By Mark Bates, Founder & Leadership Growth Coach, Applebright Coaching

To every visionary leader and purpose-driven business owner reading this: 
What if your greatest growth lever wasn’t tighter control—but radical trust?

For years, we’ve been sold a lie: that leadership means having all the answers, directing every move, and bearing sole responsibility for outcomes. This “hero leader” model isn’t just exhausting—it’s a catastrophic waste of your team’s potential.

I’ve seen too many brilliant businesses plateau because their people were waiting for permission to shine. It is also an unintended consequence of sequence of the hero leader in business, specifically in SME’s, that this style of leadership will also result in burnout! 

The High Cost of “Leader-Follower” Dynamics

When David Marquet took command of the USS Santa Fe—the U.S. Navy’s worst-performing nuclear submarine—he witnessed a chilling scene: Crew members blindly followed impossible orders simply because “you told me to.” Sound familiar? 

This “leader-follower” approach creates systemic fragility: 
– Creativity suffocates as teams default to “What do you want me to do?”
– Accountability evaporates when people aren’t owners of outcomes
– Burnout escalates as leaders become bottlenecks for every decision
– Innovation dies because frontline insights never reach decision-makers 

As one of my client’s confessed: “I was drowning in tactical fires while my team’s potential went untapped.”

The Leader-Leader Revolution: Where Everyone Commands Their Ship

Marquet flipped the script. By cultivating leadership at every level, he transformed the Santa Fe from worst to first in morale, retention, and combat readiness—and sustained it for a decade after he left . How? By swapping control for Clarity, Competence, and Trust. 

“The leader-leader model not only achieves great improvements in effectiveness and morale but also makes the organisation stronger.”
— David Marquet, “Turn the Ship Around!”

This isn’t theory—it’s battle-tested human potential. And in my 30+ years of strategic leadership and command and growth coaching leaders across over 400 SMEs, including top international firms, I’ve seen identical patterns:

When you trust your crew, they’ll steer you through storms. 

Game-Changing Mechanisms to Steal from Marquet

1. “I Intend To…” → The Ownership Accelerator

Replace permission-seeking (“Can I…?“) with empowered ownership (“I intend to do X because Y“). This language shift transforms passive teams into proactive commanders of their domain . 

Another version of this approach is described by an inspirational author who in my estimation has written a bible of guidance to change leadership style and dynamic, Dan Martell in ‘Buy back your time’. Here he describes getting teams used to 1-3-1 processes.

The team member considers the 1 problem, 3 potential solutions and 1 preferred solution of the three. I coach this principle to free up leadership time, encourage innovation and engagement of the team and to apply these principles both professionally and personally. 

Case Study: Enhancing Business Efficiency through Empowerment

Client Challenge

One of my high-performing engineering clients faced challenges with lengthy business processes that impacted productivity and operational efficiency.

The Solution

To address these challenges, the client implemented a cultural shift by encouraging engineers to take ownership of their workflows. Engineers were urged to identify their most effective solutions and create personalised playbooks that they would manage independently.

Results Achieved

As a result of this initiative, the client successfully cut business process time by 40%. This significant improvement was attributed to the increased autonomy given to engineers, allowing them to streamline their processes without waiting for approval.

Key Approach

The phrase “I intend to…” was introduced as part of the engagement strategy. This empowered engineers to proactively communicate their intentions and bypass traditional approval bottlenecks, further enhancing efficiency.

The Case Study Conclusion

By fostering a culture of ownership and accountability, the client not only improved their operational processes but also empowered their engineering team, leading to substantial time savings and increased morale.

2. Certify, Don’t Brief → Competence Over Compliance

Ditch top-down briefings. Instead, have teams demonstrate readiness through action. On the Santa Fe, crews certified their understanding of systems, leading to pre-emptive problem-solving . 

Why it works: As Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius model proves, people excel when operating in their “genius zones” (e.g., Invention, Enablement, Tenacity). Certification taps into natural gifts . This work can be taken even further by considering how incentivisation will recognise leader – leader business decisions and performance. 

3. Push Authority to Information → Decisions at the Edge

Frontline staff see risks/opportunities first. Empower them to act. One of my dental clients slashed turnover cost after letting line leaders redesign workflows—because they knew the friction points . 

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4. The Tangible Business Impact: Beyond Theory

Leader-leader cultures don’t just feel better—they deliver provable financial and operational results : 

• 40% faster execution by eliminating decision bottlenecks 
• Profit surges up to 21% (Gallup links engagement to profitability) 
• Retention spikes of 25–59% (Disengaged talent stays; empowered talent thrives) 
• Innovation explosions from teams volunteering ideas (Psychological safety > compliance leadership) 

“You can’t buy people’s passion, creativity, or loyalty—it’s volunteered.”
— Stephen Covey, Foreword to “Turn the Ship Around!”

Your First Steps on the Leader-Leader Journey – So What Now?

