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EPISODE SUMMARY:
Listeners will learn a new way to think about traumatic experiences of leadership, as well as multiple approaches to identify and address these experiences.
What do leaders do when the act of being a leader is traumatic? Leaders navigate enormously challenging situations, including moral dilemmas that force the leader to choose between the organization’s welfare and that of individual staff; poor behaviors such as sabotaging and gaslighting; no-win situations, and bias, discrimination, and exclusion. In this episode, Clinical Psychologist Jennifer Wisdom discusses the nature of distressing experiences leaders face in the workplace, the strategies they use to work through these distressing experiences, and recommendations for how to improve workspaces to decrease the likelihood of traumatic experiences occurring. She will emphasize the role of legacy institutional structures, interpersonal relationships, power dynamics, and betrayal of trust in contributing to leaders’ experiences of trauma. She will conclude with ways leaders can identify and address trauma. Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP, is a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified organizational psychologist. She is principal of Wisdom Consulting, Senior Organization Development Psychologist in the Veterans Health Administration National Center for Organization Development, and Affiliated Professor at the Oregon Health and Science University. She has published and taught extensively on leadership and public health, including authoring the Millennials’ Guides series. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and a Master's of Public Health in Biostatistics and Epidemiology.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferpeltwisdom/ www.gotowerscope.com https://gotowerscope.com/towerscope-leadership-academy
#leadershipchallenges #trauma #leadwithwisdom #TheHardSkills
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On this episode of The Hard Skills, Dr. Brancu is joined by Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP, a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified organizational psychologist. They will be discussing addressing traumatic leadership experiences amongst other similar topics. To start the episode, Dr. Brancu asks Dr. Wisdom to define leadership and trauma. From there, They dive deeper into these meanings and further explore potential emotions, reactions, and situations that can occur in the workplace.
After the first break, we return to Dr. Brancu and Dr. Wisdom listing different examples of leadership trauma, what it looks like, and what things leaders can face that eventually can become trauma. Dr. Wisdom shares her personal experience while handling leadership trauma and the different emotions she felt throughout that situation. They also discuss some of the challenges leaders may face that could affect reputation and someone’s public image in some circumstances. Dr. Wisdom wraps up the segment by discussing betrayal in the workplace, specifically what it is and the harm it can do to a person.
As the conversation continued, Dr. Brancu questions about how to address leadership trauma at an individual level and how to proceed with intervention, mentoring, or coaching just to name a few examples mentioned. Dr. Wisdom shares her answer, along with answering how one can approach one of these methods to respond to trauma and the differences between each kind of response as previously mentioned. They also discuss responses at the organizational level, which includes policy, procedures, and structure. Dr. Brancu then asks a hypothetical question if a person has experienced trauma at a previous job, how they can use the interview process to determine if the company’s values are true in real-life scenarios?
As the episode comes to an end, Dr. Brancu and Dr. Wisdom wrap up their conversation by picking up where they left off in the previous segment of determining how a company will respond if they adhere to their values in the workplace. Dr. Wisdom then shares some key takeaways from the interview which include not having to take trauma from leaders and getting out of that situation to heal from that experience. To learn more about Dr. Wisdom’s work, please visit www.leadwithwisdom.com for more information.
00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:56.139 Mira Brancu: Welcome welcome to the hard skills show. Where we
00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:06.359 Mira Brancu: as how did hard skills meaning the most challenging soft skills needed to make a real impact through your leadership.
00:01:06.590 --> 00:01:11.910 Mira Brancu: I'm your host, Dr. Mira Bronku. I'm a leadership consulting and coaching psychologist.
00:01:11.970 --> 00:01:15.110 Mira Brancu: founder of the Towerscope Leadership Academy.
00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:36.030 Mira Brancu: an associate, professor, a Psychology today, columnist and author of the Millennials Guide to Workplace politics with Dr. Jennifer Wisdom. Here she's the co-author and the publisher of the Millennials Guide series as well as Gen. Z. Guides. So very excited to have my co-author and colleague here
00:01:38.180 --> 00:01:46.819 Mira Brancu: leadership career before transitioning to helping teams and high achieving women navigate their leadership complexities, and now I get to help them
00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:48.739 Mira Brancu: navigate their own. Now.
00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:54.640 Mira Brancu: if you've wondered whether you've experienced trauma
00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:57.009 Mira Brancu: as part of your leadership journey.
00:01:57.130 --> 00:01:59.599 Mira Brancu: This is the episode for you.
00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:10.639 Mira Brancu: I'm so excited to talk about this, because no one has put these 2 ideas together in quite this way that Dr. Wisdom has. And yet we don't do know that many leaders
00:02:11.080 --> 00:02:15.249 Mira Brancu: who have had traumatic experiences as part of their leadership role
00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:27.700 Mira Brancu: have come to us wondering how to work through it. Right? So thank you for joining us today. Audience, on our journey. Before I introduce you to our guest today, I have a few treats for you.
00:02:27.970 --> 00:02:33.250 Mira Brancu: On the last episode I spent some time answering some common questions I received from clients.
00:02:33.310 --> 00:02:36.589 Mira Brancu: including things like saying no how and when
00:02:36.630 --> 00:02:43.680 Mira Brancu: setting boundaries overcoming so self-sabotaging beliefs rooted in negative societal messages that we receive.
00:02:44.120 --> 00:03:03.410 Mira Brancu: If you haven't listened to that episode and you're interested, go check it out. And as part of my prep for that episode, as well as part of a book that I'm writing on this topic, I developed some nice free, downloadable tools that you can re use right away. You can check them out at go tower, scope.com
00:03:03.670 --> 00:03:08.500 Mira Brancu: under resources, and you click on other free resources to find them.
00:03:09.040 --> 00:03:24.899 Mira Brancu: Okay. Now, without any further ado, I'm super excited to introduce our special guest today the multi-talented Dr. Jennifer Wisdom. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and board certified organizational psychologist.
00:03:25.170 --> 00:03:28.279 Mira Brancu: She is the principal of wisdom consulting
00:03:28.430 --> 00:03:35.299 Mira Brancu: a senior organizational Development psychologist with the Veterans Health Administration's National Center for Organizational development.
00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:40.740 Mira Brancu: and an affiliate professor at the Oregon Health and Science University.
00:03:40.870 --> 00:03:45.880 Mira Brancu: She has published and taught extensively on Leadership and Public Health.
00:03:46.210 --> 00:03:48.959 Mira Brancu: including, like I mentioned, Millennials Guide Series.
00:03:49.190 --> 00:04:13.170 Mira Brancu: I was lucky enough to have co authored one that we talked about. She has a PC. In clinical psychology and a master's of public health in biostatistics and epidemiology. So this lady Super smart. And this is a really really great topic for season fours focus on navigating leadership complexity.
00:04:13.490 --> 00:04:14.620 Mira Brancu: Are you ready.
00:04:14.870 --> 00:04:19.009 Mira Brancu: Let's get started. Welcome and great to have you on the show. Jennifer.
00:04:19.380 --> 00:04:20.230 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So much.
00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:25.700 Mira Brancu: Absolutely so. Y'all remember, be ready to take notes.
00:04:25.930 --> 00:04:29.789 Mira Brancu: Reflect deeply. I always do. I always learn something
00:04:29.810 --> 00:04:35.479 Mira Brancu: and identify at least one small step to further develop your hard skills. Muscle.
00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:51.731 Mira Brancu: Okay, let's Jennifer, let's start with the basics here. How do you define leadership? And how do you define trauma cause. I know that lots of people have their own definitions of this. I wanna make sure we're all on the same page as we get started with this.
00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:57.890 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely so leadership. I define leadership as the ability to influence others
00:04:58.170 --> 00:05:12.619 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: ideally. That's in a good way or a pro social way, a positive way sometimes not but that's leadership. And then trauma. It's kind of 2 different definitions of trauma that I work with. So kind of one is the basic kind of
00:05:13.080 --> 00:05:20.930 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: colloquial way that we casually talk about casually. But we talk about trauma as any distressing or disturbing experience.
00:05:21.030 --> 00:05:45.829 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And then there's the kind of more technical definition that's in the diagnostic Manual of the American Psychiatric Association that refers to trauma as a response to specific events, exposure to actual or threatened death to serious injury to sexual violence. And then you have individuals have a number of responses to those kinds of serious
00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:54.370 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: adverse events that can include feeling jumpy, or having nightmares, or reliving or avoiding the situation.
00:05:54.520 --> 00:05:57.309 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Now, originally, trauma started out
00:05:57.650 --> 00:06:23.290 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: from the diagnostic side related to shell shock of soldiers returning from the war, and then it got expanded to include serious injury, sexual violence, other kinds of activities. And over the last 20 years it's also been expanded to include people's experiences of sexual harassment, or being attacked for being a whistleblower or bullying at work or homophobic discrimination at work.
00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:26.580 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: When interestingly, we found a study that shows that
00:06:26.910 --> 00:06:31.450 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: whether someone is experiencing subclinical
00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:33.500 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: experiences of trauma
00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:44.829 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: versus a clinical level meaning, a diagnosis diagnostic level of post traumatic stress disorder, they're experiencing essentially the same levels of distress and impairment.
00:06:44.840 --> 00:06:49.040 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So that diagnostic, whether you have that diagnosis or not
00:06:49.300 --> 00:07:00.280 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: doesn't necessarily mean you're not doesn't mean you're not experiencing the kinds of challenges that people can have when they're faced with these kinds of distressing and disturbing experiences.
