“Personal reasons.” That’s what I wrote. Two words that close a door quietly enough that no one asks what’s behind it. I didn’t say I was grieving. I didn’t say I literally couldn’t stop crying. I said personal reasons, and let people assume it was something ordinary and solvable.

The truth is I couldn’t talk about it. But there was something underneath that, and it’s the part I’ve had to sit with. I didn’t think I was allowed to.

I lost Mojo.

He was my soul mate. A week and a half before he died, I unexpectedly found out I was going to have to say goodbye. Having that notice is its own particular cruelty. Enough time to know. Nowhere near enough time to be ready. When he was gone, it didn’t just make me sad. It stopped me in my tracks.

Before I did anything else with the grief, I put it on trial.

I asked myself whether it counted. Whether it was substantial enough to justify moving my work, disappointing clients, stepping back. I ran the math the way we all secretly do- people go through worse, other people keep going, who am I to fall apart over this. I couldn’t make the numbers add up to permission. So I said “personal reasons” knowing no one would see the wreckage.

I teach trauma-informed leadership for a living. I still did that to myself.

I know that trauma is defined by the person experiencing it. It is not measured by the size of the event on some universal scale. It’s measured by what it did to you. What flattens one person leaves another untouched. There is no objective ranking of loss, no threshold you have to clear before your grief is real enough to honor.

The trap I fell into has a name, if it helps to have one: disenfranchised grief. Grief the world doesn’t quite recognize or give us permission to feel, so we don’t give it to ourselves either. Pet loss is the textbook example. So much of the loss we carry is silent. It doesn’t come with casseroles and bereavement leave.

But it doesn’t disappear for lack of a label. It lives in the body. It rearranges your sleep, your focus, your appetite for the work you usually love. Refuse to acknowledge it and it doesn’t shrink. It just goes underground and keeps working.

So this is me, acknowledging it. Out loud. In the place where I’m supposed to look competent.

I am still gutted. I don’t have the tidy lesson yet where I tell you what the loss taught me and we all feel better. There’s no bow on this. Mojo is gone and I am moving slowly through a world that is missing him.

Despite my own questioning of myself, I know this now. Rescheduling was not me failing at my work. It was me doing the exact thing my work is about. You cannot hold steady space for a room full of people while you are quietly coming apart. You cannot pour regulation into others from an empty pitcher. Honoring your own capacity is not the reward you earn after you white-knuckle through. It’s the ground you stand on, or you don’t stand at all.

We never really know what someone is holding. The colleague who’s suddenly short with you. The friend who went quiet. The consultant whose email just said personal reasons. You are almost never seeing the full weight. You’re seeing the small, composed edge of it that made it out the door.

If you’re leading through something heavy right now I’m not going to tell you to power through. I’m not going to ask you to prove it’s big enough first.

I’m going to tell you what I’m still learning to tell myself.

Whatever you’re holding is real, even if no one can see its weight.

You don’t have to earn the right to grieve it.

And you’re allowed to reschedule the training.

Then I’d walk out of a hard meeting, sit in my car, and realize my jaw had been clenched for an hour. My shoulders were somewhere up around my ears. I’d smiled through the whole thing and my body had been screaming the entire time.

Here’s what nobody told me in any leadership training I ever took: your body is running the meeting whether you invited it or not.

We were taught to manage strategy, budgets, timelines, and people. We were handed frameworks for feedback and conflict and change. And every one of them assumed the leader was a floating brain; calm, rational, available. Never dysregulated. Never activated. Never human at 4:45 on a Friday.

That gap is why so many good leaders are exhausted. And it’s exactly what trauma-informed leadership fixes.

Let’s clear something up first.

Trauma-informed leadership is not about turning your workplace into a therapy office. It’s not walking on eggshells, lowering the bar, or treating every employee like they’re fragile.

It’s the opposite. It’s about building teams strong enough to handle hard things because the leader knows how to stay steady when things get hard.

Resmaa Menakem describes trauma not as an event, but as something that lives in the body. And once you understand that, leadership stops being a battle of willpower and starts making sense. That team member who shuts down in conflict isn’t difficult. The one who fires off the 11pm email isn’t out of control. The one who agrees with everything and resents all of it later isn’t passive. They’re nervous systems doing exactly what nervous systems do under stress.

We usually name two stress responses, fight and flight. There are five: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flock. Once you can spot them, half of your “people problems” turn into something you can actually work with.

Why this is a game changer, not a nice-to-have.

A regulated leader is a force multiplier.

When you can feel your own activation and settle yourself, you make clearer decisions. You stop reacting and start responding. You give your team a nervous system to borrow and calm is contagious in exactly the same way panic is.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2022 report on workplace wellbeing made the case plainly: how people feel at work drives whether they stay, whether they’re well, and whether they can do good work at all. That’s not soft. That’s retention, performance, and sustainability. That’s the whole game.