Transformation starts with courageous micro-actions, not overhaul: 

1. Conduct a “Control Audit”
→ List decisions you currently make. Identify 3 to push to frontline teams this month.

2. Pilot “I Intend To…”
→ Launch in one meeting or process this week. When someone asks “Can I?”, gently reframe: “What do you intend?”

3. Map Your Team’s Genius
→ Use Lencioni’s Working Genius assessment to align roles with natural gifts. (Wonder + Invention ≠ Tenacity!). I have an operational and pragmatic version of this to work on with your team. 

4. Measure Psychological Safety
→ Ask anonymously: “On a scale of 1-10, how safe do you feel proposing a better way?” Track monthly. This can be embedded in an Employee Value Proposition strategy which is purposefully designed to engage and empower teams – I often employ an independently administered staff engagement survey for my business clients which then becomes a monthly action plan transparently made accountable to the team!

5. Reward Smart Initiative, Not Just Results
→ Publicly celebrate a “brilliant mistake” where someone took ownership.

(Example: “Kudos to Sam for testing the new workflow—we’ll use those lessons!”) 

Navigating Your Leadership Transformation

Shifting from leader-follower to leader-leader requires rewiring deep habits: 

• Resist the “Hero” Urge:  When crises hit, your instinct will be to grab control. Pause. Ask: “Who is closest to this problem can own the solution?”
• Embrace “I Don’t Know”:These three words build psychological safety faster than any training . 
• Invest in Competence: Authority without capability breeds chaos. Pair delegation with skills development (e.g., decision frameworks, risk-assessment tools) . This links with a key theme too, the Employee Value Proposition – what is the business doing to grow, to develop and to recognise and reward the team, incentivising them in the business growth empowerment?

“Leadership is difficult. But it’s a skill you can learn. Train leaders to empower teams early—it impacts everything from performance to retention.”
— Stefan Lülf, Lepaya

Ready to Scale Your Leadership Legacy?

Marquet’s submarine had zero margin for error.

Neither does your business.

The leader-leader model scales because it’s built on human potential, not hierarchy. 

If you’re ready to: 
– Replace burnout with ownership
– Turn followers into leaders
– Build a self-repairing culture

Let’s rebuild your leadership OS together:

– 🚀 90-Day Leadership Turnarounds: Transform delegation, accountability, and decision flows for rapid results.

– 🌟 Team Genius Mapping: Discover and align roles with innate strengths through Working Genius.

– 🔍 Staff Engagement and Psychological Safety Audits: Evaluate and enhance trust metrics for a thriving workplace.

https://applebrightcoaching.co.uk/welcome/contact/)

PS — Retention crumbling? Innovation stale? Remember: The best leaders don’t create followers—they create more leaders. Your crew is ready to steer. Give them the helm

Part I – How to Create An Adventurous Business Purpose that Serves as a Call to Action

This four part blog series provides business owners and leaders with some of the main tenets of business success through becoming an employer of choice which has been the subject of one of my previous blogs (see the link at conclusion of this blog) tracking the DNA of business achievement. This series of blogs works up into a 4 stage plan supporting you to develop even stronger business performance.

Part I – How to create an adventurous business purpose that serves as a call to action

Part II – How to engage everyone in the adventure of business growth

Part III – How to recruit and retain top talent for the business growth journey

Part IV – How to track tangible business growth success  

Part I – How to Create An Adventurous Business Purpose that Serves as a Call to Action

‘How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives’

Annie Dillard

Creating A People-Oriented Purpose

What is the reason your business exists, what is it’s deeper purpose?  It can been clearly demonstrated that businesses with a clear and bold business purpose are likely to be up to ten times more successful than those that have not. According to PwC 79% of business leaders believe that business purpose is central to success. Your business purpose is highly likely to be much broader than the product or service offered and may connect to a calling for the business and its place in the world.

People are at the heart of every successful pioneer business purpose. There may be much debate about how and why the leading global brands throughout the world have dominated the way in business success, from the large conglomerates to the tech giants. However, in various guises and expressions, at the heart of those successful businesses is ‘people’. This may seem an over simplification but in paying attention to the people that the business serves and in recognising and valuing its own people then this is a clear formula and cornerstone principle of business success no matter what the size of the organisation concerned. The creation of a bold business purpose will engage not only those people that the business wishes to serve but also those people that work for it or who are closely aligned to it.

At whatever level and size of business the opportunity exists to learn from those pioneer businesses and to create environments that nurture a growth mindset. The undeniable financial pressures of the  current economically challenging climate mean that as business leaders and owners we have an obligation more than an opportunity to consider how we get an edge, create legacy business success and develop approaches that attract the best new talent and retain top performers already present within our organisations. This does require bravery and resolve but is an essential part of creating growth within businesses that boosts profitability and credibility for customers and clients of our enterprises. The true spirit of an entrepreneur should be of a pioneer, the ability to engage employees, customers and community alike to create a business that has a purpose beyond its brand and that resonates for all of those that work for or use the products of their pioneering companies.

