offer them, Hey, take that. [00:51:00] Why don't you take a couple days? Why don't you come in late? Why don't you offer, ask someone else to do that work? Lots of things that you can help them en enlist, rest into their practice, practice without actually having to have heavy conversations about trauma.

Cyndi: Yeah, but as a manager, you can set the expectation for your team to say, look, we have been pushing really hard together as a team, and this is a lot for a long, long time. Please make sure you take care of yourself. That is my expectation. Whether it's taking an afternoon off or and flexing your schedule, whatever that looks like for you, please make sure you take care of yourself,

Holly: And I love

Cyndi: right.

Holly: that. So, you know, work-life balance used to be again, in consulting where people were traveling, it was the thing every year it'd be the biggest complaint. [00:52:00] People didn't have

Cyndi: I.

Holly: balance. And frankly, a lot of the people would take it on, on their own. They, they would create this, 'cause I would say. I want you to have balance now what work-life balance looks like to one person could look very different to another. And I think what you just said is really important. What does rest look like for you? What does

Cyndi: Yeah,

Holly: you know, what does balance look like for you? Maybe you like to get caught up on your emails on Sunday night because you wanna make your four o'clock soccer game every Thursday afternoon.

That's great. So. Try not to dictate to them what their life should look like, I think is really important. Give

Cyndi: like that goes back to choices, right?

Holly: Yeah. Give them

Cyndi: It goes back to choices.

Holly: to get the rest as possible. The another example I

Cyndi: awesome.

Holly: that you, you asked how do things show up that you might not even know. [00:53:00] When I first started out, I think we talked how, we talked about how our trauma showed up differently at work for us. Right. Unbeknownst to me, and I happened to have a woman that was so brave to come and tell me this, but I had a perfection complex for myself. I didn't even know it, didn't realize it, but I, I wanted to do good work and, you know, all the time it was being. How do I shown on teams? So people I worked with kind of took that from me, even though I might not have said it to them, that I expected them to be perfect. But my high expectations for myself I was throwing all of that up all over my teams that I was working with. I had no idea. I had no idea. And someone said to me, and this is when I was a really young manager, brought it to my attention, I.

And what a beautiful gift. I will never forget it. And when I look back now and know all I know about [00:54:00] my trauma, it was absolutely a trauma response. You know, that perfectionism at work for me was absolutely a trauma response. Now she didn't know it at the time, she didn't know my history. Neither did I, she didn't have to.

But just even recognizing something about me that she could tell. Was affecting others and having, she, she was not even my direct manager. She was a peer. I worked with having the courage to say it to me and it stuck with

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: these years. It's been 25 years since she said that to me, and it still, I

Cyndi: I love that. I love that you reacted that way. I. Right, because I had a manager for a year working on a project that was a perfectionist, flat out, perfectionist owned it, and that's how we showed up. And what I say about that is I did not perform well under that [00:55:00] leadership because I had a trauma with a perfectionist.

Right, and so nothing was ever good enough, even on a draft. The draft, the first draft had to be perfect. Well, that's not a draft, right? So I would go home crying almost every night, at almost every night throughout the whole year, because I couldn't measure up. I couldn't, and nothing was ever good enough.

Right. I couldn't meet expectations and I felt really bad about myself. So like if to, for the feedback for a manager, if you, if you have that tendency in your life and also you're seeing these types of things show up in your people, it might be coming from you. I'm just saying.

Holly: you are just saying. Well, and I. Courage, [00:56:00] trauma survivors, unfortunately, we live with fear, and fear stops us

Cyndi: Yeah.

Holly: up. Right? And it,

Cyndi: Yes,

Holly: takes our courage away. You know, sometimes it takes

Cyndi: yes.

Holly: and that is so unfortunate because it's during these times that we need to be outspoken and be able, again, you do it professionally, do it with a kind heart, you're doing it always with. To make things better, to be able to speak, whether it's to appear to an employee, to your manager, and maybe that's why I've got, had great relations with my manager. I've, I have never been scared to tell a manager things whether how they re, how their, they acted, react, you know, affects the team or me, or how I could see things be different and it's always worked out really well.

So my wish for. Managers who are trauma survivors, who are [00:57:00] trauma survivors are, have courage, get support from mentors, and have courage to bring things up. And

Cyndi: I love that.

Holly: the time, most of the time, I think there'll be a positive reaction to it. Not always, I can't promise it always, but most of the time there will be a, a positive outcome.

