Leading From Wholeness: Why Unhealed Trauma Shows Up in Management

When managers struggle with their teams, we often jump to familiar explanations: lack of training, unclear processes, or competing organizational priorities. While these are valid, there’s another layer we often avoid discussing--the personal histories managers carry into the workplace.

How do we work when our manager is close to our desk?

Trauma in the Manager’s Chair

Unhealed trauma doesn’t stay neatly tucked away. It leaks into how people build relationships, handle conflict, and regulate stress. When someone with unresolved wounds steps into management, their team often becomes the stage where those dynamics replay.

I’ve observed four recurring patterns:

1. Micromanagement as Survival

   A manager who equates safety with control may smother their team with constant oversight. While their intent is protection, the effect is suffocation. Employees lose autonomy, morale slips, and innovation dries up.

   
   

2. Emotional Reactivity or Withdrawal

   Trauma can prime leaders for fight-or-flight responses. Some lash out disproportionately; others withdraw to avoid confrontation. Either way, the team is left walking on eggshells.

   
   

3. Projection and Scapegoating

   Old wounds resurface as misplaced blame. Managers see threats where there are none, creating scapegoats or perpetuating distrust. Teams fracture under this misplaced hostility.

   
   

4. Trust Deficits

   Trauma survivors may struggle to open up, relying on guardedness. Without trust, teams operate in a transactional mode rather than a collaborative one, robbing them of psychological safety.

Beyond Trauma: Other Toxic Patterns

To be fair, not every struggling manager carries unresolved trauma. Some leaders simply default to toxic patterns shaped by insecurity, poor modeling, or systemic dysfunction. These show up as:

• Insecurity disguised as authority (hoarding information, taking credit).

• Lack of empathy (ignoring well-being, prioritizing tasks over people).

• Favoritism (unequal opportunities that corrode fairness).

• Conflict dysfunction (either letting problems fester or escalating them unnecessarily).

Regardless of origin--trauma or toxicity--the result is the same: diminished trust, disengagement, and teams that function in survival mode rather than thriving.

One of the clearest markers of whether a manager is leading from wholeness or dysfunction is how they handle feedback.

Too often, employees only discover that their performance is “an issue” when it surfaces in a performance review or escalates to HR. By then, the relationship is already frayed.

A healthy manager–employee relationship is proactive, not punitive. It includes frequent touch points that serve two purposes:

• Cheerleading: Recognizing strengths, progress, and contributions.

• Course-correcting: Naming improvements or shifts needed, both big and small, in real time.

Feedback delivered in context, with consistency and humanity, builds trust. It tells employees, “I see you, I’m invested in your success, and I believe you can grow.” When feedback only comes at formal review moments, employees experience it as a punishment, not a partnership.

Leading From a Whole Person Perspective

What would it look like if leadership development took wholeness seriously? If we asked not only about competencies, but about self-awareness, emotional grounding, and healing?

Managers who’ve done the work to acknowledge and integrate their own histories don’t just avoid harm, they create fertile ground for flourishing. Their leadership feels steady, authentic, and safe. Teams thrive under leaders who bring their whole, healed selves into the room.

The Productivity Lens

From a productivity perspective, this matters deeply. Burnout, turnover, and disengagement aren’t just HR issues--they are symptoms of unhealed leadership. A toxic or traumatized manager can undo the productivity of ten high-performing employees. Conversely, a grounded leader amplifies impact, connection, and growth.

And the small things matter: proactive conversations, regular check-ins, and transparent feedback loops are not “nice-to-haves,” they are productivity engines. When employees know where they stand and feel supported in improving, the team as a whole functions with clarity and momentum.

Closing Thoughts

If productivity labs are about creating healthier, more human systems of work, then we can’t ignore the humanity of those leading them. Leadership isn’t only about skills; it’s about wholeness.

Because when leaders heal, teams grow.

And when teams grow, organizations thrive.