Reflecting The Purpose and Values of Leadership

In coaching I often begin by working with business owners and leaders to construct their personal and deeper purpose and values. This is a useful starting point for any existing business or for a new business considering purpose and values by capturing the purpose of leadership. This is important as our authenticism as leaders can only be enhanced by then clearly tracing and developing the link between the individual or collective purpose and values of the whole team as well as the leaders. This can also then form the basis of a wider engagement that can understand how all the employees of the business identify with those values and how they can be enhanced even further through consultation.

So, individual purpose is best pursued by the deep and life motivating approach of understanding our reason for being, our IKIGAI. This is a Japanese concept and interestingly it has been traced in various iterations throughout many of the blue zones of the globe. In these zones there is evidence of lives well lived and of the longest lifespans in recorded history. The engagement of our deeper purpose is an energising source of growth, sits at our core, and therefore is a huge part of our motivation, our signal strengths and how we show up as leaders in the world.

This is the westernised iteration of a methodology to consider individual life purpose, the IKIGAI.

There is a parallel and useful translation of this approach having gathered together the individual leadership purpose and values and developed a common ground of understanding. This translation then enables the leadership and workforce view of purpose and values to be developed even further into a Business IKIGAI template. The following graphic provides an overview of how this can be considered. Working with businesses and leadership teams can very quickly illuminate their fundamental core purpose and values and these then become the pivot for business growth and authentic leadership.

Eight Reasons Why Creating An Adventurous Business Purpose Is The Key To Success

1.Employee Engagement

Creating high levels of employee engagement for leaders is a golden strand of success. Being able to clearly involve our people in the creation and maintenance of an adventurous business purpose has been proven to also create extremely high levels of engagement. When our employees feel that their work contributes to a meaningful purpose, they are more engaged and more motivated. This in turn leads to higher productivity and creativity. The broader principle of employee engagement will be returned to in Part II of this blog series.

2. Customer Loyalty

Purpose-driven businesses often resonate with customers who share similar values. This can lead to increased customer loyalty and long-term relationships. It has been clear even through a cost of living crisis that customers will still look to see that the corporate and social values of the businesses that they give their custom to are compatible with their own values.

3. Innovation and Inspiration

A strong sense of purpose can inspire innovation as employees are more likely to seek creative solutions to address meaningful challenges. This broader meaning and purpose is an energy source for all employees and as such will create the fuel for their innovation and ideation.

4. Talent Attraction and Retention

Purpose-driven organisations tend to attract top talent who are aligned with their mission. Moreover, employees are more likely to stay with a company that provides a sense of purpose. This create a bond that connects the potential recruit and the existing employee to the business through its broader purpose.

5. Reputation and Branding

Purpose-driven businesses often enjoy a positive reputation, which can enhance their brand and differentiate them in the market. This is not exactly akin to directly donating to charity but discerning customers will often build loyalty to brands through reputation, particularly when an organisation can clearly demonstrate the social value that it adds.

6. Business Resilience

A clear sense of purpose can help businesses navigate challenges and setbacks more effectively, as they are driven by a long-term mission. This also becomes a means in the best organisations to test decisions and to challenge the business direction. This ensures that those decisions are indexed to the broader purpose.

7. Stakeholder Buy-In and Developed Trust

Purpose-driven companies tend to build trust with stakeholders, including investors, suppliers, and communities, leading to stronger partnerships and support. This of course is a vital element of business growth in that through successful business partnerships then each individual can grow and diversity and it is purpose that will often be the shared catalyst for stakeholder support and funding.

8. Ethical Decision-Making

A sense of purpose can guide ethical decision-making, ensuring that a business operates with integrity and sustainability. This links closely to business resilience and ethical decision making frameworks can support leadership to create processes by which all key decisions are taken with reference to business purpose and to business values.

Top Performing Purpose Driven Companies

The evidence is clear for the success of purpose driven organisations. These include such companies as Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and gear company which is renowned for its commitment to environmental and social responsibility. Tesla, the electric car manufacturer has a mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Unilever has a Sustainable Living Plan that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people while reducing environmental impact. Microsoft has committed to a “carbon-negative” future by 2030, meaning they aim to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they emit. Salesforce emphasises its core values, including a commitment to social and environmental responsibility. They also have a 1-1-1 model, donating 1% of products, 1% of equity, and 1% of employee time to charitable causes. This article primarily focuses on two of the torch carrying businesses that show clear purpose, Patagonia and Spotify.

Spotify’s Purpose Driven Success

The following core strands detail the ways in which Spotify has become a market leader based on their mission and their purpose:-

Innovation and Creativity: Spotify encourages innovation in the music streaming industry. They constantly seek creative solutions to improve user experience, discover new artists, and support new musicians.

User Centric Approach: Spotify places a strong emphasis on user-centric design. They aim to provide a personalised and enjoyable listening experience, tailoring recommendations and playlists to individual preferences using intuitive algorithms.

