Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

To learn more about Stephanie’s work for trauma-informed workplaces, check her website at https://www.thewoundedworkforce.com.

More about CliftonStrengths, the assessment resource she mentioned, is available at https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx.

Her YouTube channel is The Wounded Workforce; you’ll find it at https://www.youtube.com/@TheWoundedWorkforce.

And the book Stephanie recommended is The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris. It’s in paperback at https://amzn.to/3w5TS2t, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/3WoQWIO.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Stephanie Lemek, with 16+ years of HR experience across diverse industries, founded The Wounded Workforce in 2023. Her mission is to cultivate trauma-informed workplace cultures. Observing a gap in support despite HR efforts, she embarked on creating solutions. Recognizing that over 70% of adults carry traumatic experiences into the workplace, she aims to equip leaders and HR professionals with tools to address these challenges. Stephanie’s initiative stems from a passion for inclusivity and research, driven by a desire to ensure everyone has the necessary support to thrive in their professional environments.

Transcript
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
At least 70% of American adults have endured a traumatic experience. That means a good chunk of your workforce is dealing with trauma in their background, even if you don’t have the highest empathy the impacts on employee, focus, teamwork, productivity, frankly, nearly every aspect of business are clear, but you’re a leader, not a psychologist. What are you supposed to do about it? Our guest Stephanie lemick has an answer in this podcast. She shares the stats and her seven principles of trauma informed workplaces developing the skills to successfully lead today’s workforce through their evolving needs is at the heart of our work at the innovative leadership institute. Find our full roster of leadership solutions online at innovative leadership.com you

Unknown Speaker 1:00
Hi.