00:07:00.530 --> 00:07:05.084 Mira Brancu: Now, that's really interesting, and that is really important, that
00:07:05.770 --> 00:07:11.609 Mira Brancu: to to know that it doesn't need to meet clinical criteria to be experienced
00:07:11.940 --> 00:07:14.419 Mira Brancu: as similarly distressing.
00:07:14.730 --> 00:07:16.709 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Right, and and I think that's
00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:33.309 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: we don't have enough time to go into my feelings for all of this. But a lot of times. People don't want to go to a therapist or don't want to seek a a professional for assistance, because they fear that they'll get a diagnosis which confirms there's something wrong with them.
00:07:33.490 --> 00:07:37.240 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: But in this case, and and I think in many other cases
00:07:37.370 --> 00:07:48.199 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a diagnosis does not, or whether you have a diagnosis or not. The experience of trauma does not mean there's something wrong with you. In many cases it's a normal response to a really
00:07:48.270 --> 00:07:49.870 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: messed up environment.
00:07:49.920 --> 00:08:01.320 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: to an environment that is not treating you well, that is, not respecting your dignity as a person, and which is creating an enormous amount of stress for you and likely for others, as well.
00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:03.033 Mira Brancu: Absolutely so.
00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:06.399 Mira Brancu: why is that important?
00:08:06.866 --> 00:08:23.940 Mira Brancu: In terms of and and thinking about our listeners who are predominantly people in leadership, roles? And people who support leaders like Hr professionals and and things like that. Why is this important? How how will they?
00:08:23.970 --> 00:08:30.590 Mira Brancu: What will they take from this episode that might change their perspective or help them sort of
00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:39.049 Mira Brancu: grow their leadership capacity, or you know, adjustment to certain situations.
00:08:39.370 --> 00:08:40.790 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, I think
00:08:41.289 --> 00:08:54.589 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: the number one thing that I would love for people to take away is to understand that being a leader has unique strains, intentions, and that sometimes those strains, intentions, can result in essentially damage
00:08:54.690 --> 00:08:56.649 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: to the leader. As trauma.
00:08:58.130 --> 00:09:14.279 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think a lot of times we anticipate as workers or as leaders, that we're going into an organization that is values neutral or po politically neutral. They're just there to do the job. We we make those assumptions when that's often
00:09:14.490 --> 00:09:22.989 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: not the case at all. There's all kinds of things going on political behind the scenes and other kinds of
00:09:23.260 --> 00:09:33.369 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: poor behavior, as I like to euphemistically call it people saying awful and nasty things, or treating people awfully that happens in organizations. And
00:09:33.890 --> 00:09:45.070 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: it's not only natural to have a response to that, and to feel uncomfortable, but for some people it it rises to the level of actually feeling like a traumatic experience.
00:09:45.240 --> 00:09:49.204 Mira Brancu: Yeah, I I'm thinking about several situations where
00:09:50.800 --> 00:09:51.926 Mira Brancu: number one.
00:09:53.910 --> 00:10:01.143 Mira Brancu: people come to me after they've experienced these situations trying to figure out
00:10:02.590 --> 00:10:05.589 Mira Brancu: How to be more quote, unquote, how to be more effective
00:10:05.660 --> 00:10:06.770 Mira Brancu: as a leader.
00:10:07.540 --> 00:10:08.260 Mira Brancu: And
00:10:08.290 --> 00:10:17.230 Mira Brancu: what what occurs to me is they haven't recovered from the previous experience, or given themselves even a
00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:19.919 Mira Brancu: a small amount of time
00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:27.119 Mira Brancu: to move from the previous situation to the next. And so we often talk about like detoxing
00:10:27.737 --> 00:10:32.382 Mira Brancu: from the previous situation might take 6 to 12 months sometimes. Right?
00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:35.239 Mira Brancu: Yeah. And if you don't acknowledge
00:10:35.560 --> 00:10:36.887 Mira Brancu: that that is
00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:39.600 Mira Brancu: that's important.
00:10:39.610 --> 00:10:41.620 Mira Brancu: It was an important critical.
00:10:42.170 --> 00:10:52.929 Mira Brancu: formative experience that will impact how you move forward with your next steps. Then you're not giving yourself a chance to really like. Think through what? What did that mean to me?
00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:56.809 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I like how you frame that. That's a very positive framing.
00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:17.570 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think many times people are just wiped out they are. They think everything's their fault, they obsess over what I could have done differently. Why is this person treating me this way? Why is this happening? Why are other people not standing up for me. Maybe I shouldn't be a leader at all. Maybe I shouldn't have even gone into this field.
00:11:17.620 --> 00:11:42.119 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: People have those kinds of thoughts when they've had a really traumatizing experience. So I think the first part is saying, this is not normal. This is not okay. This is not just part of being a leader, that I should accept and pretend that I need to just move on from like. Oh, that was a challenging job activity and move on. It's not like that. This is qualitatively different.
00:11:42.330 --> 00:11:58.059 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And I think, especially for people who are feeling some trauma associated with their leadership experience, acknowledging that it's okay to take time to move on. It's okay to acknowledge that was not okay. That was not normal. And I'm going to need some time
00:11:58.150 --> 00:11:59.789 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: before yeah. Second.
00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:10.800 Mira Brancu: Yeah. And I, I do think that on one end of the spectrum. If you don't take that time to think about the impact that it had on you, and what that means.
00:12:10.820 --> 00:12:13.469 Mira Brancu: It might keep you from
00:12:13.790 --> 00:12:26.549 Mira Brancu: bringing your full self and all your talents and gifts to another situation that that really would would be very deserving. You know, of your talents and strengths and gifts on the other end of the spectrum. I'm also thinking about
00:12:27.263 --> 00:12:30.800 Mira Brancu: you know some leaders that I've I've worked with.
00:12:30.950 --> 00:12:38.531 Mira Brancu: who had such an awful traumatic experience with like bullying or harassment, or you know that kind of that
00:12:39.140 --> 00:12:43.609 Mira Brancu: but they haven't worked through it. And now what they're doing is
00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:46.920 Mira Brancu: even the smallest hint
00:12:46.970 --> 00:12:59.070 Mira Brancu: of being treated like that again causes such a reaction. Some people might call it Trigger, that they snap at someone, not realizing that some, that new someone is not the old someone.
00:12:59.210 --> 00:13:02.179 Mira Brancu: and it causes more tension
00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:02.850 Mira Brancu: right.
00:13:02.850 --> 00:13:18.470 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. Yeah, a absolutely people can walk around feeling that they need to be defensive. And that makes it basically that helps push people into unsatisfactory work relationships that then want them, that make them want to leave.
00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:19.790 Mira Brancu: Yeah, absolutely.
00:13:19.790 --> 00:13:22.269 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Cycle that repeats itself if it's not addressed.
00:13:22.270 --> 00:13:35.959 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah, great. Okay, we are reaching an ad break when we come back. Let's talk through some of the kinds of traumatic experiences that happen to leaders? What do they look like?
00:13:36.255 --> 00:14:01.999 Mira Brancu: Why might they not even realize that it might be a traumatic experience? Some people think like it's gonna be obvious. It's not always obvious. So let's talk about that. When we come back you're listening to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branco and our guest, Dr. Jennifer, wisdom. We air on Tuesdays at 5 Pm. Eastern time. If you'd like to join our online audience right now and ask questions in real time. We can answer you in real time. Just find us online
00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:07.670 Mira Brancu: Linkedin or at Youtube at talk radio, Nyc, and we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:29.450 Mira Brancu: Welcome back to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Broncou and our guest today is Dr. Jennifer wisdom. And we are talking about leadership trauma.
00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:32.350 Mira Brancu: how to know it, what to do about it?
00:16:32.390 --> 00:16:33.165 Mira Brancu: And
00:16:34.420 --> 00:16:43.409 Mira Brancu: what I'm curious about is, what are some examples? What does it look like? What are the kinds of things that leaders face that might
00:16:44.090 --> 00:16:46.290 Mira Brancu: lead to the experience of trauma.
00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:55.779 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure. So I could start with a personal example where I was in a senior leadership role, where I was the regulatory
00:16:56.070 --> 00:17:07.490 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: stop. So people would have to go through me to get their stuff done, and my boss at the time decided. Let's let's chat with people and just have kind of an open forum for us to talk about all these issues.
00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:16.440 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So we got in. And as in the room with a bunch bunch of people, maybe 1015 people. And as we introduced ourselves, and I said what I did.
00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:31.590 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and I'm this person and my regulatory so and so, he said, in front of all these people, you know, I got stuck with the person in Jennifer's role at my previous university, and I went up to their office and threatened to throw them out the window.
00:17:33.650 --> 00:17:34.520 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So
00:17:35.540 --> 00:17:52.239 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: there's a moment here where I'm in this room with my boss, who is saying that the previous me he threatened to throw out the window and basically threatening violence toward the person in my role in front of these other people.
00:17:52.390 --> 00:18:10.720 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So the first time it happened, I mean, we'll get later to what you do in these situations. But the first time it happened I just froze. I had. I didn't know how to respond to it, and then, when he said it again, I was able to. The next month I turned it into was able to turn it into a joke, but it was still
00:18:11.390 --> 00:18:12.430 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: traumatic.
