Why It’s Traumatic at the Top

Here’s the thing about leadership: It’s possible to be receiving accolades and applause while also feeling tremendously overwhelmed, or even fully burned out. Leaders walk a thin line when it comes to how much they feel they can share with others. When the needs of the people around you are great, it can become hard to say “no” to meeting them — especially when everyone expects you to be the capable one. And we haven’t even touched the deeply painful relational, professional, or mental health challenges many leaders face.

In Healing Leadership Trauma, leadership professor Nicholas Rowe and counselor Sheila Wise Rowe welcome leaders to face their pain, to process their emotions and experiences. They emphasize five themes — invitation, attachment, remembrance, healing, and reconnection.

The Rowes spoke with Common Good about what leadership trauma is and what healing from it can look like.

What distinguishes leadership trauma from other types of trauma?

Trauma comes in various forms yet is often categorized as Big “T” trauma and Little “t” trauma. Big T trauma includes serious injury, sexual violence, or life-threatening experiences, while little t trauma is the result of emotional harm or non-life-threatening, but troubling, events. Evidence shows that repeated exposure to little t trauma can cause more emotional harm than exposure to a single big T traumatic event. Leadership trauma signs and symptoms are similar to other forms of trauma. 

The ways a leader is formed early in life, the attachment style of caregivers and others, and big and little trauma cause a deficit of soul for the leader. And leadership trauma is when a leader’s current struggles in life and work trigger flash-forwards of a feared future. We’ve expanded the definition of leadership trauma to include how current stressors may trigger flashbacks of past traumas. Those triggers may cause us to re-experience past hurt and trauma psychosocially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, or interpersonally. 

Suppose a leader does not attend to this reality. In that case, they are especially susceptible to re-enactment, which is when unresolved trauma follows them into new situations that remind them of the past. Often, in fear and anxiety, the leader may operate out of a dysfunctional attachment style and try to lead and control in unhelpful ways. This affects the leader’s ability to lead others well, and to make plans for and face the future.

You write, “When we compassionately attend to our emotions, we realize they’re sending us a message about what we need.” How can leaders begin to attend to their emotions and see the information those emotions reveal?

Our emotions are an integral part of our humanity. Still, leadership development often trains us to pack those emotions away, to treat them as a distraction from what many consider the essential aspects of leadership. Refusing to acknowledge emotions and feelings is a fast track to leadership crises, for our emotions (especially anger, fear, and sadness) can tell us a lot about ourselves and how we lead. Notice I do not call these emotions bad; they are simply ways our souls and minds try to get our attention. 

There is a long history of Christian practices that better treat our emotions with care. The practice of examen comes to mind. It’s when we ask Jesus to help us assess the helpful and challenging parts of our day and the emotions of fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness. 

Also, the Christian life is both solo and communal. We especially need the help of brothers and sisters in Christ as well as counselors as part of our healing journey. The vulnerability this entails opens us to receive what Jesus wants to reveal about specific situations or deepest needs so we can begin the healing process. In our book, we share how Jesus uncovers our emotions and needs. Each chapter introduces practices and prayers that aid in healing.

How might understanding God as trinity, and therefore inherently relational, help Christian leaders heal?

Peter Kreeft talks about the trinity as the representation of unselfish love: “Only the trinity allows God to be unselfish love in his own essential, independent being.” 

In Eden’s Garden, God’s design was to extend that love to all of creation, especially to us who bear his image. However, with Adam and Eve’s fall, our capacity to unselfishly give and receive love was severely impaired. We may be insecurely attached to our families of origin who did not love us sufficiently. Perhaps later in life, evil and sin were committed against us, or we were the perpetrators of unloving and wounding actions. The cross and the resurrection and indwelling of the Holy Spirit are expressions of the perfect love of our triune God. When we surrender or repent as needed, we grow deeper in this love and see that God is committed to our sanctification and healing. Over time, our attachment to God becomes more secure, and our relationships with others, particularly those we lead, are transformed.  

How are self-sufficiency and addictions linked to each other?

Addictive behaviors often result from the ways we anesthetize and distract us from feeling what we are truly feeling. We falsely believe that our addictions are bad habits that we can get over with our strength and willpower. So, we avoid the pain, try to save ourselves, and manage our lives. This is self-sufficiency, which is often a primary driver of addictions. It can be difficult to surrender to God fully, but when we do so, we invite God to perform the deep surgery needed to heal our pain and our wounds.

What might it look like for leaders who often focus on performance or production to take a first step toward rest?

Many of us are overworked and overextended and see our calendar as an enemy because it continually screams about what we did or did not do. A therapist or spiritual director can help us examine the various sorts of fears and lies that are the roots of our leadership trauma and compulsive activity. A first step toward rest is to shift our thoughts about our calendar as a friend that the Lord can use to help us prioritize our most influential people, places, and things, such as work.  

Experience of rest and a deep sense of belonging to the Lord and one another can happen during the Sabbath, church fellowship, celebrating birthdays, achievements, holidays, and reading. Leaders can also find rest in their life stories while playing, honoring boundaries, routines, joy, gratitude, glimmers, and serving or leading.

The book clarifies that while someone may not suffer from gender or racial trauma, the issues still apply to them. How so? 

Here is the thing: Everyone suffers from gender or racial trauma, not just those who are on the bottom end of the implied social hierarchy in our societies. The racism and sexism that drive these traumas are expressions of relational brokenness — the inability to relate well with people of other cultures or those of the opposite gender. If we do not see the image of God in a brother or sister of a different culture or are less than because they are male or female, it is hard to treat them as fully human. Then, we lose the intended blessing or fulfillment of the need God wishes to impart through those relationships. Paul makes it clear in I Corinthians 12 when he says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 

No one culture is self-sufficient in and of itself. Folks of different cultures need each other, and we each have important stories and testimonies that demonstrate the faithful presence of Christ in the past and currently in our midst (John 13:35).

Many Common Good readers are pastors or ministry leaders. What words would you like to leave with them? 

These are really hard times for pastors and other Christian leaders in this current toxic social, cultural, and political environment. It’s difficult to lead your people in the ways of Jesus so they may reject the deformational ways of the world. Remember, God sees and loves you amid every painful, dysfunctional experience or environment. God walks alongside you so you may become a healed enough person able to stand in the face of challenges. God also wants you to experience his love not only through his provision but also through others.

The story of Moses, Aaron, and Hur in Exodus 17 is a common metaphor. Moses had to hold up his hands during a battle for the Israelites to prevail. But as his arms tired, the Amalekites started winning. Moses’s physical strength was insufficient to win the day, so Aaron and Hur got him a seat and held up his arms, “one on one side, one on the other,” until the Israelites prevailed. Look for brothers and sisters who, like Aaron and Hur, can hold up your arms when times are challenging.

This article has been edited for length and clarity. Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish by Nicholas Rowe, Ph.D. and Sheila Wise Rowe, M.Ed. is available from InterVarsity Press.