Music Accessibility: Spotify’s mission is to make music accessible to as many people as possible. They offer both free and premium subscription options, making music available to a wide range of users.

Diversity and Inclusion: Spotify values diversity and strives to create an inclusive workplace. They have initiatives and partnerships aimed at promoting diversity in the music industry and technology sector.

Support for Artists: Spotify has faced both praise and criticism for its approach to compensating artists. They argue that streaming helps artists reach broader audiences though the definition of fair compensation is perhaps a moot subject.

Podcast Expansion: In addition to music, Spotify has been aggressively expanding into the podcasting space. They aim to become a leading platform for podcasts, investing in original content and exclusive partnerships.

Technology and Data: Spotify heavily relies on technology and data analytics to curate playlists and recommendations for users. Their algorithms are at the core of their service’s success.

Global Presence: Spotify is available in numerous countries, and they aim to provide a global platform for both music and podcast creators. Their global presence sets them apart in the streaming industry.

Patagonia’s Strong Commitment to Purpose and Values

Patagonia distinguishes itself by integrating its commitment to environmental and social responsibility into every aspect of its business, from product design to activism. This unwavering dedication to its values has earned Patagonia a reputation as one of the most purpose-driven and socially responsible companies in the world.

Environmental Stewardship: Patagonia’s dedication to environmental sustainability is central to its identity. The company actively supports environmental causes, donates a significant portion of its profits to grassroots environmental organizations, and has pledged to donate at least 1% of its annual sales to environmental causes through the “1% for the Planet” initiative. This also includes donating its entire sales income of ‘black Friday’ to recognised climate causes.

Product Quality and Durability: Patagonia promotes the idea of “Buy Less, Demand More.” They design and manufacture high-quality, long-lasting outdoor clothing and gear, encouraging customers to invest in durable products that reduce waste and the need for frequent replacements.

Worn Wear Program: Patagonia’s Worn Wear program encourages customers to buy used Patagonia products or trade in their old Patagonia gear in exchange for instore credit. This initiative promotes a circular economy and reduces the environmental impact of clothing consumption.

Transparency: The company is transparent about its supply chain and the environmental impact of its products. They actively work to improve supply chain ethics and sustainability, setting an example for greater industry transparency. This has cost the organisation at times on a financial level leading on using socially and environmentally friendly non-cotton products in their garments.

Activism and Advocacy: Patagonia is known for its activism on environmental and social issues. They have taken legal action, elevated their commitment to developing campaigns, and used their platform to advocate for climate action, public land protection, and many other important causes.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Patagonia became one of the first companies to become a Certified B Corporation, which reflects their commitment to meeting high social and environmental standards in their business practices.

Employee Wellbeing: The company places a strong emphasis on the wellbeing of its employees, offering on-site childcare, flexible work arrangements, and numerous opportunities for outdoor activities.

Social Investment: Patagonia’s venture capital fund, Tin Shed Ventures, invests in environmentally and socially responsible start-up companies, furthering their commitment to positive global impact.

Walking the Talk: Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, is a well-known advocate for sustainability and ethical business practices. His leadership has helped shape the company’s unique approach to values and purpose and in all of the processes and policies of the business Yvon role model’s those values and takes them further to inspire his colleagues and his clients.

Six Step Process To Developing An Adventurous Purpose

Business leaders, their employees and stakeholders can all engage in a 6 step process that ultimately will not only develop the business purpose but also, in completing the process, enhance business leadership, top team synergy and employee engagement more widely.

• Consider what values and beliefs are important to your leadership team and how they align with business goals.

This reflection will help shape the purpose of the business. The use of the IKIGAI process and a few other revelatory techniques can greatly help to identify the values that will create the drive and determination for rapid business growth.

• Consider and Define Business Impact

Think about the positive impact the business can have on different stakeholders, such as customers, employees, and the community. Identifying this impact will give a clear purpose to strive for.

• Seek Business Inspiration

Look for inspiration from other successful businesses or leaders who have a strong purpose. Analyse their mission statements, values, and actions to generate ideas and inspiration for your own business. Even if those are from global tech giants there will be strands that resonate and together as a top team can soon be developed into a unique flavour for your business.

• Allow Your Team To Own The Purpose

Involve your employees, stakeholders and in some cases this may easily extend to your customers and clients in discussions about the purpose of the business. Their perspectives and insights can contribute to a collective understanding and commitment to the bold purpose. Many of these insights will be ground breaking and revelatory. The top team have no monopoly on good ideas and adventurous purpose.

• Embrace Innovation and Ideation

Encourage creativity and innovative thinking within the business. Sometimes the boldest purposes emerge from thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo. This can also be supported by truly understanding the value of cognitive diversity and how as a business this can be gauged and then developed. Creating rebel causes and ideas is a huge aspect of this process and the evidence is strong that using the power on innovation to create an adventurous purpose then goes on to harness deeper and more long lasting business growth. You may be interested in this article on cognitive diversity.