00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:20.460 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: traumatic. It was harmful, and I don't mean to say, like I was unable to function afterwards, but that, combined with
00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:49.730 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a a pattern of behavior, of undermining and bullying and belittling and sabotaging it, blind, sighting, ultimately, that ended up being somewhat of a traumatic experience. And I'm far from alone in this when I so we started a colleague of mine, Nina, neighbors who's absolutely fantastic. She and I were in a leadership group for women psychologists, and as we went around the room and started telling our leadership story, which was our our first assignment.
00:18:49.750 --> 00:18:52.809 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: every single one of us talked about
00:18:53.190 --> 00:19:22.400 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: having a traumatic experience of leadership, and these were like incredibly smart, talented women who said they felt small. They felt like they weren't a terrible leader, that they didn't want to continue in leadership because of these kinds of experiences. So Dina and I said, We gotta write about this. Let's ask people. So we asked a bunch of people about experiences, and everyone had a story to tell. So then we said, Great, can you? Would you be willing to write it down? And they said, Oh, no.
00:19:22.610 --> 00:19:31.259 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm worried. That that person from 10 years ago is going to come after me, recognize themselves and come after me, or I'm still not okay enough to talk about it.
00:19:31.260 --> 00:19:32.120 Mira Brancu: So.
00:19:32.430 --> 00:19:33.789 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Nina and I said.
00:19:33.800 --> 00:19:38.490 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: We've gotta talk about this. We have to talk about this, and we have heard.
00:19:39.460 --> 00:19:57.719 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I gosh! I would say we've heard everything, but I'm sure there's other ways that that people have done, poor behavior that we haven't yet heard of. So someone whose boss said I would be happy to provide a recommendation for you for this job you're going after, and then completely tanked them
00:19:57.820 --> 00:19:59.740 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and lost the job.
00:20:00.268 --> 00:20:05.189 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And that was again in a long stream of activities that were really
00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:11.940 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: hostile. Someone getting a new job and replacing someone who kind of didn't do anything
00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:30.609 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: or wasn't able to take care of business, and then their boss, who knew the previous person, didn't really do anything, is on them, and angry at them for not making more progress. Being belittled and gossiped about saying, this person obviously isn't meant for this leadership role because
00:20:30.610 --> 00:20:44.189 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: they're not able to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You know that kind of stuff happens all the time, and that's what he's been starting in on being sexually harassed, having homophobic discrimination. Just run of the mill bullying.
00:20:44.470 --> 00:20:47.589 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: All of those kinds of things happen a lot.
00:20:47.610 --> 00:20:50.579 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And they happen to workers absolutely.
00:20:50.860 --> 00:21:08.200 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And when they happen to leaders. Leaders are in a unique position where, as a worker, it's terrible for sure, no doubt about it. But as a leader you have your peers. You have your subordinates, and you have your relationship with this boss that you have to deal with.
00:21:08.696 --> 00:21:11.549 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: All of the ways that that play out
00:21:11.770 --> 00:21:13.750 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: across the organization.
00:21:15.090 --> 00:21:17.210 Mira Brancu: Yeah. And in in in some cases.
00:21:18.170 --> 00:21:22.719 Mira Brancu: when you're in a leadership role and you're trying to protect other people.
00:21:22.810 --> 00:21:26.550 Mira Brancu: you're more likely probably to hide
00:21:26.560 --> 00:21:31.050 Mira Brancu: the situation so that it doesn't sort of like seep through
00:21:31.483 --> 00:21:34.486 Mira Brancu: to affect other people. You're trying to protect right.
00:21:34.820 --> 00:21:41.370 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And as as a leader, 1. One of the big challenges in becoming a leader is, it's harder for you to hide.
00:21:42.130 --> 00:22:04.439 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: You're a worker, you can, maybe, you know, stay off the radar for a while, or to have an off week or something as a leader. You really can't. You're always on and not just onto your staff, but onto your boss and onto your colleagues. So part of what makes trump trauma that leaders experience so challenging is that perception of public humiliation?
00:22:04.500 --> 00:22:13.099 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It's not just your boss says something to you in private, but there's a public nature to it that's in front of your peers in front of your subordinates, and that
00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:25.450 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: it can threaten your livelihood, meaning you might, they might be threatening to fire you. I had a boss who would same boss who would threaten to fire me? You know you I really should fire you
00:22:26.170 --> 00:22:37.509 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: like. That's not a really healthy work environment to work in it also can affect your reputation, your identity, your character. It can affect all of those things when people are
00:22:37.540 --> 00:22:39.519 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: regularly putting you down.
00:22:39.750 --> 00:22:53.640 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: saying you're not a good leader, saying that you have weaknesses. You never should. That that were so glaring, you never should have been a leader. These are all challenging situations for anybody, and especially for leaders.
00:22:53.980 --> 00:22:55.909 Mira Brancu: Yeah, those are really good points about
00:22:59.280 --> 00:23:11.119 Mira Brancu: public nature of it, and how much your reputation and future opportunities. That can be incredibly scary that it can affect your livelihood. And I know for many people, including for me.
00:23:11.710 --> 00:23:17.480 Mira Brancu: That kind of experience can lead to social anxiety, the fear of
00:23:17.918 --> 00:23:27.500 Mira Brancu: you know public negative judgment because of what's happened to you in the past right, and not wanting to put yourself out there as much right.
00:23:27.500 --> 00:23:37.159 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. It's it's it can be extremely harmful to someone. And and, like I mentioned with some of these, we very capable leaders that we heard from.
00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:39.939 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It makes them think maybe I shouldn't be a leader.
00:23:40.470 --> 00:23:41.250 Mira Brancu: Yeah, that's yeah.
00:23:41.250 --> 00:23:44.209 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Getting getting this kind of abuse and harassment.
00:23:44.210 --> 00:23:45.563 Mira Brancu: Yeah, now, I'm wondering.
00:23:46.550 --> 00:23:50.638 Mira Brancu: are there certain situations, contexts, or
00:23:51.854 --> 00:23:55.089 Mira Brancu: personal backgrounds or experiences that are more susceptible
00:23:55.210 --> 00:24:18.680 Mira Brancu: to experiencing trauma than others, and I'm thinking, like in your circle of women, I was thinking, gosh! Women are more likely to experience trauma period in their lifetime. Right? Women of color and black women are also more likely to experience more trauma in their lifetime because of racial trauma and gender discrimination. And you know all of these sort of additional
00:24:18.860 --> 00:24:37.449 Mira Brancu: experiences with being treated as less than invalidated, questioned. And you know, harassment and and that kind of thing. I'm wondering like, what do you sort of learning about susceptibility or exposure? At the individual team or organizational level with this
00:24:37.600 --> 00:24:38.150 Mira Brancu: great.
00:24:38.150 --> 00:24:45.520 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Great great question. So there are certainly individual factors that make someone who gets into a leadership position
00:24:45.710 --> 00:25:09.080 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: likelier to have a stronger negative reaction to that. And you hit on a lot of them being in a group that is in the minority that has, who has and who has experienced this kind of stress or harassment previously, having had an experience of childhood, sexual abuse or rape, or mugging or attack, or things like that where their life feel was
00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:19.499 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: where they felt that they were in danger of their life, so that, having had previous trauma can impact that. And as you mentioned their workplace
00:25:20.020 --> 00:25:22.660 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: characteristics. So they're kind of
00:25:22.940 --> 00:25:46.390 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: run of the mill stressful workplaces where say, people don't have a lot of autonomy over their work, or where there's a lot of turnaround of what they need to do very quickly, where it's dangerous or where they're exposed to other people's trauma, like someone in an emergency room or police officer. Those thing where there's where there's a bankruptcy or layoffs, you know. Those kinds of things are kind of
00:25:46.500 --> 00:25:50.099 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: all traumatic in in some way or challenging in some way.
00:25:50.190 --> 00:25:54.580 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Additionally, if you have workplaces that are extremely competitive.
00:25:55.220 --> 00:26:06.949 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: that are more tolerant of poor behavior, that can be a challenge where there's unclear roles and responsibilities, and where there's no
00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:10.560 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: there's no check on bullying behavior.
00:26:10.560 --> 00:26:11.090 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:26:11.090 --> 00:26:17.309 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Those organizations can create challenges above and beyond the kind of volatility of
00:26:17.540 --> 00:26:18.930 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: every organization.
00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:43.150 Mira Brancu: Yeah, absolutely. And let's add to that. So all of those things are are partly at individual, partly at the organizational level. But let's add to that organizational trauma and betrayal or institutional betrayal. I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to that, because I don't think a lot of people know what this is, and yet, if they hear it, I bet they would resonate like oh, that's what that was.
00:26:43.420 --> 00:27:00.170 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, absolutely. So. Institutional betrayal is a concept put forth by Jennifer Frade, who's done some great work in this area. And she talks about essentially when the organization is not doing what it is supposed to do to protect its people.
00:27:00.380 --> 00:27:29.469 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So when you think of a situation where someone is harassing someone else, and the organization protects the harasser instead of the victim in the situation. There are many examples of this, and there's a sense among many people that it's hard enough if you're the victim in that situation and you're being harassed. But then, when the organization also betrays you by siding with the harasser that that's an additional level of harm that's done to you.