Cyndi: I love that. I love that we've covered a lot of territory today and we've and we are getting really, really long on our session today. But also, I loved how you said, have mentors or get training on how to manage, how to manage in a trauma-informed way. Talk to someone who has experience in a, being a trauma-informed manager, how to manage those, those types of people.

Right. So [00:58:00] I'm curious from our listeners to hear. What are the things that they struggle with as managers and leaders with being trauma informed? What are the things that they want to hear or to learn from us that we can talk about later? What are some of the challenges that they face? And the next time we talk, we want, I wanna talk about what's it like.

When you're a manager who also has trauma, managing people with trauma who also has trauma. So that's what I wanna talk about next time with you. And I'm looking forward to that. 'cause that's gonna be really juicy, isn't it?

Holly: I'll think of some, I'll have to really go back, but yes, I'm sure I have lots of stories. We can share examples of how that, how that shows up. Yeah.

Cyndi: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Holly, for joining us today. I thought it was really a great conversation and I'm looking [00:59:00] forward to more conversations together.

Holly: Great. Thank you.

Cyndi: Thanks.

Holly, one question I wanted to ask you was, what language should managers avoid that might trigger trauma responses?

Holly: That's a great question. You know, number one is au author authoritarian. So saying you have to do something or you must do something, or using always or never. So again, we, we go back to the six pillars, which is how do we collaborate, how do people have voice or choice? So using that language can just set people back almost immediately.

And it also sometimes can feel like it's, it's a trigger to their trauma shame-based language. So, you know. Well, what's wrong with you? If they, if someone says, you know, I've had some trauma. Well, what happened? What's wrong with you? Instead, can you say, can you [01:00:00] help me understand how this is affecting you at work?

Or saying shaming things like, you should know better. Or, haven't you done this before? Or didn't you learn that just now? Again, I would go back and say, you shouldn't talk to anyone like that, but this can be really triggering to someone who has trauma. I think threatening language or ultimatums, you know, if you don't improve, X is gonna happen.

Now granted, if you are having the third conversation with someone and it is going to be something that might lead them down a path you need to let them know about, then it's, let's work on how we can ensure this doesn't happen again. Let's ensure that we can continue to have success going forward, things like that.

Threatening that their job's on the line if instead of how can you support them? And you can still set expectations [01:01:00] of a process, but do it in a heartfelt way. And again, with empathy. Again. Really trying to be open, asking lots of questions instead of placing statements and demands on people. And as we talked before, you know, sharing with them that everything's confidential and then ensuring you, you know, abide by that as well as you know, helping them with the solution.

They may not know what they need to do. So, well, what is it you wanna do instead? They may not know. So again, asking them, how can I support you in working through a plan? So just, you know, again, kindness. A softer voice. You know, people could also be pretty triggered by tone of voice, so not just if you're using a higher level or yelling, but tone of voice could mean a lot to them as well.

So how you have those conversations with the tone of your [01:02:00] voice is, and also the dynamics of even how you're sitting up in a room. If they're sitting down and you're standing over them. That could trigger them immediately. So trying to even out the playing field, if you will, that you have good dynamics in between.

Cyndi: Yeah. I love that. And I think too, helping them understand that there's a certain, Expectation performance that

Holly: Yes.

Cyndi: right? Because that, that's true, right? There is a certain expectation about performance, but also you're willing to engage with them to help them meet that expectation, So that they feel like I would want my manager to feel like they're on my side. How can I help you? What are, what are some of the things that are holding you back? Because trauma does show up and people don't know it,[01:03:00] 

Holly: Yeah. And keep in mind, again, we talk about this a lot. Every job in industry is different, so we can't, we can't give blanket statements because if you're a, if you're a police officer, right? Versus if you sit in an office all day could be very different how we may need to have this conversation if, if their safety, if they're a police officer and their safety is on the line, we may need to have a little more harder conversations with them.

Right. And so you have to take into consideration if you're ever in doubt, and again, if before you have these conversations, it's always important to make sure you, you are getting regulated. One of the best tools is you can co-regulate with an employee by lowering your tone of voice, having good con eye contact if they come in pretty.

Dysregulated and you can tell they're dysregulated. They're nervous, they're moving around a lot. They've got a [01:04:00] high pitch voice talking fast. Slow your voice down, lower your tone, and it typically will do the same for them. They'll start to sit back. You can sit back, don't be way up in their face, and you'll see them start to relax just a little bit, and then you can have these conversations with them.

Cyndi: Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Okay.