Unknown Speaker 1:03
This is innovating leadership co creating our future. I’m your host. Maureen Metcalf, the founder and CEO of the innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future, ready, helping us in this mission. Today is Stephanie lemick. She founded the wounded workplace in 2023 Her mission is to cultivate trauma informed workplace cultures. Stephanie, I’m delighted that you’re with us. Thank you so much for having me. Maureen, I am so excited for our chat today. Let’s answer though, why you need to stay tuned, because this will improve your ability to deliver results and meet your mission. Absolutely, and that is a common reaction when I talk about trauma informed workplaces, so I’m not surprised, and it’s okay for your initial reaction to be like, Huh? What’s this about? Because conversations around trauma and traumatic experiences aren’t super normalized. Unless you’re a member of Gen Z on Tiktok now, then that’s a different situation. The thing that really helps drive home how impactful trauma is to our workplaces is this amazing statistic I stumbled across when I first started doing this work, and that it’s 70% of US adults self identify as having one or more traumatic experience in their lifetime. So that’s folks who are raising their own hands and saying yes, trauma has impacted my life directly. That’s 70% of your workplace already saying yes, trauma has impacted me. That doesn’t include folks who maybe aren’t making a connection to traumatic experiences in their life that are showing up for them and for individuals who have a loved one who has experienced trauma, and so those repercussions show up in their life as well. And so trauma informed workplaces are the natural solution that’s based in a lot of amazing research for us to better support teams and leaders in tackling some of the hard things that are a part of our work. And also, you know, as a former HR leader, if 70% of our workplace is impacted by something, it behooves us to have a conversation about it, I still have these voices in the back of my head that my clients would say, yes, so you’ve had trauma. I’m really sorry for you. But why is that my problem? Why is it the leader’s problem to deal with, rather than your counselor or your priest or whoever, somebody else I love, to start any conversation about trauma informed workplaces with a shared definition of trauma, because when you look at the evolution of trauma research In the psychology community, the generations we have in the workplace with us right now, they all have different experiences with that term. It has been used really differently over the span of the last 50 years, and so if you look at folks who are more experienced in the organization, folks who have been working for longer, when you think of trauma. You probably think of a veteran returning from an active war zone, or someone who experienced some type of direct violence to their physical person. I made the joke earlier, you know Gen Z talking about it on Tiktok. That’s the other end of the spectrum. Gen Z is very comfortable talking about trauma and traumatic experiences, and sometimes they’ll use the term almost colloquially. So when we look at bridging this wide range of definitions, the best thing we can do is start with a shared definition, and I’m going to give you the standard one I use whenever I’m doing this work, and it is a definition that is slightly tweaked for the workplace, in mind from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting effects on functioning per.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Formats, mental, physical, social or spiritual, well being. I know that’s a super broad definition, but trauma really is incredibly individual, and it’s informed by our previous experiences. It’s helpful for me to think of the 3e of trauma, event, experience and effect. If that definition is too much to kind of carry in mind, I was held up at gunpoint in a hair salon. I was checking out. The person with the gun came in, so I was standing right at the counter. Gun was pointed at me. I think he believed I was the checkout clerk, and he kept looking for the cash register and asking me where my cash was, so that could be perceived as a trauma if I carried long term impact, but I don’t think of the things that impacted my life that doesn’t feel significant for a multitude of reasons that are the comedy of how this whole thing played out. And that’s such a great example, Maureen, because each of us has a different reaction. And I will say, with trauma, some things can be short lived, so the effect or the impacts of a traumatic experience on your life, they could be short lived, or they could be long term. They could also show up immediately or years later. It’s like a snowflake. I hate to say that, because it sounds a little cheesy, but each experience, each individual is going to be really unique. I always recommend, when we’re talking about trauma, informed workplaces leaders focus on understanding the broad range of trauma and how it can impact individuals, rather than getting hung up on what is or is not trauma because it’s so different for every person. So it’s really the impact on me, whether it was a gun person or a minor fender bender that maybe injured my body, that could be a significant trauma for someone absolutely, you know, really interestingly and not to get us totally off track. There’s also this very interesting concept of adverse childhood experiences, and Dr Nadine Burke Harris wrote a phenomenal book called The deepest well. Highly recommend it if someone’s interested in learning more but smaller things in our childhood very frequently show up for us in adulthood, and how we respond and react to things because how our brain is working how our nervous system is working as we’re developing so something as simple as a child who is frequently yelled at that could show up in adulthood as a trauma response if you have a yeller in the workplace, hopefully we don’t have any of those listening to the podcast, but if someone you Know yells when they’re upset and that’s triggering a trauma response. Well, we’ve just got a perfect example of how a trauma reaction, a traumatic experience, could be showing up in your workplace. Extreme one, I actually have an example of that. I was teaching an MBA program. We were trying to inject a level of adversity into one of our classes, one of the faculty members, we were running them through a simulation, and he started screaming and pounding a table, which many of us in business roles, either executive or non executive, have run into the seriously annoyed colleague who doesn’t handle frustration well and screams or pounds or something. This person started screaming and pounding. And one of the students, a man, probably in his 30s. He was a person who was relatively experienced in his career, had trauma. Experiences. Had been beaten as a child, and when this man started pounding, the gentleman left. He had adverse impact after that, I happened to be on the panel, so I was involved in helping navigate the fallout of this, which was, for this young man, pretty significant. We don’t necessarily know who will be impacted and how they will be impacted, but having the ability to help him recover again, I’ll hear leaders say they’re just overly sensitive. It’s not just that. It’s our top performers who have things that have happened to them over the course of their lives that they have managed very well, and we upend them by our behavior. Sometimes our top performers are top performers because some of the behaviors that are manifesting as a trauma response. Help them be really good at their work. They are very conscientious and on time, very responsive. There are pros and cons to each of these people, pleasing all of those things. When we look at that 70% statistic I mentioned earlier, this isn’t a couple of folks who are bringing really challenging issues with them to the workplace. It’s the majority of our workforce. And honestly, when you dive deep into the science of trauma and how we respond to things, our lizard brain, as it’s called, automatically responds. So a lot of times, you know that individual you mentioned in your MBA class.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
He may have not even known that that was going to be his response. And I know for me, I spent years as an HR leader, HR executive, and when I reflect back now, I absolutely can think about how trauma was showing up for individuals in the workplace, but really for me, I hate to call it the magic moment or the light bulb moment, but it was how trauma was showing up for me in the workplace, and I wasn’t realizing that’s what it was I was working with my therapist, like many people, the time during the covid 19 pandemic, was very challenging, and so in working with a therapist and helped me work through many different things, acknowledge a whole host of different things in my life, but specifically things that were showing up at work where I was like, why am I doing that? Why did this behavior change? Why am I tough and ready to go toe to toe with everyone and stand up for what I think is right? And then all of a sudden, there’ll be a certain situation, and I’m like, whoa, whoa, I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want me to do for me. A trauma response is fawning, and so you may have heard of fight or flight. Your body is ready to go, Hey, I’m gonna fight you as a trauma response to protect my safety. Flight is I’m going to get the heck out of here fawning. What it is is you don’t feel like you have either of those options, so you kind of try and placate the other individual. And because of previous life experiences, for me, that’s right there on the surface for my body to go, oh, okay, use this tool, Stephanie, to help keep you safe. And for a lot of individuals who had really challenging experiences during the pandemic, some of those traumatic experiences, those trauma responses, came back up. And a common thing I hear from leaders and managers across the board is Stephanie. I didn’t want to talk about trauma at work, but I do really need more help and more support to find ways to help and support my team, because I don’t have the tools, I don’t have the resources to have some of these challenging conversations that have started to come up as part of my job in the last few years, and I think that’s really our changing relationship with work through our experience in the pandemic, and also our shifting demographic with Gen Z entering the workforce, Gen Z is much, much more willing to bring their whole self to work, and really wants to be able to talk about mental health, previous experiences and how they’re impacting, how they’re showing up at work as well. You’ve done a brilliant job of laying out, what is it and why should I care? Anytime someone is responding from their primitive brain, they are not fully engaging their prefrontal cortex. They’re not using their executive functions in doing their job. They’re, at a minimum, distracted, not engaged. They may distract and not engage others. So there’s a ripple effect. So what do I do about it? Stephanie, everyone having that feeling of, I don’t want to talk about trauma at work. I’m not qualified for this. You’re right, and that’s exactly what I want you to do. That’s where I think trauma informed workplaces, trauma informed cultures can be confusing or tricky, is that we are not clinical psychologists. We are not individuals who are trained and credentialed to diagnose or treat trauma. So we never do that at work. If there is one thing to keep in mind is you are never seeking to diagnose your true trauma on your team, and even if you are credentialed to do it, you wouldn’t do it because it’s a conflict of interest to have that relationship. You have that connection. So first and foremost, know that you are not here to diagnose and treat trauma. You have plenty on your plate as a leader already, we’re not adding that the concept of trauma informed workplaces and trauma informed cultures, really is derived from a concept created by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration about 30 years ago, called trauma informed care. And that was an idea that anyone that’s helping support individuals, and specifically when it was created individuals who are experiencing substance abuse treatment, an understanding of some basics of trauma and how we can support individuals. And so there are four things we want to do as leaders in a environment that seeks to be trauma informed. We want to be informed. We want to know what that definition of trauma is, and have a little bit of understanding of if someone’s interaction with us, someone’s reaction to something, was a little bit odd, especially for them. Hey, maybe this is something bigger. Versus jumping to I know sometimes in leadership, we can jump to a conclusion, Oh, someone’s not ready. Someone’s, you know, going to quit all of those.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Things. It’s set in form that sometimes trauma shows up in interesting places and interesting ways. And to take that step back, to take a beat the next is awareness, awareness to the prevalence of trauma, that 70% statistic you’re checking off the box of awareness, you understand that trauma really is pervasive in our environment, and it is showing up for individuals in different you know, people say, when they start planning a remodel, they say, I don’t even know where to begin, but that’s where we come in at simple bath and kitchen design is the fun part. We walk you through styles, colors and layouts right in our showroom so you can see your new space come to life, and once you love the design, our team handles the rest on time, on budget and with zero pressure. Beautiful designs, smooth process. Visit simple bath and kitchen.com. To start your design today, we make it simple for you.

