Trauma to Triumph

Book excerpt: When you turn a crisis or even a trauma into a learning moment, it will turn fear into courage and then determination. This leadership roadmap shows you the way to successfully navigating through crisis or trauma and coming out stronger on the other side. Organizational trauma takes many forms. It could be a pandemic that disrupts the way people work. An economic meltdown. An act of violence. A failed merger. A layoff—or continual threats of one. Whatever the scenario, events like these can traumatize leaders and employees, sending everyone into survival mode. Here’s the good news: when leaders navigate a traumatic event effectively, the organization doesn’t just survive. In Trauma to Triumph, Mark Goulston, MD, and Diana Hendel present a visionary and tactical roadmap to help leaders create stability amid chaos and uncertainty, move productively through a traumatic event, and flourish in ways previously unimagined. After reading this book, readers will learn: How the survival mechanism manifests in employees and leaders amid trauma The predictable polarities, dilemmas, tensions and other patterns that emerge in traumatized organizations…and how to break these cycles Why lack of clarity in roles and poor communication are dangerous in times of crisis (and how to avoid these common pitfalls) How leaders can shift to a mindset that helps create trust, confidence, safety, respect, and inspiration in employees Best practices for leading yourself and others through crisis; grieving losses, embracing healthy coping mechanisms, reframing, and more How to launch a rapid-response process where you “control the controllables” and create a framework for making better decisions during a crisis High-impact tactics to help your organization recover and heal in a way that doesn’t just return to baseline, but transcends it Filled with tools and tactics, Trauma to Triumph is an organization-wide blueprint for navigating a future where we’ll likely experience one trauma or crisis after another. It gives leaders at every level the guidance to create confidence, courage, and enthusiasm in their team.