What might someone’s behaviour be communicating that we haven’t yet been curious enough to notice?

In this episode of Leading Well with Steph Edusei, Steph is joined by Dr Asha Patel, clinical psychologist and founder of Innovating Minds, to explore trauma-informed leadership and what it can teach us about behaviour, compassion, accountability and workplace culture.

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Asha shares how her work in forensic mental health led her to question why people were reaching services after years of trauma without having been able to access effective support earlier. That frustration eventually led her to set up Innovating Minds and focus on changing systems, rather than only supporting people once they had reached crisis.

Steph and Asha explore what trauma-informed leadership actually means. Asha explains why it is not an approach reserved for people with a particular diagnosis or known history of trauma. Instead, it involves being curious about people’s experiences, recognising that behaviour is a form of communication and paying attention to how workplace processes and leadership behaviour can affect people.

They also talk about compassion and accountability. Trauma-informed leadership does not mean avoiding difficult conversations, ignoring poor performance or removing boundaries. It can mean being honest about what has to happen while continuing to treat the person going through it as a human being.

And the conversation turns to leaders themselves: the temptation to hold everybody else, the importance of recognising our own capacity, and why creating safer workplaces also requires leaders to notice how they are showing up.

In this episode, Steph and Asha explore:

• What trauma-informed leadership actually means
• Why trauma can affect the body as well as the way we think
• What behaviour may be communicating beneath the surface
• Why leaders can be too quick to move into fixing rather than staying with someone
• How compassion and accountability can exist together
• Why workplace systems and processes deserve scrutiny too
• The effect a leader’s own stress and emotional state can have on others
• Why leaders need to recognise their own limits and create space for themselves too

Leading Well is a podcast for people who want to lead with clarity, care and integrity, without losing themselves in the process.

Leading Well - leadership support: https://www.stephedusei.co.uk/leading-well

Find out more about Asha’s work: innovatingmindsgroup.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashalpatel/

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