Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption (and Thriving on the Other Side)

How to successfully navigate through crisis or trauma—and come out stronger on the other side. This leadership roadmap shows you the way.

Organizational trauma takes many forms. It could be a pandemic that disrupts everything about 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. If the crisis is not “named and claimed” as trauma and managed effectively, it’s sure to linger on in the form of chronic stress and anxiety. And left unspoken and unaddressed, blame, shame, and guilt often permeate the culture of the organization and erode its ability to thrive in the future.

Here’s the good news: when leaders navigate a traumatic event effectively, the organization doesn’t just survive. It can be transformed and flourish in ways previously unimagined.

In Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side, Mark Goulston, MD, and Diana Hendel present a visionary and tactical roadmap to help leaders create stability in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, move productively through a traumatic event, and come out even stronger and better on the other side.

Here are just a few things you’ll learn:

• How the survival mechanism manifests in employees and leaders in the midst of 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 so dangerous in times of crisis (and how to avoid these common pitfalls)
• How leaders can shift to a mindset that helps them create feelings of 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 that allows you to “control the controllables” and create a framework for making better decisions in the throes of 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’re likely to experience one stretch of whitewater after another. It gives leaders at every level the guidance they need to create confidence, courage, and enthusiasm in their team. It’s not just about being prepared for future crises. It’s also about leading in a new way in the times of stability in between—a way that creates a stronger, better company.