The Unseen Challenges Leaders Face

I was listening to two stories of people who have had past experiences that tremendously impacted their lives.

Another way to say it is that both individuals had deep trauma.

I then had a question - as a Leader, how are you to work with situations that impact people on such fundamental levels?

That's what we're going to dive into.

The Break-In

The first individual was a woman who was working from home.

One day, she heard something downstairs.

It was odd as it was the middle of the day, and no one but her should have been there.

So she went to investigate.

Downstairs, she discovered that someone had broken into her house from the back door.

She confronted the individual only to be threatened.

She made an attempt to run out the front door only to find another stranger there.

She felt trapped, unsure of where to go.

Eventually, the man left, having stolen some items from her.

She later called the cops and was told that the man had just gotten out of prison after having in the past assaulted women.

She was lucky nothing happened but struggled to fall asleep at night after that.

On top of this, she has a young child now who also has challenges falling asleep.

Her sleep schedule has become a mess, and we all know how important sleep is to recovery.

Lack of recovery can lead to the inability to get into Flow states, higher levels of Dis-Stress, and potentially what is called Dream-Deprivation.

The Driver

There are people in this world who hold positions of power whose presence has influence.

You most often see this in politics.

Those individuals are sometimes hated by others for a wide variety of reasons - this hatred can be so intense that it leads to these individuals' lives being at stake.

This leads to others who are hired to protect those individuals - protect them at all costs.

This second individual whose story I heard about was brought on to do this kind of work - protect the "assets".

His worldview was completely different from most people's.

Everything could be a threat.

Someone appearing to be shaking hands in the crowd could be holding a weapon.

People hanging out on the overpass may be waiting for you to throw down an explosive.

Stopped cars ahead may be a trap.

There are no rules on the road except to protect your asset.

Stop signs, sidewalks, and signs stating "reduce speed to 20 mph around this off-ramp" all mean nothing to you and could hinder your ability to protect.

There is no "politeness" acknowledged when going through crowds.

Footsteps coming down the hallway might be someone trying to kill the person you're protecting.

No one is above suspicion, everything could be a threat.

Do this long enough, it becomes a part of who you are, your nervous system never shuts down.

That is how this man lived, even after his "protection" career was finished.

When your nervous system is constantly in fight mode, your focus becomes more difficult, and your ability to see options becomes limited only to the fastest paths to "safety" (or at least less danger).

Dis-Stress becomes a constant in your life, and the ability to enter Group Flow states becomes hindered.

You may get angry with colleagues because they didn't follow some code that they are completely unaware of.

As a Leader, how do you integrate a person with these challenges going on into your team?

What Can't Be Done As A Leader

The first thing you need to understand as a Leader is that you can't "solve" these types of challenges.

These are deep psychological occurrences that you're not going to be able to get rid of.

In fact, you shouldn't even attempt to unless you are qualified and certified to do that kind of work (counseling psychologist, therapist, etc.).

Another thing to avoid is to "single them out".

Don't put exceptions into work that makes it obvious that you're catering to them.

They will hate it - it ends up feeling belittling, and like they are an "issue" when that isn't the truth at all.

They have challenges, yes, but they can always be overcome.

Plus, often people who face the greatest of challenges can become some of the best employees and Leaders - because they "know" what hardships look like.

Never treat them less than anyone else.

What You Can Do

One of the most important things you can do as a Leader is "understand" what is happening.

You may not be able to "solve" anything, but that doesn't mean you can't listen and learn.

Find out what their challenges are, speak with them, and don't have expectations or goals as you're talking.

Just listen, and understand.

When you understand, see if there are things that you, or the team, can do to help avoid anything that could cause any triggers.

One of your goals as a Leader is to make the work environment safe for everyone - you do this by understanding what "safety" means to people.

Some things may be harder to accomplish, you may not be able to do "everything" in certain situations, but do what you are able to.

Also, understand what challenges may arise in the course of their work, and see if there are things that can be planned to make sure projects stay on course.

Maybe you discover that certain people work better together - that's an opportunity.

Maybe you learn that certain people have better points in the day - help them figure out how to plan their work.

The more you look for opportunities to make the environment better for your team, the more you'll find those opportunities.

As you understand your team better, you'll discover what works and what doesn't.

You have the ability to find where different people find Flow States by adjusting the "Challenge-Skills Ratio" over time.

If you do this really well, you can actually indirectly help your team members facing these challenges.

Flow States have been shown to help re-wire our brains over time, which could be beneficial in these types of scenarios.

One last thing you can do - find resources that could help your team.

Often, people who face challenges like these don't particularly enjoy talking about them.

There's an extremely high likelihood someone is on your team right now facing some form of trauma that you may never know.

However, if you provide resources for your team - access to counselors and therapists, information about groups that meet over traumas, hotlines they can call - with enough time, the people that may need it will use it.

Even if they don't use it, they will appreciate that you have resources available for them, whenever they may choose to access or at least look into them.