Unknown Speaker 16:00
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Unknown Speaker 16:24
twice, and then the next two things are the things that really require you to take a little bit of action, or to at least be thoughtful as you’re interacting with your teams and as you’re leading in your organization. The first is you want to make sure you’re avoiding re traumatization. So Maureen, that example you gave where someone jumped into their acting, pounding the table, screaming, for an example, they potentially re traumatized that individual. They certainly triggered a response we want to be conscious and understanding and look to actively avoid re traumatizing someone so actively pulling away some of that bad behavior that could pop up, and then also maybe temper our responses or interactions. And if there’s only one thing you remember of these four rules, it’s this last one, actively minimizing harm. As a leader, being thoughtful about how you’re actively minimizing harm for your team members, for your organization, for your other stakeholder, is a key aspect of trauma, informed workplaces. Hopefully this is a relief to hear that these are the four things versus, you know, like you said, Maureen, having to diagnose and treat trauma. Really, it’s about being aware, informed, and then taking action to avoid re traumatization and minimizing harm to your team, which even if you haven’t experienced trauma, even if you’re one of those lucky individuals, all of those things still benefit you within an organization. Let’s go back to my students as an example, because I want to play through then how I felt equipped to have the conversation with him because of some of my training. If I were a leader who said, Oh no, no, I get that he left. That’s really uncomfortable. I appreciate that removing himself from a situation for him minimizes harm in that moment, somebody still needs to then go check on him. He’s now sitting in a hallway feeling overwhelmed, scared, angry and a bit probably lost about what do I do? Because I am I’m embarrassed. I just left my exam and stormed out as a leader, then I don’t feel comfortable going after him. What do I do? I would say in this scenario, I’m gonna lean on my experience as a mental health first aid instructor for this one. I think making sure someone’s okay is really important. You know, in the scenario described, if someone was having a relatively extreme reaction in exiting an exam. And so I think the goal would be number one to make sure that individual is okay. And I think saying, Yeah, let’s take a beat. Let’s take a moment, and then finding someone who had the right relationship with that individual to go, kind of just check in and make sure Truly, He is not in crisis. This isn’t an emergency. We don’t need to call additional resources and to help this person get additional support. Also, when that scenario is present, when you’re concerned for someone’s safety, don’t worry about embarrassing them. That sounds a little harsh, but the thing is, number one, safety, safety, safety, the best thing you can do is check in make sure someone’s Okay. And you don’t need to be a trained psychologist for that, you can check in and say, Hey, are you okay? How are you doing? Do you need some additional support? Is there anything I can do for you? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
And then you can connect that individual with other resources that do have the right training and that third party connection. This also gets to a great example of we talk about those four things as being really simple, but as most things in leadership and humanity, they’re really hard actually in practice, and a lot of times we don’t actually get them right. And so I lean on the Seven Principles of trauma informed workplaces to help visualize, to help folks understand how you can build a leadership style, how you can build a culture that is really trauma informed. And as we’re talking about the scenario Maureen, I’m thinking of the sixth principle, which is humility and responsiveness. Exacore has the industry abandoning gypsum underlayment magnesium oxide panels deliver strength that installs fast for fire resistant protection,

