Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption (and Thriving on the Other Side)

When you turn a crisis or even a trauma into a learning moment, it will turn fear into courage and then determination. This leadership roadmap shows you the way to successfully navigating through crisis or trauma and coming out stronger on the other side.

Organizational trauma takes many forms. It could be a pandemic that disrupts the way people work. An economic meltdown. An act of violence. A failed merger. A layoff—or continual threats of one. Whatever the scenario, events like these can traumatize leaders and employees, sending everyone into survival mode.

Here’s the good news: when leaders navigate a traumatic event effectively, the organization doesn’t just survive.

In Trauma to Triumph, Mark Goulston, MD, and Diana Hendel present a visionary and tactical roadmap to help leaders create stability amid chaos and uncertainty, move productively through a traumatic event, and flourish in ways previously unimagined.

After reading this book, readers will learn:

• How the survival mechanism manifests in employees and leaders amid trauma
• The predictable polarities, dilemmas, tensions and other patterns that emerge in traumatized organizations…and how to break these cycles
• Why lack of clarity in roles and poor communication are dangerous in times of crisis (and how to avoid these common pitfalls)
• How leaders can shift to a mindset that helps create trust, confidence, safety, respect, and inspiration in employees
• Best practices for leading yourself and others through crisis; grieving losses, embracing healthy coping mechanisms, reframing, and more
• How to launch a rapid-response process where you “control the controllables” and create a framework for making better decisions during a crisis
• High-impact tactics to help your organization recover and heal in a way that doesn’t just return to baseline, but transcends it

Filled with tools and tactics, Trauma to Triumph is an organization-wide blueprint for navigating a future where we’ll likely experience one trauma or crisis after another. It gives leaders at every level the guidance to create confidence, courage, and enthusiasm in their team.

About the Author

Mark Goulston, MD, FAPA is a board-certified psychiatrist, fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, former assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA NPI, and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He is the creator of Theory Y Executive Coaching—which he provides to CEOs, presidents, founders, and entrepreneurs—and is a TEDx and international keynote speaker. He is the creator and developer of Surgical Empathy, a process to help people recover and heal from PTSD, prevent suicide in teenagers and young adults, and help organizations overcome implicit bias. Dr. Goulston is the author or principal author of seven prior books, including Why Cope When you Can Heal: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD, PTSD for Dummies, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In, and Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life. He hosts the My Wakeup Call podcast, where he speaks with influencers about their purpose in life and the wakeup calls that led them there. He also is the co-creator and moderator of the multi-honored documentary Stay Alive: An Intimate Conversation About Suicide Prevention.

He appears frequently as a human psychology and behavior subject-area expert across all media, including news outlets ABC, NBC, CBS, and BBC News, as well as CNN, Today, Oprah, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Westwood One.

Diana Hendel, PharmD, is an executive coach and leadership consultant, former hospital CEO, and author of Responsible: A Memoir, a riveting and deeply personal account of leading during and through the aftermath of a deadly workplace trauma. As the CEO of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital, Hendel led one of the largest acute care, trauma, and teaching hospital complexes on the West Coast. She has served in leadership roles in numerous community organizations and professional associations, including chair of the California Children’s Hospital Association, executive committee member of the Hospital Association of Southern California, vice chair of the Southern California Leadership Council, chair of the Greater Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, board member of the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and leader-in-residence of the Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership at California State University Long Beach. She is co-author of Why Cope When You Can Heal: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD.