In Order to Repair and Prevent Organizational Trauma, Leaders Must Develop Trauma Expertise, and Recognize Personal Contributions to Organizational Problems
Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who’s The Wisest Leader of Them All?
This post starts with an overview of organizational dynamics, moves on to define trauma and discuss how it plays out in organizations, and then looks at how leaders can either add to or help resolve organizational trauma and bolster resilience, to stay on mission to success with health and sustainability based in mutual respect, constructive authority and humanistic values.
Recently, I’ve been reading a book on leadership and organizational work by Edward R. Shapiro called Finding a Place to Stand: Developing Self-Reflective Institutions, Leaders and Citizens. Shapiro comes from the rich and deep tradition of “Group Relations Theory” — a school in which I’ve also trained. In writing about leadership, he shares a trenchant joke, embellished with my own reflective commentary:
A new CEO is taking over and asks the last one for advice. The outgoing CEO provides three envelopes, and says to open them in order as crises arise. We wonder what the old CEO is getting at, but taking it at face value, we don’t act on this moment of…