Are You Really Comfortable with Difference?

• The End of The Beginning – Test and refine the adventurous purpose 

Once a purpose is identified, test it against the reality of the business. Evaluate if it aligns with the products or services offered, the target market, and the overall vision. Refine the purpose if necessary to ensure it is both adventurous and achievable. Make sure you have a process to continually review and update this purpose.

Conclusion – To Business Purpose and Beyond!

Having developed the adventurous business purpose you and your leadership team will have been heavily engaged with the whole business and as a result of that the quality of the product developed will have been significantly enhanced. Having looked at methods to develop that purpose you may wish to delve more deeply into how to continue and extend your employee engagement so that your business is one that attracts the best people and through the engagement process recognises the power of people to innovate and to create the energy and passion to drive business growth at all levels of the enterprise. Developing and enhancing recruitment and selection processes can also support your business to better understand the culture of your potential recruit, and this may be more significant to the business than some of the trainable skills. In all of this activity it is vital to track and to understand the various strands of change and to create a transparent performance cycle that demonstrates the value of these interventions to the business as a whole and also to any stakeholders, which may very will include customers and clients.

In the coming series of blogs these principles will be explored further. If you are interested in similar articles to this please visit the attached link, and subscribe on this blog page to receive only the blog posts from me at Applebright Coaching.

‘Getting an Edge in 2023’ as an SME – Part IV – People are Gold

“Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel.”

Chinese Proverb

In Part I of this blog we discussed the nature of trauma and how through careful observation and study we can take confidence that, despite the all too common presence of trauma in our lives, there are techniques that we can use to see the strengths that made us survive and to harness those strengths as our very own superpowers. Part I also covered the process we go through to survive the immediate aftermath of trauma and how this equips us to better appreciate how the healthy part of us can then create greater strengths from our experience. If you wish to recap on Part I then follow the link at the bottom of this article and subscribe to my blogs. In Part II we unfold exactly how the five key superpowers of post traumatic growth occur and get to understand trauma as a part of us but not defining us.

So What Is Post Traumatic Growth?

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) theory was first developed in the mid-1990s by psychologists Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun Ph.D., and it is fully defined as “the experience of positive change that occurs as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life crises”. The theory recognises growth in people that far exceeds the notion of resilience, this is much more than coping and can be positively nurtured with the use of good techniques.

Tedeschi and Calhoun used a metaphor for post traumatic growth as a seismic earthquake in which though we may tend to rely on a set of beliefs and assumptions about order and control in the world, the experience of traumatic events typically shatters that traditional worldview as we are torn from our usual perceptions and are inevitably left to rebuild ourselves.

What do you imagine post-traumatic growth really looks like?

It is not too sensational to explain that it will make us feel stronger in the face of a new challenge, knowing that we’ve already overcome the worst that life can throw at us. It will enable us to be more grateful for the little things, to be more appreciative of everything that surrounds us. This notion was observed as extremely common in many of the survivors of the 911 disaster. It will give rise to a feeling of greater connectedness to our friends and family.  It will push us to find new perspective and priorities and to have that more sublime sense of the mystery and sanctity of life. This notion of those superpowers emerging from our strengths is covered later in this blog.

Embracing Trauma As Our Second Skin

Identity is a key part of the strength of an individual entering positive phases of life after trauma. The trauma itself can create in us a sense of a broken identity due to the loss of control and agency over the events of the trauma. So, the theory of recovery has to be about the strength of each of us and this strength should be externally projected. This enhances the feeling of agency and growth too.

Our focus must be one of self-awareness and understanding and not of cowering introversion and introspection. The lack of self belief and outward projection of our strengths can occur if we attempt to wipe the slate absolutely clean and to shed the experience of trauma, creating a falsehood that the trauma never occurred and that we are able to return to exactly how we were before the event. The idea that recovery means shedding the trauma and leaving it behind us is a mistake. This will preclude true growth.

The acceptance that dealing with trauma through recognising our strengths means that in fact we embrace those strengths as a living part of who we are today. This creates pride in what we have achieved and confidence in what we are yet to achieve.

This makes the trauma our second skin, it makes us. Is it a skin that we wished for? Of course not. Having experienced the reality of it, having dug deep to go from trauma self to our healthy self, then it becomes a part of us and shapes us. This also signifies that we have learned and grown from the experience.

The 5 Domains Of Post Traumatic Growth

1. Personal Strength

In this domain our growth emerges from the realisation that our strengths outweigh the negative image of self from our world being rocked by our experience. The recovery story in part may include how we survived the immediate impact of our trauma such as professional support accompanying the love and care of family and friends, but the real writing of our growth story is in the strengths that we draw on and the learning that we have about our super powers that got us beyond trauma into new possibilities. This factor is a huge catalyst for our personal development. The construction of signal strengths revolving around the process of travelling from trauma, to survival through to happiness is a source to grow those strengths even further and to be able to apply them to the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow. This is where a trauma informed coach can support you to identify those strengths and to find the best way to deploy them daily. This in turn enables the greatest of achievements that may not have been possible before the experience.

