Why every manager should have trauma literacy

"A decade ago, fresh out of business school, I joined a tech company in my first business development role in Singapore. Within the first quarter, I had closed two quarters' worth of sales targets. But the environment was abusive. The CEO yelled regularly. Personal and sexist remarks were common, on body, appearance, even what women ate or wore. It was triggering. Having lived through a previous abusive situation, I found myself in constant flight-or-freeze mode."

"There is a significant cost to this kind of emotional shutdown. Gallup estimates actively disengaged employees cost U.S. companies up to $8.8 trillion each year. A 2022 McKinsey Health Institute report found that one in four employees worldwide experience burnout symptoms, with women and younger workers disproportionately affected. These are signals that our leadership training is incomplete. While HR manuals continue to discuss things like "performance management,""

"At the center of this gap is something we rarely train for: trauma literacy. Trauma literacy is the ability to recognize that unhealed past experiences show up in daily behavior and to respond in ways that foster safety and resilience. You don't need to know someone's history to be mindful of trauma's effects. You just need to assume that trauma exists, and that it may be shaping"

A business development professional experienced verbal abuse, sexist remarks, and a toxic CEO in a Singapore tech company, achieving strong sales while suffering severe stress, triggering flight-or-freeze responses and eventual resignation. That traumatic workplace shifted the person's career toward studying trauma's effects on individuals, teams, and organizations, and founding a social enterprise focused on resilience-centered leadership. Emotional shutdown and disengagement carry large costs: Gallup estimates up to $8.8 trillion annually in the U.S., and McKinsey found one in four employees worldwide report burnout symptoms, disproportionately affecting women and younger workers. Trauma literacy—recognizing unhealed past experiences and responding to foster safety—is essential.

Read at Fast Company