Unknown Speaker 20:55
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Unknown Speaker 21:28
and it recognizes, hey, we’re not always going to get this right, which is just about the most human thing there is. We’re not always going to get this right. Of course, no one’s intention was really thinking about how you can traumatize someone during their final exam that was not what was intended, and sometimes unexpected things happen. We know that that’s part of work, that’s part of life, recognizing, hey, we made a mistake. Hey, we created a scenario that put you in a bad space and complicated things. So that humility and knowing we’re not always going to get things right is a huge part of that. And then you have to follow that up with responsiveness. It’s, How can I fix this? How can we move forward in a better way? And talking about, can you have an opportunity for this individual to, you know, redo the exam? Can you press pause and come back to that for the rest of the class? And really it’s coming back to this new scenario where, unfortunately, we had a miss, you know, someone did feel re traumatized by something that happened. How can we know, approach this and correct for this individual and support them going forward, but then also look to do that for the rest of the class as well. That’s really what it means to be a trauma informed leader. Okay, we messed up. Welcome to life. How do we then consider and move forward so we’re able to, again, minimize that harm, avoid re traumatization going forward. And I love this too, because that concept of humility and responsiveness lets us say, hey, we don’t always get it right. We don’t have to go back to the drawing board. We take a tweak, we make an adjustment, and then we move forward and do the best we can again. In that scenario, one of the things that was important to the group is that that faculty member not be allowed to do this again, and so we did take corrective action. One of the things that strikes me now weapons in the workplace also comes to mind. And I had another client. It was layoff day. It was a workplace where guns were encouraged. In the office they were doing layoffs. The receptionist was sitting right outside of the office where they were laying people off. She called me and said, I know that’s a person who carries they just went in to get laid off. I don’t feel safe, because if she comes out and she’s having the normal emotions people have, and we also knew who had some mental health issues.