2. New Possibilities

This area of post traumatic growth has its genesis in the most fundamental challenge that occurs to our norms and values through the trauma. It can engender a tangible sense of seizing every day and the enlightenment that the strengths that pulled us from the face of the fire creates the notion that anything is possible. The confidence to take on new challenges post trauma also is derived from the trauma consequences that force us into areas of discomfort. There is a natural human instinct to remain our comfort zone, the experience of trauma denies that possibility and catapults us through growth immediately into a panic zone approach in order to learn to survive. Having been drawn out in this way we are able to reimagine how we got through the events and amongst that new reality is the strength to grow and to take on challenges that were once clearly outside our comfort zone. Seizing the day is therefore more fertile territory for the creation of challenging goals both personally and professionally and here again mentors and coaches can support you in this journey in framing and tracking those goals.

3. Deepening Relationships

The experiences of trauma and the development of relationships and friendships with those around us after trauma takes us into an appreciation of how valuable good quality friendships and relationships are and the strength in them and in the support and protection of those relationships. This therefore creates a sense of enhanced compassion for others, being prepared to reach out to others and being more knowledgeable and therefore more confident in picking the friendships and relationships that foster trust to the highest degree. Social support is a significant way that we may be able to move beyond difficulty and this is the value taken from post traumatic strength. In suffering trauma we may also have a deeper sense of compassion for others who are suffering, leading us to relate to the world in an entirely new way.

4. Appreciation of Life

The trauma that we feel is so deep and shattering to our sense of safety and normality and the upheaval of this coupled with the thoughtful process of recovery through the lens of our changing world view, means that the value that we place in life is far deeper and we are far less likely take anything for granted. We therefore appreciate the lesser and the more momentous aspects of our lives and also will actively seek even greater enrichment which further expands our belief in and enjoyment of life.

This may manifest itself in looking at new challenges, novel experiences, oneness with nature, taking up hobbies and pastimes and all in all our appreciation will create a sense of priority, gratitude, being in the moment and believing in the goodness of individuals through deeper contemplation of values and purpose in life. This sort of thinking drives high levels of growth. In this moment we see that the past is done and has been learned from, the future is still yet to be and can only be shaped by our decisions now. This is the fuel that allows our appreciation that the present moment is all that counts. This is fertile territory for personal growth and development and often coaches will support you to enhance this possibility of growth opportunity.

5. Spiritual or Wellbeing Development

Many trauma survivors experience a shift in relation to their deeper consciousness and spirituality.  Those experiences of trauma that may have also exposed us to physical harm, mortality and injury and this therefore brings to the foreground the most fundamental question of mortality, the afterlife, and our spiritual meaning. This will not always equate to faith, although it very well might. For others it will be a broader sense of awareness and spirituality, this can be thinking about personal spirituality, a higher sense of wellbeing and taking more time and attention to the triggers in life that can be solved by our mindset.

The Four Keys To Unlocking Post Traumatic Growth

The four principles here are based on our true strength from adversity that we feel having come through trauma. There are theories that abound that say that the deeper the trauma, then there can be a relationship to even greater growth opportunity. This fundamentally comes from the self-appreciation of what it took for us to come through the trauma experience. Todd Kashdan and Jennifer Kane found an empirical link between the most frequently reported traumas such as the sudden death of a loved one, motor vehicle accidents, witnessing violence in the home and natural disasters and an enhanced level of post- traumatic growth.

This study also found that a precursor for PTG is that the individual has contemplated and processed their experience in order to be able to then consider those signal strengths that got them through. The four key factors to create the growth are:-

1. Sliding Door Optimism

Post traumatic growth requires the ability to see and to take positive opportunities, the belief to look for and to take sliding door moments. Matthew McConaughey’s book Green Lights would describes this as ‘green lights’ thinking. The optimism to see these opportunities and the advantage of those accruing benefits leaves us feeling that we have greater control over our destiny and an honest appraisal of the brutal facts in our current reality.

2. Control Over Events

Here we appreciate that our trauma experience inevitably arose out of a situation that we were highly unlikely to have had any control or agency over and this helplessness is a part of our cognitive process to deal with trauma. Our fear factor occurs in the amygdala of our brain and this is an exceptionally fast  and instinctive response. Post traumatic growth is created by a cognitive process that ensures that we take control over our situation far more in the future, we will change our orientation so that our actions on an intellectual level feel our choice and have been constructed in such a way that we feel we have mitigated risk and importantly, maximise the benefit to us. This is not merely the removal of risk for ‘safety’ feelings, it is also proactivity in ensuring that our circumstances place us most likely to be in our strengths and happiness zone.