00:27:30.550 --> 00:27:32.387 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah. So
00:27:33.600 --> 00:27:39.947 Mira Brancu: thank you for sort of laying out what we should be looking for, how to identify it. And
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:44.501 Mira Brancu: we are reaching an ad break when we come back.
00:27:45.340 --> 00:27:47.700 Mira Brancu: I'd like to sort of talk through
00:27:47.870 --> 00:27:59.499 Mira Brancu: how to start addressing this. Now we, now that we've sort of identified. What? What do we do? Where do we start? How do we think about these these kinds of questions?
00:27:59.650 --> 00:28:05.739 Mira Brancu: You're listening to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branco and our guest, Dr. Jennifer, Wisdom
00:28:05.830 --> 00:28:10.830 Mira Brancu: and you can find us on Linkedin or Youtube right now, if you'd like to join us.
00:28:10.860 --> 00:28:13.549 Mira Brancu: and we'll be right back with our guest in just a moment.
00:30:14.180 --> 00:30:41.062 Mira Brancu: Welcome back to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Broncou and our guest today, Dr. Jennifer, wisdom. And we're talking about leadership, trauma, and what to do about it. We just talked about how to identify it, what it looks like at the individual experience, level as well as what it looks like at the organizational level. So I'd love to hear more how we start, what once we know, what's going on, we get a sort of sense of it.
00:30:41.790 --> 00:30:47.246 Mira Brancu: How? How do we start as individuals? First, let's talk about at the individual level.
00:30:47.890 --> 00:30:52.800 Mira Brancu: addressing it, acknowledging it. What do we do? What does it mean for us?
00:30:52.990 --> 00:30:55.710 Mira Brancu: What are, what are the kinds of things we should be thinking about?
00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:56.510 Mira Brancu: Right?
00:30:56.510 --> 00:31:11.849 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. So once you acknowledge that it's happening, once you identify that it's happening, there's a few different kinds of interventions that people can experience. There's training about leadership training and becoming a better leader. There's mentoring.
00:31:12.157 --> 00:31:28.739 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: when you work with someone senior to you, or maybe a peer who can help you and provide direction for activities that can help make things better. There's coaching which is more facilitated self directed efforts where the coach isn't going to tell you what to do, but helps you think through
00:31:28.740 --> 00:31:31.799 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: what you'd like to do. And then, of course, there's therapy
00:31:31.800 --> 00:31:41.255 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: which can often be helpful if people are experiencing things outside of work that they don't want to talk about in a professional context, so any of those can be helpful.
00:31:41.620 --> 00:31:42.540 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think
00:31:42.660 --> 00:31:48.359 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: many, what many people do when they understand that there's a challenge is they try to fix it.
00:31:48.410 --> 00:32:07.999 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So they try to identify. Why is this happening, and what can I do to make it better? And so they try to maybe have a conversation with the person who's abusive, or they'll ask their colleagues for advice, or maybe someone who used to work for that person for advice. They try to change their behavior. They try to become less
00:32:08.050 --> 00:32:15.200 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: vulnerable at work sharing less information about themselves. And many people kind of start going into
00:32:15.500 --> 00:32:24.059 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: essentially a scientific method of let me try this. If I do this, does it get better if I do that? Does it get better? And then
00:32:24.390 --> 00:32:52.920 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: many times that works, and many other times that doesn't work, because it's not about the individual. And that's a challenge that comes up with a lot of leadership training. Which is that many, much of the leadership training is focused on training the individual to be different in a workplace so that they can fit in and not be a target. So, for example, a lot of leadership training for early career. Women
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:56.549 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: is focused on how you can essentially
00:32:56.780 --> 00:33:00.470 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: maneuver in a mostly male environment
00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:09.320 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: even still, and and try to, you know, take on some of those more male ways of connecting and communicating.
00:33:09.490 --> 00:33:15.689 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And I'm not saying the male ways of connecting and communicating are necessarily wrong. Of course not. But
00:33:15.830 --> 00:33:27.689 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: they're typically training that's focused at an individual level is focused on changing the individual rather than identifying and acknowledging what's in the environment that is harmful.
00:33:28.450 --> 00:33:29.650 Mira Brancu: Yeah, I'm
00:33:29.810 --> 00:33:35.648 Mira Brancu: I'm so glad that you brought this up. I'm just gonna get on my soapbox for just a second. Here.
00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:37.460 Mira Brancu: The the
00:33:37.510 --> 00:33:43.259 Mira Brancu: reason. Part of the reason that I developed the Towerscope Leadership Academy is because I felt like
00:33:43.630 --> 00:33:46.440 Mira Brancu: leadership development was missing one big thing
00:33:46.550 --> 00:33:47.670 Mira Brancu: which is
00:33:47.890 --> 00:33:57.079 Mira Brancu: our identity. It was leaving our identity at the table. And so we're we're focused on is leadership, identity development. And why is that important? Because
00:33:57.580 --> 00:33:59.100 Mira Brancu: if you know
00:33:59.380 --> 00:34:04.429 Mira Brancu: where you stop as a person in your identity and what you're bringing to leadership.
00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:10.669 Mira Brancu: And then you know what the context is bringing to you. That is not about you.
00:34:10.830 --> 00:34:15.130 Mira Brancu: And then you also know what the societal messages that are very harmful.
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:19.439 Mira Brancu: that you've sort of taken in as okay, but are not okay.
00:34:20.071 --> 00:34:24.389 Mira Brancu: And can separate yourself from that, and unlearn those things
00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:28.060 Mira Brancu: that have caused so much damage and hurt, that leads you
00:34:28.090 --> 00:34:31.200 Mira Brancu: to being you know, sort of
00:34:32.993 --> 00:34:50.859 Mira Brancu: f. Finding yourself in situations where people are taking advantage of you or people are treating you badly. Then you will know when it's happening a little bit better. And you can have sort of like more clear boundaries about like what's acceptable and not acceptable. And where am I? Okay? And what kind of environment will help me thrive versus not
00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:59.070 Mira Brancu: right? And so all of that stuff just makes me so happy that you're mentioning this and the other part of this is
00:35:00.710 --> 00:35:04.519 Mira Brancu: your experience of community like learning that you're not alone
00:35:04.840 --> 00:35:08.349 Mira Brancu: learning that there's other people who have experienced the same thing.
00:35:08.680 --> 00:35:13.560 Mira Brancu: and that it's not specific to you that you didn't sort of cause some of this stuff, right
00:35:13.610 --> 00:35:14.350 Mira Brancu: is
00:35:15.460 --> 00:35:20.969 Mira Brancu: it can be so impactful to your agency in like
00:35:21.520 --> 00:35:22.880 Mira Brancu: doing something
00:35:22.890 --> 00:35:25.709 Mira Brancu: that is better for you, healthier for you.
00:35:25.900 --> 00:35:26.570 Mira Brancu: Yep.
00:35:26.700 --> 00:35:29.850 Mira Brancu: yeah. What I'd like to know from you, especially, though.
00:35:29.990 --> 00:35:32.455 Mira Brancu: now that I'm off my soapbox for a second.
00:35:34.070 --> 00:35:38.589 Mira Brancu: How do people know when to seek therapy versus coaching versus both.
00:35:39.860 --> 00:35:41.139 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Oh, the easy question!
00:35:41.985 --> 00:35:49.860 Mira Brancu: And and you know I mean I have people who who do both. They they seek me out for coaching. They have their own therapist.
00:35:49.970 --> 00:35:54.580 Mira Brancu: and they're they're getting something very different from each. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.
00:35:54.580 --> 00:36:11.209 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: For sure, sure, so therapy is generally designed to address deficits that tends to be the clinical model where someone is experiencing depression or anxiety or trauma. It helps kind of move them up from below.
00:36:11.260 --> 00:36:13.960 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: where they baseline to baseline
00:36:14.460 --> 00:36:21.410 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: coaching often is designed for people who are at baseline, or maybe even a little below and moving them further up.
00:36:21.560 --> 00:36:24.209 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So therapy is designed to address
00:36:24.340 --> 00:36:45.520 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: mental health issues. Coaching is not coaching is designed to address goals. Typically therapy will go into or we'll open the door for talking about personal experiences, things that happened in the past, things that happen with your family patterns that came early, not to blame your family, but to help you identify.
00:36:45.520 --> 00:36:58.219 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Why this thing in the present is is impacting you in a way, because it may be tied to an experience in the past. And so you're not really responding to this individual as a person, you're responding to what they represent for you.
00:36:58.290 --> 00:37:13.420 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Therapy goes into that kind of stuff. Poaching is much more. What do you want to do today? What's your plan? How do you want to move forward. And how can we get you there? And it's much more focused generally on work, related activities and less on
00:37:13.950 --> 00:37:16.790 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a bit less on feelings, but
00:37:17.150 --> 00:37:22.890 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: more action or oriented a bit, although both of them can have both feelings in action incorporated.
00:37:22.890 --> 00:37:25.890 Mira Brancu: Yeah. Yeah. And so you know, the
00:37:28.240 --> 00:37:36.320 Mira Brancu: when you are, for example, in a transition to a new leadership role, you've left the old ad experience in the past.
00:37:41.160 --> 00:37:55.639 Mira Brancu: but it's still haunted. You might see it to work through what's still lingering for you that is causing you you know a lot of distress, a lot of sort of strong reactions in the moment, but you might also add or see coaching
00:37:55.910 --> 00:38:11.430 Mira Brancu: to then also work on other goals that are really important to you, that you know you, you don't wanna sort of overlook because you're working on this other stuff that you're working through. Right? So that's one example of those kinds of experiences. Right? Yeah.