Unknown Speaker 24:01
So my recommendation to the person sitting right outside of the conference room was, I think you just developed an illness. You’re sick, go home if you are concerned about your physical safety, because you know someone is volatile and has a gun, exit the situation. And so safety may also mean, not only do I make sure he feels okay, but that we are protecting the safety of others 100%

Unknown Speaker 24:29
so safety is the first principle of a trauma informed culture. So it’s the first principle we talk about. And when we talk about safety, we’re talking about physical safety. So like you said, Maureen, your physical person is not in threaten of harm, and that includes, you know, an instance of workplace violence. It could also be, you know, being able to respond to a natural disaster. It could also be occupational safety. So do I have the tools and equipment to do my job safely?

Unknown Speaker 25:00
Safety. Safety also includes psychological safety. That is a hot topic right now. I know leaders on this call probably talk about psychological safety all the time. Then finally, it also includes financial safety to think about. We all go to work mostly to make ends meet, to pay our bills, to be able to take care of ourselves and our family. So those concepts all work together to create this initial principle of safety. And it doesn’t take you, know a genius, to recognize if you do not feel safe, whether it is physically, mentally, financially, it’s really hard to think about anything else. So really important to be thoughtful about creating safe environments, and that’s where it gets back to process. So I tend to agree that I would not love a work environment where you’re conducting layoffs, you’re having just conflict. Conflict comes up in every person’s day, and people are armed. That sounds, you know, challenging, that sounds tricky. There are some professions where that’s part of the job. So for example, we look at police officers, they are armed as part of their job. So how do we create structures, processes and systems where we can create a sense of safety for each individual and create that sense of physical security? You know, we can’t take the guns away from all the police officers if it’s required for them to do their job. How can we create a sense of safety around them? And perhaps that is specific protocols and processes around the use of a firearm which we know police forces around the country use. Perhaps it is additional training and resources and tools. Maybe it’s a hotline. Even Maureen, the example you gave where you said that individual didn’t feel safe, so you said you’re sick, go home. It is prioritizing that feeling, and when we look at leading in organizations, we can do that by creating processes and systems that really support these principles, that really prop that up, and that’s a great way to build that concept of avoiding re traumatization, creating an environment that minimizes harm, and it’s built right into the structure of your organization and how You do your work on a day to day basis. I appreciate that we go to process, because so much of this process policies and in that organization, their CEO believed that people with guns create safety, not inflict a concern for safety, and that is a belief system that isn’t mine. To change. My job is to help them create a sense of safety across the organization. And my recommendation to her was not go get a gun, right? It was remove yourself from a place at that moment that feels unsafe, and don’t make it an issue, just take appropriate action. I’m not saying storm out of the workplace, but if you immediately feel in harm, respond and then come back to the policy about how do we navigate the workplace? Maureen, you get to something really important, and I think it happens all too often now, as we talk about how an organization should show up, or how we should do things, or what your culture should be. Every organization is different. And anyone who has been a leader in their career, especially anyone who has been an HR or People Operations practitioner, will tell you things are different in every organization. And part of who I am and who I’ve always been is someone who recognizes, yeah, things are different and they’re going to be different, but it doesn’t mean we can’t create the best culture possible for our organization, for our team, and so that’s why it was so important to me when I looked at how can we help individuals, how Can we help leaders better support themselves and their teams through this concept of trauma informed cultures, it’s so important that it works everywhere, and what’s required in that is a scaffolding, a supports concepts, ideas that then have the flexibility to be applied to fit into unique cultures. Without saying this culture is right and this culture is wrong. I don’t think that helps us. When we look at Trauma Informed workplaces, what helps us is giving leaders and individuals tools and resources to build those processes, those systems, the culture that really supports their individual team members. It sounds like it overlaps with some of the work of Gallup and creating an engaging workplace, including the financial health piece. If I am looking to create a workplace one, I assume that the Gallup framework is a useful one. Do you also have a framework?

