When Your Body Says No: Understanding Trauma Responses In High-Stress Leadership

When a senior administrator criticizes your performance and suddenly you can't think straight—that's not bad leadership. That's trauma. Your brain created survival strategies (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) for the environment you grew up in, but those same strategies become trauma-based triggers in your current leadership role. The difference between struggling leaders and thriving ones often isn't competence—it's nervous system regulation. Because when you're leading from a triggered state, your prefrontal cortex literally goes offline."