Trauma-informed leadership goes beyond psychological safety to address the neurobiological realities of stress and harm at work. As more employees carry unseen burdens, this evidence-based approach is fast becoming essential for effective leadership.

In workplaces where leadership styles are out of step with employee expectations, the consequences can go beyond disengagement — they can manifest as mental health issues, chronic stress and unsafe working conditions.

While psychological safety has become a mainstay of workplace wellbeing efforts, some experts argue it doesn’t go far enough. Trauma-informed leadership, grounded in neuroscience and backed by evidence, offers a more holistic and actionable approach.

Trauma is more common than we think

To understand trauma-informed leadership, we must first understand the nature and prevalence of trauma itself.

Trauma is often misunderstood as being synonymous with extreme events, but it can stem from a wide range of experiences – from childhood abuse to workplace bullying. At its core, trauma occurs when someone is trapped (physically or metaphorically) in a situation they cannot escape, particularly when it unfolds without adequate support or empathetic witnessing.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness,” says trauma expert Peter Levine.

Its prevalence in the Australian workforce is sobering. According to recent reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (1, 2), Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (1, 2) and Gallup Australia, in a typical team of 20 employees:

• 2 are living with PTSD or complex PTSD
• 3 have experienced childhood abuse
• 4 have had a diagnosed mental health condition in the past year
• 3 women (and 1 man) will have experienced intimate partner violence
• 3 women (and 1 man) will have experienced sexual violence since age 15
• 10 report chronic workplace stress
  

Each of these experiences can leave a lasting imprint on the brain and nervous system. This affects how people show up at work.

How trauma shows up in the workplace

Trauma fundamentally alters our neurobiology. When a person feels unsafe, the amygdala (the brain’s threat detector) becomes hyperactive. The prefrontal cortex – responsible for reasoning, planning and emotional regulation – struggles to function effectively. This can manifest in behaviours often misinterpreted as disengagement, poor performance or resistance to change.

According to Polyvagal Theory, trauma pushes individuals outside their ‘window of tolerance’:

• Hyperarousal triggers fight-or-flight responses, leading to anxiety or conflict.
• Hypoarousal causes freeze or fawn responses – people might shut down, become overly compliant or disengage entirely.

Both states compromise communication, decision-making and collaboration – all critical to organisational effectiveness.

Learn how to build support systems tailored to the needs of employees experiencing trauma in AHRI’s short course.

Trauma-informed leadership in practice

Trauma-informed leadership builds on the concept of psychological safety by embedding it in evidence-based frameworks. Originally developed for frontline services, trauma-informed approaches are increasingly relevant for workplaces – particularly in high-pressure or people-intensive industries.

The most widely used model comes from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), outlining six core principles:

• Safety – Creating physical and emotional security through predictability and clear expectations.
• Trust and transparency – Establishing open communication and consistent boundaries.
• Empowerment, voice and choice – Supporting autonomy and decision-making.
• Peer support and shared experience – Enabling co-design and employee-led initiatives.
• Collaboration – Challenging traditional hierarchies to foster creativity and trust.
• Cultural, historical and gender awareness – Recognising broader systemic and identity-based factors.

Applying these principles could involve simple but meaningful changes — for example, sharing meeting agendas in advance, establishing consistent communication rhythms and offering multiple ways to participate. Over time, these behaviours send powerful signals of safety to the nervous system, enabling teams to move out of protective mode and into creative problem-solving.

Recent research by Dr Rebekah Lloyd provides a comprehensive model linking these leadership practices with trauma awareness, positioning them as a natural evolution of authentic leadership. Her work complements Google’s Project Aristotle findings, which identified psychological safety as the single most important factor for high-performing teams.

What leaders and organisations stand to gain

Trauma-informed leadership isn’t just about ‘soft skills’; it delivers measurable outcomes.

For individual, leaders these include:

• Heightened emotional intelligence and self-awareness
• Stronger executive presence through better somatic (body) awareness
• More effective conflict resolution
• Improved decision-making under stress
• Greater alignment between role purpose and personal values
  

For organisations, these include:

• A more compelling employee value proposition, especially for diverse talent
• Increased employee satisfaction and lower rates of absenteeism and presenteeism
• Enhanced innovation and team performance through psychological safety
• Reduced risk of re-traumatisation through better-designed systems and processes
  

Addressing common implementation challenges

Despite its benefits, trauma-informed leadership isn’t always easy to implement. HR teams must overcome several organisational barriers:

1. Siloed ownership of wellbeing:

Wellbeing often sits across multiple departments – HR, WHS, line management – leading to fragmented responsibility. Trauma-informed leadership requires an integrated approach, where psychological safety is treated not just as a compliance issue, but as a driver of team performance.

2. System misalignment:

Trauma-informed leadership cannot be bolted on to existing systems that contradict its principles. Embedding psychological safety across the entire employee journey – from recruitment and onboarding through to performance management, investigations and offboarding is required for employees to have the best chance to access psychological safety at work. All the leadership training in the world can’t out-maneuver working in a system that doesn’t prioritise psychosocial safety.

3. Outdated definitions of leadership capability:

Organisations must revisit how they define and measure leadership effectiveness. Succession planning should elevate leaders who foster safety, not just those with strong technical skills or financial performance.

Where to begin

For organisations at the early stages of adopting trauma-informed leadership, the first step is education.

• Build a shared understanding of trauma and its workplace implications.
• Encourage self-reflection among leaders – when do they feel their own nervous system activate, and how does it affect their leadership?
• Map where your current systems sit along a trauma-awareness spectrum – from basic awareness to fully integrated, trauma-informed systems.
• Audit your HR processes: Are internal practices aligned with the safety you promote externally? Do any of your policies inadvertently reward behaviours that cause stress or fear?
  

Done well, trauma-informed leadership doesn’t just minimise harm, it enables people and organisations to thrive. As leaders look for evidence-based strategies that support both wellbeing and performance in a post-pandemic world, this approach offers a powerful, compassionate and commercially smart way forward.

Renée Robson is a trauma-informed leadership and workplace educator and founder of Trauma Informed Leadership, a social enterprise whose mission is to make workplaces more psychologically safe and trauma-informed.

Learn how to embed trauma-informed learnings into your HR practice, or how to create a trauma-informed workplace, with these two short courses from AHRI.