00:38:11.430 --> 00:38:15.140 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: You think many leaders would, if not all leaders would benefit from.
00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:18.010 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Help them with the transition.
00:38:18.010 --> 00:38:18.670 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah.
00:38:19.230 --> 00:38:19.640 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Leadership.
00:38:19.640 --> 00:38:24.880 Mira Brancu: Okay? So we talked about at the individual level, there's training. There's mentorship. There's coaching. There's therapy.
00:38:26.244 --> 00:38:30.359 Mira Brancu: What about at the organizational level? What? What do we need to be thinking about
00:38:30.470 --> 00:38:32.710 Mira Brancu: to minimize?
00:38:34.250 --> 00:38:46.404 Mira Brancu: the likelihood of people experiencing trauma, but also to sort of address trauma experiences for leaders to make it easier for leaders to navigate all of the things.
00:38:46.810 --> 00:38:51.079 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, absolutely. So we could start with the basics of policies and procedures.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:39:11.869 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: whether it's a small business or a multinational corporation. There should be very clear policies and procedures about acceptable behavior, not acceptable behavior, and ideally, that goes beyond what the legal boundaries are for harassment, hostile workplace, and so on that. There's procedures in place.
00:39:11.910 --> 00:39:21.739 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and policies that clarify that bullying and other kinds of poor behavior will not be tolerated. So that's one part very basic and many places don't have that.
00:39:22.020 --> 00:39:32.680 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: The second is having the structure in place beyond the policies and procedures to actually identify poor behavior and provide consequences for it.
00:39:32.680 --> 00:39:33.520 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:42.329 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm sure you've known as many of your listeners have as I have, people who are absolutely horrible, who keep their jobs for long periods of time.
00:39:43.730 --> 00:39:49.349 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Everybody terribly. They bully everyone. They're an absolute jerk, and there are no consequences.
00:39:49.725 --> 00:40:06.159 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So that sends a message that institutional betrayal message of the organization doesn't care how they treat people. The organization doesn't care about the people who report up to them. So, having a structure in place that provides consequences, for poor behavior is really important.
00:40:06.903 --> 00:40:22.360 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: There's some other issues as well that it could be helpful like, for example, what are the organizations values? Many organizations have this posted online. And then what is the behavior? Many organizations say, we want to be a great place to work. And yet
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:47.529 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: the behavior of their leaders demonstrates. It is not a great place to work, or we value diversity, but their behavior doesn't show that. So if there are significant gaps between their stated values and their behavior without any consequences for the people who are not fulfilling the organization's values, then that's certainly a red flag and something that the organization could choose to work on to make their values and the behavior of their leaders more congruent.
00:40:48.020 --> 00:40:48.700 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Then.
00:40:48.700 --> 00:40:50.349 Mira Brancu: Yes, yeah. Go ahead.
00:40:50.350 --> 00:41:12.400 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: One more piece. There's other things that can happen as far as having clear, more transparency, better communication work on a positive work, environment, psychological safety training. Those kinds of things can all be useful in some situations. As long as they're targeted on
00:41:12.740 --> 00:41:34.020 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: targeted to the problem which organizations don't like to do. If there's a a person who's a jerk or is a bully and is terrorizing their staff a lot of times the staff will be required to go to civility training, which they're not the ones who need. It's the other person. So making sure that those are targeted at the right place.
00:41:34.370 --> 00:41:36.794 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah, I'm wondering,
00:41:39.100 --> 00:41:50.590 Mira Brancu: if I had a traumatic experience in a previous role. And I'm now looking for a new job in a different organization. And I'm really worried
00:41:51.080 --> 00:41:52.140 Mira Brancu: about
00:41:52.150 --> 00:41:54.119 Mira Brancu: having the same experience.
00:41:54.340 --> 00:41:59.839 Mira Brancu: Are there any ways? And I get this question a lot. This is why I'm asking you. Are there any ways
00:42:00.670 --> 00:42:21.870 Mira Brancu: that I can like? Are there things I should be looking for, or ways that I can use the interview process to assess the health of the organization. To to determine whether these things are in place, the policies, procedures, structure, or values and behaviors that will feel like a more thriving environment.
00:42:22.150 --> 00:42:22.770 Mira Brancu: Yep.
00:42:22.770 --> 00:42:30.180 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely so. One thing is to ask one of my favorite questions to ask in an interview is, are you happy here?
00:42:30.180 --> 00:42:31.340 Mira Brancu: Oh!
00:42:32.500 --> 00:42:50.849 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Really direct. You have to be careful with when you're gonna ask it. But many times the person's micro expression, that really brief expression that flashes on their face before they put their face back together, will tell you everything. Places where they there, I ask, are you happy here? And their face will have this
00:42:50.890 --> 00:42:56.490 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: look of horror or regret, and then they'll put it back together and say, Oh, it's good here, and you.
00:42:56.490 --> 00:42:58.098 Mira Brancu: Or the pause.
00:42:59.990 --> 00:43:04.487 Mira Brancu: yes, what was that pause about?
00:43:05.130 --> 00:43:19.740 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: No confidence in that answer. Another question you can ask in an interview is, help me under like I saw the company's values online of XY, and Z, or whatever. How does, how well does the company adhere to its values?
00:43:20.100 --> 00:43:21.450 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: That's another question that.
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:28.990 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It's not some, not just what they say, but how they say it, and how they respond. That's that can be really helpful.
00:43:30.520 --> 00:43:48.150 Mira Brancu: That's awesome. Love, these. Okay, we are Ne nearing another ad break. And I'm thinking, when we come back to explore now, some ways that that organizations can think about, how to align the behaviors and values
00:43:48.190 --> 00:44:03.159 Mira Brancu: together. What does it look like when you do that? And then what are the sort of consequences that they need to be thinking about. If they're gonna make that alignment clear, right? So we'll be right back with our guest in just a moment. We're listening to the hard skills.
00:44:03.450 --> 00:44:07.200 Mira Brancu: Thank you for joining us, and we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:46:11.190 --> 00:46:13.310 Mira Brancu: Welcome back to the hard skills with
00:46:18.280 --> 00:46:40.260 Mira Brancu: Dr. Jennifer wisdom how to deal with it now, where we left off is just curious how organizations can better align the stated values that they have with the behaviors that are happening in their organization and what to do when they're misaligned when they're not seeing the behaviors carried out that they want to see.
00:46:40.570 --> 00:46:44.350 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, sure. So the first step is, know what the values are.
00:46:44.660 --> 00:47:03.299 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So a lot of organizations where, if you walked down the hall and said, What are the values of this organization? Most people would look at you blankly. So have heard that that's discussed in meetings that that's discussed with the leadership that from all the way from the top to the bottom everyone knows what this organization is about and what it stands for.
00:47:03.720 --> 00:47:08.040 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Then I think the second part is making it clear that
00:47:08.370 --> 00:47:25.530 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: certain behaviors will not be tolerated. And this is making the hard decisions. It's it's tough. If your you know, top earner ends up doing something awful, and you need to let them go. But that's the kind of decision tough decision that good leaders need to make, because if if they don't
00:47:25.740 --> 00:47:35.269 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: let someone go who is doing inappropriate things, then that sends a message to everyone that the institution is more concerned with
00:47:35.640 --> 00:47:41.740 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: their earnings than they are with the behavior and the work workers themselves.
00:47:41.970 --> 00:47:44.410 Mira Brancu: And what I'm hearing in that is.
00:47:44.630 --> 00:47:47.889 Mira Brancu: when you say it won't be tolerated.
00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:54.019 Mira Brancu: Operationalize what that means. If I'm not tolerating, what am I doing? What are the consequences.
00:47:54.410 --> 00:47:55.000 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Right
00:47:55.310 --> 00:48:01.380 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: one, you know one well placed firing. I'm not recommending this, but if one
00:48:01.670 --> 00:48:02.880 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: harasser
00:48:02.980 --> 00:48:04.770 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: is publicly let go.
00:48:05.170 --> 00:48:10.900 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: not in a humiliating way, but just obviously let go, because their behavior was not
00:48:11.380 --> 00:48:16.359 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: consistent with the values of the company that sends an enormously strong message.
00:48:16.360 --> 00:48:17.080 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:48:17.080 --> 00:48:17.840 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Everyone.
00:48:18.190 --> 00:48:26.900 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and and I think equally as strong a message when everyone knows this person's a harasser and nobody does anything, and they've spitted this company for years.
00:48:29.530 --> 00:48:38.430 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Companies have to choose how they want to proceed, and whether you know what is the value of their human resources compared to
00:48:39.090 --> 00:48:43.959 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: compared to their bottom line. And what's what's important for a longevity.
00:48:45.310 --> 00:48:47.359 Mira Brancu: Absolutely and just, you know.
00:48:48.820 --> 00:48:55.790 Mira Brancu: I I often use the the analogy of weeds right. If you let a weed grow in your beautiful garden
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.120 Mira Brancu: unattended to
00:48:58.430 --> 00:49:01.900 Mira Brancu: it will kill out the other beautiful flowers.