3. Coping Through Acceptance

Taking a decision to not remain in the past where the fear created by the trauma still resides, is much more likely to create the conditions for post traumatic growth. This is about acceptance of the trauma event, processing it and in many cases doing so by thinking about the strengths that got us through and they can still be exploited and grown in our future. This then means that the individual faces into the storm rather than away from it. The difference of this approach and those that may be in denial is that time is not wasted looking back and dealing with the experiences and ghosts of the past creating an avoidance temperament, it realises that trauma has become a part of us and therefore we work with who we are and we then harness that optimism ever further.

4. Enhancing The Sense of Self

This is a product of the reflection created by the trauma. It is not a given and will be more prominent if we have used that reflection to understand our deeper purpose both personally and professionally, to think through our values and our strengths and then to determine in a deliberate way to live to that purpose and sense of values. This enables us to make greater sense of our story and allows us to focus on where our strengths will create the maximum benefit to us and to those around us. This protects as well as it develops in that it ensures positivity and learning.

The Conclusion

So what else are we to do? It is our instinct to survive and in driving our recovery and valuing relationships around us then we introduce one of the greatest determinants of positive change and growth, community. Through recent studies psychologists have begun to understand the psychological processes that turns adversity into advantage, and what is evidently apparent is that “psychologically seismic” restructuring is actually necessary for growth to occur. It is precisely when the foundational structure of our self is shaken through trauma that we are in the best position to pursue new opportunities in our lives. This is the essential element of post traumatic growth.

PTG is not about recovery of lost ground, it is not about mere survival, it is much more than resilience – the post traumatic growth experience can be harnessed to create growth in life and in business. This blog will has described some of the theories and realities surrounding trauma and whilst the notion does not trivialise the terrible damage that caused trauma, it does demonstrate the creative element that post traumatic growth can invoke.

As more than one in two people have experienced trauma it is realistic to understand that so many people have overcome major trauma to achieve success and have harnessed that strength to achieve that success. The likes of many inspirational and transformative leaders such as Steve Jobs have come through trauma and have emboldened others as role models in their creativity and cognitive diversity. The achievement and focus of post traumatic growth can be supported through coaching and mentoring and this itself is only possible when optimising the determination to grow present in the client. The process will support the identification of the survival strengths and how they can be harnessed and how they work alongside our other signal strengths. Furthermore, the development of our growth mindset, enabling the creation and exploitation of our sliding door moments all create the fertile ground for post traumatic growth. Finally, setting goals to be striven for that enhance our life purpose and enable us to operate to our personal values create the ingredients of further post traumatic growth.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

 

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Your Coaching Journey Starts Here – Crossing Your Pacific

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”

Viktor Frankl – ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’

Introduction

Throughout this two-part blog the nature of trauma will be explored as will some of the common misnomers connected to the experience of trauma and its recoverability. Having understood the nature of trauma then this blog will guide us through how we can appreciate how we as human  beings tend commonly to deal with trauma at the time, in the immediate aftermath and potentially in the longer term. Rather than a popular misconception that trauma creates unrecoverable life damaging impact the science of post traumatic growth is explored and the optimism of the true deep strength and resourcefulness of the human soul is celebrated.

Part II of the blog concludes with more direct evidence and advice about how that growth can best be achieved and understood and the role that trauma informed coaching can have to amplify that learning and growth. This article is truly a testament to the strengths based approach of recovery and the power of facing into our experiences to become stronger than before, to make sense of the inexplicable and to help those around us who we see may benefit from this thinking and to create growth from their trauma.

It cannot be denied that an absence of trauma and the dilemma that it creates are of course preferential than it’s direct experience, but due to the prevalence of trauma in our lives then the knowledge about how to create and to maximise growth is important.

The analogy to the beautiful art of Kintsugi is very strong and uplifting. In this centuries old Japanese art rather than hiding the cracks in the pottery, the technique involves re-joining the broken pieces with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. When put back together, the whole piece of pottery looks more beautiful and intriguing but importantly tells a powerful story as it owns its own broken history, creating beauty from what was shattered.  

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Why Is There A Focus On Trauma?

The events of the last few years have created an even sharper focus than ever on the question of our survivability as human beings and similarly to be more reflective on how we maximise every opportunity that life can bring our way. In addition to some of our innate human traits such as negative bias alongside real life events can also collude to prevent us from thriving and looking toward growth. Over one in two men and women will report that they have experienced trauma in some way and there are a huge range of experiences that can leave us ‘traumatised’.

Many may mistakenly think that ‘trauma’ can is restricted to a single cataclysmic event leaving the person suffering from diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The truth however is far more complex in that long exposure to negative experiences can similarly traumatise the human soul. These experiences can include witnessing abusive relationships, adverse childhood experiences, suffering bullying and exclusion, an accumulation of microaggressions in the workplace through to bereavement, being the victim of assault, witnessing violence, suffering chronic illnesses. This has been particularly more evident in recent years, societal trauma such as witnessed in the pandemic or from the disasters unfolding in the wake of global warming.