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Framework that is specifically focused on trauma informed how would someone find out more fun fact, I actually used to work at Gallup, so I am a huge fan of the work that Gallup does, and I would say especially when we think about trauma informed workplaces, the employee engagement work they do with their Q 12 survey, I consider best in class an amazing resource for any organization. And I’m also a really huge fan of Clifton Strengths, sometimes called Strengths Finder as a resource. And I talk about it a lot, actually, when we look at the concept of empowerment and how we can support individuals in the workplace, for trauma informed cultures, for that scaffolding, for those principles. I do have the wounded workforces, seven principles of trauma informed workplaces. So are those things I was referencing. I talk about them all the time. You can find me on LinkedIn, and also you can go to our website, www, dot the woundedworkforce.com,

Unknown Speaker 31:02
and every one of those principles is laid out there for you. I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version right now. Those principles are safety, trust and transparency, community, collaboration and with collaboration, I like to give the caveat. This talks a lot about organizational structure and power dynamics, not just how we work together, because those become really important when we talk about trauma. Next, empowerment, humility and responsiveness. And then finally, cultural, historical and gender issues. Think of this as the concept of Dei, but through the lens of being trauma informed, because every one of our lived experiences informs how we relate to and respond to trauma, so important for us to understand each of those. So I share a lot of great information around this on my website, on LinkedIn, my YouTube channel has a panel discussion of experts for every one of these, and this is all available free to you anytime you want to check it out or use it. And then also, very excitingly, this year, I launched a certification specifically geared towards HR practitioners, HR leaders all around how to become a trauma informed workplace practitioner, how to take these tools and apply them directly to those processes and systems to build a trauma informed culture, and I’m excited that later this year, we’ll be focusing on one that’s a bit shorter for our leaders who are focused on doing that within their teams as well. So if you’re interested, make sure to follow along or subscribe on the website as well for updates on that. One of the things I really appreciate about your approach is it’s not a one size fits all. My dad was in the military, having been deployed multiple times, his experience of safety and trauma is going to be different than my colleagues, who are university professors. What’s required in their organizations will be very different, and the policy should be very different. We’re creating a different environment. So I appreciate that I can understand the principles and then look to, how do I design policies? How do I create processes? What’s my organizational structure all to ensure that we are considering trauma and creating a sense of safety. Because I think in some organizations, the performance review process is the most stressful thing people go through, especially with power dynamics, right? Yes, I landed on this work because I spent a lot of time in house working for construction companies in an HR capacity. Those are not probably well known for being, you know, cutting edge, but they’re really amazing and important organizations with really amazing, important individuals working there. They’re also, you know, very heavily male. And I think there’s a lot of wonderful programs that exist to build better organizations, but for some reason, folks feel called out versus called in as part of those. And so for me, I think it’s really important to create processes where everyone can feel supported. And as I was doing this work, I came across some really interesting information. Men are 10% more likely to report that they’ve experienced trauma than women. I think it’s really key here to understand that we all have these notions in our mind of how the workplace works, how our lives works, but we really have folks who need more support, more resources, and our workplaces need to be able to give those supports and resources, recognizing the nuance of that is really powerful. When folks feel supported and cared for. We talk a lot about, oh, you know, employees aren’t loyal anymore. They used to spend all the decades of their career at one company.

Unknown Speaker 35:00
Company. I think it’s how you create that sense of loyalty, is by creating an environment that’s also loyal to the individual. There’s this interesting concept called institutional betrayal. Dr, Jennifer fraide originated the idea, and it’s that when an institution or organization that you work with or are part of, responds to harm that you’ve incurred in a way you don’t expect. It creates a second individual psychological harm, and so organizations could be doing that unintentionally, by not responding to traumatic experiences in the right way, but the flip side is by creating supportive environments, by creating organizations that really recognize the whole person and support them with structure and processes, not with diagnosis or treatment, you can create that sense of loyalty that is just as powerful. What a beautiful way to wrap up. Stephanie, thank you for sharing this information, and one of my key takeaways is there are structures, policies and processes to help leaders attend to this as leaders, it is not our place to become therapist. It is to create safety and a culture and also know when to refer people and the do no harm. Yes, absolutely. Can you give us your YouTube channel? It’ll be in the podcast notes as well. But YouTube channel, LinkedIn and website again, please. Absolutely. So you can find the YouTube channel is the wounded workforce, real straightforward. And there is a playlist there of all the panel discussions we’ve had. So if folks are interested, really great way to get up to speed quickly the LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. It’s just Stephanie lumick, and we also have a page for the wounded workforce. And then you can find just about all of our information linked from our web page, the wounded workforce.com thank you so much. Stephanie, thank you. This was such a fantastic conversation. I so appreciate the opportunity to chat with you, and for all of you listening the time you’ve given me to listen in probably to a topic you’re a little curious about at the beginning of the podcast. To our listeners, please like this, share it and go research the wounded workplace.

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