00:49:02.653 --> 00:49:03.999 Mira Brancu: They will
00:49:05.540 --> 00:49:07.870 Mira Brancu: die in the garden or leave.
00:49:07.940 --> 00:49:19.740 Mira Brancu: You know you're perfectly tended to otherwise garden. And is that what you want to lose all of your talent? Because you're not addressing the one person that is causing all of this havoc
00:49:19.940 --> 00:49:20.640 Mira Brancu: right?
00:49:20.850 --> 00:49:21.690 Mira Brancu: Right?
00:49:21.690 --> 00:49:24.489 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It takes a lot of integrity to do that, and it takes
00:49:24.530 --> 00:49:27.730 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: support from the very top of the organization.
00:49:27.730 --> 00:49:29.140 Mira Brancu: Yes, yeah.
00:49:29.480 --> 00:49:30.640 Mira Brancu: absolutely
00:49:32.060 --> 00:49:32.715 Mira Brancu: so.
00:49:34.100 --> 00:49:35.579 Mira Brancu: with that in mind.
00:49:36.100 --> 00:49:45.200 Mira Brancu: What are some important takeaways that you have for our audience today? What is what are some of the most important things that you want to make sure that they know.
00:49:45.710 --> 00:49:51.870 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure. Well, I want to clarify that every time your boss does something you don't like that doesn't mean it's traumatic.
00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:54.120 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: right? Trauma is.
00:49:54.620 --> 00:49:58.880 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm not taking it lightly here. It's something that's associated with
00:49:58.950 --> 00:50:00.789 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: personal attacks, with
00:50:01.020 --> 00:50:03.370 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: with actions and
00:50:03.380 --> 00:50:10.050 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: statements that Erode actively erode your dignity and respect. That's what we're talking about here.
00:50:10.080 --> 00:50:11.980 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: If that is what's happening.
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:14.899 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: doesn't? It's not your fault.
00:50:15.070 --> 00:50:21.890 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: There are, unfortunately, lots of yucky people out there in the world who are mean for no reason.
00:50:22.010 --> 00:50:28.139 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: who are mean for reasons we will never understand, and you don't have to
00:50:28.190 --> 00:50:45.930 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: put up with that with an asterisk after it. Some people do have to put up with that because they need to. There, you know they don't. There's not a lot of opportunity in their community. They they don't have the time or the skills to go to a different job, or they can't. They don't have the financial security to be able to make that leap.
00:50:46.460 --> 00:50:49.149 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think the to the extent you can
00:50:49.270 --> 00:50:50.940 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: try to get away
00:50:51.070 --> 00:50:54.000 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: from that experience so that you can heal.
00:50:54.720 --> 00:50:56.360 Mira Brancu: Yeah, absolutely.
00:50:56.460 --> 00:51:01.000 Mira Brancu: And so with with that in mind.
00:51:01.382 --> 00:51:05.610 Mira Brancu: What is one takeaway that you might want to offer people in terms of
00:51:05.960 --> 00:51:09.219 Mira Brancu: what to do if they are identifying something truly
00:51:09.240 --> 00:51:11.260 Mira Brancu: traumatic in their experience.
00:51:11.720 --> 00:51:27.340 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, if there is something that is, if they're in an organization and identifying something that a co-worker or a supervisor is doing, that is against the law. So different kinds of harassment, discrimination, hostile work, environment. There are opportunities to go down that route.
00:51:27.640 --> 00:51:41.550 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think kind of the first thing to do would be to talk to someone that you trust, who's not with the organization and who definitely has your best interest in mind about what the next steps are, there's consequences, no matter what you do.
00:51:42.035 --> 00:51:43.910 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: When you're being treated poorly.
00:51:44.470 --> 00:51:49.139 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: having someone who's got your back, and who can help you think through how to proceed
00:51:49.170 --> 00:51:57.280 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: absolutely invaluable, and whether that's a friend or a family member, whether that's someone that you hire like a therapist or a coach
00:51:57.790 --> 00:52:07.009 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: talk with someone so that you can think through the solutions and set aside your feelings about it so that you can think clearly around your career and your job.
00:52:13.330 --> 00:52:14.109 Mira Brancu: Absolutely
00:52:15.900 --> 00:52:16.620 Mira Brancu: it.
00:52:17.830 --> 00:52:20.350 Mira Brancu: including people who have been there
00:52:20.430 --> 00:52:27.929 Mira Brancu: who have gone through similar experiences. That helps a lot, too. Jennifer knows I've reached out to her for help
00:52:28.050 --> 00:52:42.059 Mira Brancu: when I wasn't sure what to do. I mean even even PE people who are are well skilled at this also experience these kind of things. It's not like, we're immune to these experiences. And sometimes you're too close to the situation.
00:52:42.330 --> 00:52:44.770 Mira Brancu: and it helps anybody.
00:52:44.990 --> 00:52:46.630 Mira Brancu: When you reach out and get
00:52:46.750 --> 00:53:02.490 Mira Brancu: additional perspectives from people you trust about how how to navigate highly complex what that's what we call this, the hard skills folks, highly complex nuance situations that require some level of sensitivity and some difficult decisions.
00:53:03.490 --> 00:53:21.550 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. And by the time someone becomes a leader. Ideally, they have a network of colleagues, friends, people from previous jobs, maybe a coach or therapist, somebody that people that they can go to and talk to about these things. I think there's a myth. There's definitely a myth of this
00:53:21.560 --> 00:53:25.460 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: charismatic solo leader who does everything on their own.
00:53:25.710 --> 00:53:28.310 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: That's not reality. And that's.
00:53:28.310 --> 00:53:29.435 Mira Brancu: Don't do it.
00:53:29.810 --> 00:53:47.739 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, you don't get extra points for not talking to anybody. The I. The goal is to be the best leader. In my view. The goal is to be the best leader you can be, and you know I we gain a lot for more brains than our own. So, reaching out borrowing those brains sometimes can be very helpful.
00:53:53.130 --> 00:53:58.479 Mira Brancu: Absolutely if people wanna learn more about your work, where can they go.
00:53:59.020 --> 00:54:02.009 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure so I am on Linkedin.
00:54:02.475 --> 00:54:21.460 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Believe it's Jennifer P. Wisdom, and then you can certainly look me up there and then my website is lead with wisdom.com, and our my colleague, Nina and I. Our first article is about to come out, so as soon as that's available we'll put it on the website
00:54:21.786 --> 00:54:45.979 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and then you can also search for it. Through Google scholars somewhere else. It's on traumatic experiences of leadership. And we are working on a book. So I'm hopeful that will be coming out soon, and then you can look up Mira's and my book at millennials, guides.com, and that's available on those are available on Amazon. And we talk a bit about workplace politics. To discuss
00:54:45.980 --> 00:55:03.739 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: both proactive and reactive strategies. You can do to work on how to oh, there's my website to work on how you can both proactively and react to issues of workplace politics, including harassment.
00:55:04.180 --> 00:55:29.190 Mira Brancu: Very exciting. Yes. Those of you who are attending online live with us now, or watching. Later on, Youtube, you'll be able to see me scrolling through the screen on her website. Lead with wisdom.com. So you can see all about it. And yes, she's working on multiple books at the same time. And yes, one of those books are also is also on
00:55:29.310 --> 00:55:32.669 Mira Brancu: the Millennials guide to workplace, politics.
00:55:32.720 --> 00:55:43.180 Mira Brancu: workbook. We're adding to the wealth of information about how to work through these things, and I can't wait to read your book
00:55:43.190 --> 00:55:49.649 Mira Brancu: on leadership trauma experiences and what to do about it when it comes out, as well as your article that's coming out sooner.
00:55:49.910 --> 00:55:50.300 Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Thank you.
00:55:50.300 --> 00:55:54.669 Mira Brancu: So everybody, what did you take away from today?
00:55:54.890 --> 00:56:01.449 Mira Brancu: And more importantly, what is one small change that you can implement this week, based on what you learned from Jennifer.
00:56:01.660 --> 00:56:10.689 Mira Brancu: Share it with us on Linkedin, at Mira Bronku, or@talkradio.nyc. And also find Jennifer wisdom there as well, so we could cheer you on.
00:56:11.040 --> 00:56:23.529 Mira Brancu: Talk. Radio is also on Facebook. Instagram Twitter twitch all over the place. But Linkedin is where I live on social media online. And I'm pretty sure that's where Jennifer lives as well online. So that's where we're gonna respond.
00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:49.749 Mira Brancu: In addition to being a live show, we're on itunes and spotify. Sorry. That's apple. Podcast they did change and spotify. Please go, subscribe to the podcast leave a review and share with us to help others increase our visibility reach and impact. The stuff we talk about on the show is part of our research based strategic leadership pathway model that we teach in our towerscope Leadership Academy.
00:56:49.900 --> 00:56:55.960 Mira Brancu: a private coaching and learning community for socially conscious leaders in healthcare, academic tech and stem industries.
00:56:57.170 --> 00:57:04.510 Mira Brancu: Looking to make greater impact, you can find out about us on goat, towerscope.com, and click on Leadership Academy.