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The ‘Damaged for Life’ Misnomer

There is a common misunderstanding that suffering with single event or long exposure trauma results in an individual being broken for life. Add this mistaken belief to the human inclination toward a negative self-view, then the outlook could appear bleak indeed. Media attention on the victims of violence, survivors of disaster and a focus on justice for victims also can collude to exacerbate a negative belief that trauma is unrecoverable. The truth is much more optimistic than this misnomer would have us believe and the awe inspiring ability of human nature to recover from such events is a clear demonstration of our strength, of our ability to gain agency in situations that we may have felt out of control in and for sense to be made of traumatic events and for positivity to emerge in individuals.

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Why Should We Strive for Post Traumatic Growth (PTG)?

One of the key determinants for post traumatic growth is the ability of the individual to reflect or be supported to consider more deeply the impact on them, the strengths that they possess as individuals and what in fact the experience has taught them. In the realm of psychology, the study of PTG has emerged as a fascinating and transformative concept. While trauma and adversity can undoubtedly bring about pain and suffering, researchers have discovered that they can also lead to positive psychological changes and personal growth. Post-traumatic growth refers to the phenomenon where individuals, in the aftermath of a traumatic experience, exhibit increased levels of resilience, strength, and newfound perspectives.

So many of us find the greatest difficulty in life when we face situations where we lack an ability to gain control over a given situation. The positivity of PTG is that whilst the trauma we experience comes with no agency on our part, the recovery from that trauma is a process where we can process and thrive and the new perspectives that we find, the strength and resilience that we can discover can be achieved and enhanced through deliberate processes that we employ in our recovery and reflections.

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Why Post Traumatic Growth and Wolff’s Law Are Linked

The ability of the human body to strengthen as a result of experiencing pressure and to weaken under a lack of pressure is a well known medical phenomenon known as Wolff’s Law. It is this concept that dictates why astronauts who return from microgravity have measurable reductions in bone density and require intensive physiotherapy to recover to full health. Wolff’s Law also is the reason that tennis players and fencers develop greater bone mass in their dominant arms and legs. Our mind is no different than this, whilst in an ideal world the human psyche is healthier without trauma, there are strengths that may arise from the experience. As with our bone density, the exposure and learning from such deeply traumatic events can mean that we can create a focus on our strengths, on our resilience and on a deeper appreciation of life in general.

This is a fundamental aspect of our desire to learn and to grow. Through the process of  enhancing our self-understanding we can develop deeper self-confidence. We can appreciate and define the signal strengths that brought us through the crisis and this in turn creates an emphasis on individual growth to realise our full and changed potential. In this way the recovery from trauma can equip us as humans to continue to pushing our boundaries ever further and to revel in a new found freedom to enjoy and celebrate being ourselves, who we are and what we overcame. Here lies the path to a deeper realisation of human potential.  

Understanding Our Initial Response to Trauma 

          

Post traumatic growth is a more long term phenomena and not how we will initially naturally respond to trauma. There can be no formula in every case for either the initial response or the longer term prospect of PTG, however, understanding the way that we generally respond supports our understanding of the experience and can help us to process better how we create the personal growth that can result for us.

The following graphic shows how we initially deal with trauma.

So what this demonstrates is that at the first encountering of or tipping point toward trauma then the human psyche splits into three aspects in order to cope with the overwhelming pressure and stress that is being experienced. This effectively means that the initial trauma part of us is predominant whilst our survival instincts kick in and grows bigger and more dominant to protect us from those extremely stressful feeling and thoughts at the time of the trauma.

In the survival mode we may be confused, angry, uncommunicative, show deep and unusual response to emotional triggers and it is the presence of our survival selves that creates space to nurture the healthy us. This may be small initially but as time goes on and we process events, get the support of loved ones and potentially our community then the healthy self grows ever further.

The healthy outcome of this process is that the traumatised self is marginalised into distant memory and the survival self can then diminish in size but may always rear up to protect us from triggers that cause us to experience the feeling of trauma again. This therefore leaves the healthy self in dominance and these are the ideal circumstances for PTG to flourish.

In Part II of this blog we will look forward to how we can create post traumatic growth from the recovery aspect of trauma. This covers 5 essential areas in which the learning and experience of trauma can create new found strength and depth. There are tactics to employ that allow us to interrupt the stresses that can follow from trauma triggers and create a positive force for good. Next week Part II of this blog will be published or please subscribe on the home page by clicking on the below link to receive the whole article now…

• Unlock Your Team’s Genius: How the Leader-Leader Model Ignites Epic Growth
• How To Radically Outperform Your Competition as a Pioneer Business – A Four Part Blog Series
• How To Radically Outperform Your Competition as a Pioneer Business – A Four Part Blog Series –
• How You Can Create Growth From Trauma Pt II
• How We Can Create Growth From Trauma Pt I

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Your Coaching Journey Starts Here – Crossing Your Pacific

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