When I say “workplace trauma” to a small business owner or nonprofit ED, I usually get one of two reactions.
The first is immediate recognition — a pause, a look that says: that’s what I’ve been trying to name.
The second is polite resistance. “I mean, it was hard, but I wouldn’t call it traumatic.”
Then they describe what happened. And it is, in fact, traumatic.
The confusion comes from what most of us think trauma requires. We think it needs one identifiable, dramatic event. But trauma — especially workplace trauma — can also be cumulative. It can be the slow erosion of safety in an environment where you spend 40, 50, or 60 hours a week.
What it actually looks like
Workplace trauma looks like a manager who publicly humiliates people in meetings — not once, but consistently, until the team has collectively learned to stay small and quiet.
It looks like performance reviews that contradict everything you’ve been told throughout the year. Gaslighting in professional language.
It looks like a culture that rewards loyalty over honesty — where speaking up has visible costs and silence is how you survive.
It looks like layoffs handled without transparency or dignity. Or working for a founder who, under pressure, becomes unpredictable and unsafe. Not knowing which version of your leader you’re going to get on any given day.
None of these require a single moment to be harmful. All of them can produce the same outcomes as more visible trauma: hypervigilance, disrupted trust, difficulty sleeping, a recalibrated sense of what’s normal.
Why this matters for leaders specifically
Most of the founders and nonprofit EDs I work with did not arrive in their current role without history. They came through organizations that left marks — on how they respond to conflict, how much they trust, how hard they push themselves, what they believe people can reasonably be expected to handle.
Those marks are running in the background of every leadership decision they make. And because the marks are invisible and the behavior feels like personality rather than pattern, most leaders never question where it comes from.
The data makes this harder to ignore: the risk of PTSD among employees has increased 121% since 2020. One in five workers describes their current workplace as toxic — and those workers are three times more likely to report harm to their mental health. These numbers don’t describe rare situations. They describe the environment where the majority of working adults are spending their careers.[3][1]
The question worth sitting with
Think about the job that’s still with you — the one you left but maybe wasn’t fully processed. The boss whose voice you can still hear in your head when you make a decision. The organization whose culture shaped what you decided you’d never let happen in yours.
That experience doesn’t disappear because time has passed. It shows up in how you lead, what you tolerate, and what you avoid.
Naming it is the first step toward deciding which parts of it stay and which parts you’re ready to put down.
Coming Thursday: The data behind what your team is carrying — and how your mental health as the leader directly affects theirs.
Bernadette Jones is a SHRM-SCP certified HR consultant, executive coach, and CEO of Visionova HR Consulting. She works with small California businesses and nonprofit organizations to build workplaces where people can do their best work.
Contact: bjones@visionovahr.com | visionovahr.com
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