00:57:04.600 --> 00:57:16.949 Mira Brancu: Thank you to talk radio Dot, Nyc for hosting. I'm Dr. Mira Branco, your host of the Hard Skills show and thank you for joining us today with our guest. Jennifer. Wisdom. Have a great rest of your day wherever you're tuning in from
00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:18.190 Mira Brancu: bye. Everybody.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a a pattern of behavior, of undermining and bullying and belittling and sabotaging it, blind, sighting, ultimately, that ended up being somewhat of a traumatic experience. And I'm far from alone in this when I so we started a colleague of mine, Nina, neighbors who's absolutely fantastic. She and I were in a leadership group for women psychologists, and as we went around the room and started telling our leadership story, which was our our first assignment.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a bit less on feelings, but
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: a diagnosis does not, or whether you have a diagnosis or not. The experience of trauma does not mean there's something wrong with you. In many cases it's a normal response to a really
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: absolutely invaluable, and whether that's a friend or a family member, whether that's someone that you hire like a therapist or a coach
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely so leadership. I define leadership as the ability to influence others
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely so. One thing is to ask one of my favorite questions to ask in an interview is, are you happy here?
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. And by the time someone becomes a leader. Ideally, they have a network of colleagues, friends, people from previous jobs, maybe a coach or therapist, somebody that people that they can go to and talk to about these things. I think there's a myth. There's definitely a myth of this
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. It's it's it can be extremely harmful to someone. And and, like I mentioned with some of these, we very capable leaders that we heard from.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. So once you acknowledge that it's happening, once you identify that it's happening, there's a few different kinds of interventions that people can experience. There's training about leadership training and becoming a better leader. There's mentoring.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Absolutely. Yeah, a absolutely people can walk around feeling that they need to be defensive. And that makes it basically that helps push people into unsatisfactory work relationships that then want them, that make them want to leave.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: across the organization.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Additionally, if you have workplaces that are extremely competitive.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: adverse events that can include feeling jumpy, or having nightmares, or reliving or avoiding the situation.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: All of the ways that that play out
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: All of those kinds of things happen a lot.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: all traumatic in in some way or challenging in some way.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and and I think equally as strong a message when everyone knows this person's a harasser and nobody does anything, and they've spitted this company for years.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And as as a leader, 1. One of the big challenges in becoming a leader is, it's harder for you to hide.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And I think, especially for people who are feeling some trauma associated with their leadership experience, acknowledging that it's okay to take time to move on. It's okay to acknowledge that was not okay. That was not normal. And I'm going to need some time
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And I'm not saying the male ways of connecting and communicating are necessarily wrong. Of course not. But
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and I'm this person and my regulatory so and so, he said, in front of all these people, you know, I got stuck with the person in Jennifer's role at my previous university, and I went up to their office and threatened to throw them out the window.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and lost the job.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and policies that clarify that bullying and other kinds of poor behavior will not be tolerated. So that's one part very basic and many places don't have that.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And that was again in a long stream of activities that were really
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And then there's the kind of more technical definition that's in the diagnostic Manual of the American Psychiatric Association that refers to trauma as a response to specific events, exposure to actual or threatened death to serious injury to sexual violence. And then you have individuals have a number of responses to those kinds of serious
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: and then you can also search for it. Through Google scholars somewhere else. It's on traumatic experiences of leadership. And we are working on a book. So I'm hopeful that will be coming out soon, and then you can look up Mira's and my book at millennials, guides.com, and that's available on those are available on Amazon. And we talk a bit about workplace politics. To discuss
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And they happen to workers absolutely.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: And when they happen to leaders. Leaders are in a unique position where, as a worker, it's terrible for sure, no doubt about it. But as a leader you have your peers. You have your subordinates, and you have your relationship with this boss that you have to deal with.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: before yeah. Second.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Believe it's Jennifer P. Wisdom, and then you can certainly look me up there and then my website is lead with wisdom.com, and our my colleague, Nina and I. Our first article is about to come out, so as soon as that's available we'll put it on the website
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: both proactive and reactive strategies. You can do to work on how to oh, there's my website to work on how you can both proactively and react to issues of workplace politics, including harassment.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: But in this case, and and I think in many other cases
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: certain behaviors will not be tolerated. And this is making the hard decisions. It's it's tough. If your you know, top earner ends up doing something awful, and you need to let them go. But that's the kind of decision tough decision that good leaders need to make, because if if they don't
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: characteristics. So they're kind of
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: charismatic solo leader who does everything on their own.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: coaching often is designed for people who are at baseline, or maybe even a little below and moving them further up.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: colloquial way that we casually talk about casually. But we talk about trauma as any distressing or disturbing experience.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Companies have to choose how they want to proceed, and whether you know what is the value of their human resources compared to
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: compared to their bottom line. And what's what's important for a longevity.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: consistent with the values of the company that sends an enormously strong message.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Cycle that repeats itself if it's not addressed.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: doesn't necessarily mean you're not doesn't mean you're not experiencing the kinds of challenges that people can have when they're faced with these kinds of distressing and disturbing experiences.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: doesn't? It's not your fault.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: essentially a scientific method of let me try this. If I do this, does it get better if I do that? Does it get better? And then
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: even still, and and try to, you know, take on some of those more male ways of connecting and communicating.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: every organization.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: every single one of us talked about
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Everybody terribly. They bully everyone. They're an absolute jerk, and there are no consequences.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Everyone.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: experiences of trauma
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: For sure, sure, so therapy is generally designed to address deficits that tends to be the clinical model where someone is experiencing depression or anxiety or trauma. It helps kind of move them up from below.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: from that experience so that you can heal.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: from the diagnostic side related to shell shock of soldiers returning from the war, and then it got expanded to include serious injury, sexual violence, other kinds of activities. And over the last 20 years it's also been expanded to include people's experiences of sexual harassment, or being attacked for being a whistleblower or bullying at work or homophobic discrimination at work.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Getting getting this kind of abuse and harassment.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Great great question. So there are certainly individual factors that make someone who gets into a leadership position
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: harasser
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: having a traumatic experience of leadership, and these were like incredibly smart, talented women who said they felt small. They felt like they weren't a terrible leader, that they didn't want to continue in leadership because of these kinds of experiences. So Dina and I said, We gotta write about this. Let's ask people. So we asked a bunch of people about experiences, and everyone had a story to tell. So then we said, Great, can you? Would you be willing to write it down? And they said, Oh, no.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: having someone who's got your back, and who can help you think through how to proceed
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Help them with the transition.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: hostile. Someone getting a new job and replacing someone who kind of didn't do anything
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I gosh! I would say we've heard everything, but I'm sure there's other ways that that people have done, poor behavior that we haven't yet heard of. So someone whose boss said I would be happy to provide a recommendation for you for this job you're going after, and then completely tanked them
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I like how you frame that. That's a very positive framing.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think a lot of times we anticipate as workers or as leaders, that we're going into an organization that is values neutral or po politically neutral. They're just there to do the job. We we make those assumptions when that's often
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think kind of the first thing to do would be to talk to someone that you trust, who's not with the organization and who definitely has your best interest in mind about what the next steps are, there's consequences, no matter what you do.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think many times people are just wiped out they are. They think everything's their fault, they obsess over what I could have done differently. Why is this person treating me this way? Why is this happening? Why are other people not standing up for me. Maybe I shouldn't be a leader at all. Maybe I shouldn't have even gone into this field.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I think the to the extent you can
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm not taking it lightly here. It's something that's associated with
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm sure you've known as many of your listeners have as I have, people who are absolutely horrible, who keep their jobs for long periods of time.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: I'm worried. That that person from 10 years ago is going to come after me, recognize themselves and come after me, or I'm still not okay enough to talk about it.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: ideally. That's in a good way or a pro social way, a positive way sometimes not but that's leadership. And then trauma. It's kind of 2 different definitions of trauma that I work with. So kind of one is the basic kind of
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: If that is what's happening.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: is focused on how you can essentially
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: is publicly let go.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: it can threaten your livelihood, meaning you might, they might be threatening to fire you. I had a boss who would same boss who would threaten to fire me? You know you I really should fire you
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It makes them think maybe I shouldn't be a leader.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It takes a lot of integrity to do that, and it takes
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It's not just your boss says something to you in private, but there's a public nature to it that's in front of your peers in front of your subordinates, and that
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: it's not only natural to have a response to that, and to feel uncomfortable, but for some people it it rises to the level of actually feeling like a traumatic experience.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: It's not some, not just what they say, but how they say it, and how they respond. That's that can be really helpful.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Leadership.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: let someone go who is doing inappropriate things, then that sends a message to everyone that the institution is more concerned with
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: like. That's not a really healthy work environment to work in it also can affect your reputation, your identity, your character. It can affect all of those things when people are
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: likelier to have a stronger negative reaction to that. And you hit on a lot of them being in a group that is in the minority that has, who has and who has experienced this kind of stress or harassment previously, having had an experience of childhood, sexual abuse or rape, or mugging or attack, or things like that where their life feel was
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: look of horror or regret, and then they'll put it back together and say, Oh, it's good here, and you.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: maneuver in a mostly male environment
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: many times that works, and many other times that doesn't work, because it's not about the individual. And that's a challenge that comes up with a lot of leadership training. Which is that many, much of the leadership training is focused on training the individual to be different in a workplace so that they can fit in and not be a target. So, for example, a lot of leadership training for early career. Women
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: many, what many people do when they understand that there's a challenge is they try to fix it.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: mental health issues. Coaching is not coaching is designed to address goals. Typically therapy will go into or we'll open the door for talking about personal experiences, things that happened in the past, things that happen with your family patterns that came early, not to blame your family, but to help you identify.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: messed up environment.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: more action or oriented a bit, although both of them can have both feelings in action incorporated.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Nina and I said.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: No confidence in that answer. Another question you can ask in an interview is, help me under like I saw the company's values online of XY, and Z, or whatever. How does, how well does the company adhere to its values?
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: not in a humiliating way, but just obviously let go, because their behavior was not
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: not the case at all. There's all kinds of things going on political behind the scenes and other kinds of
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Now, originally, trauma started out
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Oh, the easy question!
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: One more piece. There's other things that can happen as far as having clear, more transparency, better communication work on a positive work, environment, psychological safety training. Those kinds of things can all be useful in some situations. As long as they're targeted on
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: one, you know one well placed firing. I'm not recommending this, but if one
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: or wasn't able to take care of business, and then their boss, who knew the previous person, didn't really do anything, is on them, and angry at them for not making more progress. Being belittled and gossiped about saying, this person obviously isn't meant for this leadership role because
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: People have those kinds of thoughts when they've had a really traumatizing experience. So I think the first part is saying, this is not normal. This is not okay. This is not just part of being a leader, that I should accept and pretend that I need to just move on from like. Oh, that was a challenging job activity and move on. It's not like that. This is qualitatively different.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: personal attacks, with
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: poor behavior, as I like to euphemistically call it people saying awful and nasty things, or treating people awfully that happens in organizations. And
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: put up with that with an asterisk after it. Some people do have to put up with that because they need to. There, you know they don't. There's not a lot of opportunity in their community. They they don't have the time or the skills to go to a different job, or they can't. They don't have the financial security to be able to make that leap.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Really direct. You have to be careful with when you're gonna ask it. But many times the person's micro expression, that really brief expression that flashes on their face before they put their face back together, will tell you everything. Places where they there, I ask, are you happy here? And their face will have this
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: regularly putting you down.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Right
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Right, and and I think that's
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: right? Trauma is.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: run of the mill stressful workplaces where say, people don't have a lot of autonomy over their work, or where there's a lot of turnaround of what they need to do very quickly, where it's dangerous or where they're exposed to other people's trauma, like someone in an emergency room or police officer. Those thing where there's where there's a bankruptcy or layoffs, you know. Those kinds of things are kind of
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: saying you're not a good leader, saying that you have weaknesses. You never should. That that were so glaring, you never should have been a leader. These are all challenging situations for anybody, and especially for leaders.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So a lot of organizations where, if you walked down the hall and said, What are the values of this organization? Most people would look at you blankly. So have heard that that's discussed in meetings that that's discussed with the leadership that from all the way from the top to the bottom everyone knows what this organization is about and what it stands for.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So much.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So that diagnostic, whether you have that diagnosis or not
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So that sends a message that institutional betrayal message of the organization doesn't care how they treat people. The organization doesn't care about the people who report up to them. So, having a structure in place that provides consequences, for poor behavior is really important.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So the first time it happened, I mean, we'll get later to what you do in these situations. But the first time it happened I just froze. I had. I didn't know how to respond to it, and then, when he said it again, I was able to. The next month I turned it into was able to turn it into a joke, but it was still
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So therapy is designed to address
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So they try to identify. Why is this happening, and what can I do to make it better? And so they try to maybe have a conversation with the person who's abusive, or they'll ask their colleagues for advice, or maybe someone who used to work for that person for advice. They try to change their behavior. They try to become less
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So we got in. And as in the room with a bunch bunch of people, maybe 1015 people. And as we introduced ourselves, and I said what I did.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: So when you think of a situation where someone is harassing someone else, and the organization protects the harasser instead of the victim in the situation. There are many examples of this, and there's a sense among many people that it's hard enough if you're the victim in that situation and you're being harassed. But then, when the organization also betrays you by siding with the harasser that that's an additional level of harm that's done to you.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: statements that Erode actively erode your dignity and respect. That's what we're talking about here.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: stop. So people would have to go through me to get their stuff done, and my boss at the time decided. Let's let's chat with people and just have kind of an open forum for us to talk about all these issues.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: support from the very top of the organization.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure so I am on Linkedin.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, I think
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, if there is something that is, if they're in an organization and identifying something that a co-worker or a supervisor is doing, that is against the law. So different kinds of harassment, discrimination, hostile work, environment. There are opportunities to go down that route.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure, sure. So the first step is, know what the values are.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure. So I could start with a personal example where I was in a senior leadership role, where I was the regulatory
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Sure. Well, I want to clarify that every time your boss does something you don't like that doesn't mean it's traumatic.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: talk with someone so that you can think through the solutions and set aside your feelings about it so that you can think clearly around your career and your job.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: targeted to the problem which organizations don't like to do. If there's a a person who's a jerk or is a bully and is terrorizing their staff a lot of times the staff will be required to go to civility training, which they're not the ones who need. It's the other person. So making sure that those are targeted at the right place.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Thank you.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: that are more tolerant of poor behavior, that can be a challenge where there's unclear roles and responsibilities, and where there's no
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: That's another question that.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: That's not reality. And that's.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: the behavior of their leaders demonstrates. It is not a great place to work, or we value diversity, but their behavior doesn't show that. So if there are significant gaps between their stated values and their behavior without any consequences for the people who are not fulfilling the organization's values, then that's certainly a red flag and something that the organization could choose to work on to make their values and the behavior of their leaders more congruent.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: the number one thing that I would love for people to take away is to understand that being a leader has unique strains, intentions, and that sometimes those strains, intentions, can result in essentially damage
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: The second is having the structure in place beyond the policies and procedures to actually identify poor behavior and provide consequences for it.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: their earnings than they are with the behavior and the work workers themselves.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Then I think the second part is making it clear that
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Then.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Therapy goes into that kind of stuff. Poaching is much more. What do you want to do today? What's your plan? How do you want to move forward. And how can we get you there? And it's much more focused generally on work, related activities and less on
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: There are, unfortunately, lots of yucky people out there in the world who are mean for no reason.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: there's a moment here where I'm in this room with my boss, who is saying that the previous me he threatened to throw out the window and basically threatening violence toward the person in my role in front of these other people.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: there's no check on bullying behavior.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: There's some other issues as well that it could be helpful like, for example, what are the organizations values? Many organizations have this posted online. And then what is the behavior? Many organizations say, we want to be a great place to work. And yet
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: they're not able to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You know that kind of stuff happens all the time, and that's what he's been starting in on being sexually harassed, having homophobic discrimination. Just run of the mill bullying.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: they're typically training that's focused at an individual level is focused on changing the individual rather than identifying and acknowledging what's in the environment that is harmful.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Those organizations can create challenges above and beyond the kind of volatility of
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: to an environment that is not treating you well, that is, not respecting your dignity as a person, and which is creating an enormous amount of stress for you and likely for others, as well.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: to the leader. As trauma.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: traumatic.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: traumatic. It was harmful, and I don't mean to say, like I was unable to function afterwards, but that, combined with
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: try to get away
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: versus a clinical level meaning, a diagnosis diagnostic level of post traumatic stress disorder, they're experiencing essentially the same levels of distress and impairment.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: vulnerable at work sharing less information about themselves. And many people kind of start going into
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: we don't have enough time to go into my feelings for all of this. But a lot of times. People don't want to go to a therapist or don't want to seek a a professional for assistance, because they fear that they'll get a diagnosis which confirms there's something wrong with them.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: We've gotta talk about this. We have to talk about this, and we have heard.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: what you'd like to do. And then, of course, there's therapy
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: When interestingly, we found a study that shows that
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: when you work with someone senior to you, or maybe a peer who can help you and provide direction for activities that can help make things better. There's coaching which is more facilitated self directed efforts where the coach isn't going to tell you what to do, but helps you think through
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: When you're being treated poorly.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: where they baseline to baseline
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: where they felt that they were in danger of their life, so that, having had previous trauma can impact that. And as you mentioned their workplace
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: whether it's a small business or a multinational corporation. There should be very clear policies and procedures about acceptable behavior, not acceptable behavior, and ideally, that goes beyond what the legal boundaries are for harassment, hostile workplace, and so on that. There's procedures in place.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: whether someone is experiencing subclinical
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: which can often be helpful if people are experiencing things outside of work that they don't want to talk about in a professional context, so any of those can be helpful.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: who are mean for reasons we will never understand, and you don't have to
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Why this thing in the present is is impacting you in a way, because it may be tied to an experience in the past. And so you're not really responding to this individual as a person, you're responding to what they represent for you.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: with actions and
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, absolutely. So we could start with the basics of policies and procedures.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, absolutely. So. Institutional betrayal is a concept put forth by Jennifer Frade, who's done some great work in this area. And she talks about essentially when the organization is not doing what it is supposed to do to protect its people.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: Yeah, you don't get extra points for not talking to anybody. The I. The goal is to be the best leader. In my view. The goal is to be the best leader you can be, and you know I we gain a lot for more brains than our own. So, reaching out borrowing those brains sometimes can be very helpful.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: You think many leaders would, if not all leaders would benefit from.
Jennifer Wisdom PhD MPH ABPP: You're a worker, you can, maybe, you know, stay off the radar for a while, or to have an off week or something as a leader. You really can't. You're always on and not just onto your staff, but onto your boss and onto your colleagues. So part of what makes trump trauma that leaders experience so challenging is that perception of public humiliation?
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