Trauma-informed leadership gives you the missing skill set: how to read the room at the level of the body, how to de-escalate without absorbing everyone’s stress, and how to build cultures where people can do hard things without breaking.

What’s inside the certificate.

This September, the Trauma-Informed Leadership Certificate opens again.

It’s six sessions. We work through the nervous system science every leader should have (the window of tolerance, the five stress responses, what regulation actually feels like in your own body), the CARE framework for de-escalation, and the practical skills for leading through conflict, change, and hard conversations without losing yourself in the process.

You’ll get a full participant workbook, pre- and post-assessments so you can see how far you’ve come, and a cohort of leaders doing this work alongside you.

Who this is for.

Leaders who are good at their job and tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.

Women who’ve been holding it together for everyone else and are ready to lead from steady instead of depleted.

Anyone who suspects there’s a better way to do this than white-knuckling through and hoping.

If that’s you, I’d love to have you in the room.

Your team can only stay as regulated as you are. Let’s build that skill on purpose.

Enroll here: https://www.allredconsulting.com/traumainformedleadershipcertificate

I teach trauma-informed leadership for a living.

I talk about the nervous system, the window of tolerance, co-regulation, and stress responses so often that my dogs could probably deliver the module on fight/flight/freeze by now.

So when I got seriously activated last week, I did what any self-respecting trauma-informed leadership educator would do.

I tried everything.

Box breathing. Grounding. Movement. Cold water on my wrists. I ran through my toolkit like I was checking items off a grocery list. And you know what? It helped a little. Took the edge off. But that nervous system was not done with me.

So I got in my car and drove to TJ Maxx.

Hear me out.

Growing up, TJ Maxx was a place of hope. Layaways and possibility. My mom, sisters and I would walk those aisles together. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had time, and we had each other, and somehow that store always felt like something good might be around the next corner. It was connection. It was fun. It was hers, and it became mine.

She’s been gone for a while now. I go to TJMaxx to talk to her. Not in a “I’ve completely lost it” kind of way but in a “this is where she lives in me” kind of way. The smell, the feeling of possibility, the way my body knew it was safe there.

That’s not in any workbook I’ve written. But it worked.

Here’s what I want you to know about that day, because it’s actually relevant to everything I teach:

I was in fight. Not freeze, not fawn — fight. Activated, mobilized, ready to move. And here’s the thing about fight that we don’t talk about enough: for those of us whose nervous systems have defaulted to freeze or fawn (shutdown, people-pleasing, making ourselves small), fight can actually be a sign of healing.

Fight means your system believes it has enough power to push back.

That’s not nothing. That’s something.

The goal of regulation work is never to become a person who doesn’t feel things. The goal is to build enough capacity that when something big moves through you, you have options. Sometimes the option is box breathing. Sometimes it’s calling a friend. And sometimes, friends, it is walking through a discount home goods store talking to your dead mother about the throw pillows.

Self-care isn’t always a bath and a meditation app. Sometimes it’s creative. Sometimes it’s weird. Sometimes it’s yours and nobody else’s.

The nervous system doesn’t care if it’s clinically elegant. It just needs to feel safe.

I teach regulation because I need it. Not because I’ve mastered it. That distinction matters more than I can say for how we show up as leaders, and for how we give ourselves permission to be human in the process.

We’re not the regulation police. We’re people learning to come home to ourselves, one TJ Maxx run at a time.

What’s your weird, unconventional regulation strategy? I really want to know. Drop it in the comments — no judgment, only curiosity.

We’re selling our house.

Which means, apparently, I now have opinions about cabinet knobs and light fixtures I didn’t know I had.

Our realtor brought in an interior designer, and the first thing she did wasn’t pick paint or move furniture. She created a mood board. Images, textures, colors, a feeling she was going for. Before a single decision was made, she built a shared vision of what this space could become.

And I could not stop thinking about what that has to do with how we lead.

What even is a mood board?

A mood board is a visual and sensory map of intention. It says: before we get into logistics, let’s align on the feeling we’re trying to create. It’s not a to-do list. It’s not a strategic plan. It’s a picture of a destination that everyone can see and respond to.

The designer wasn’t telling us what to think. She was creating a shared emotional reference point. And once we all looked at it, we knew immediately what resonated and what didn’t.

That’s powerful. Especially when you’re trying to get a group of people moving in the same direction.

Here’s where trauma-informed leadership comes in.

One of the things we know about trauma is that it robs people of a felt sense of the future. When your nervous system has been in survival mode, planning ahead can feel abstract, overwhelming, or even unsafe. The brain that’s been living in threat doesn’t do a lot of visioning.

And yet we keep asking our teams to buy into strategic plans, change initiatives, and organizational transformations using mostly words and spreadsheets.

What if we borrowed from the mood board instead?

The Trauma-Informed Mood Board Approach to Leadership

This isn’t about getting crafty. It’s about leading with felt sense before you lead with framework.

Before you launch a new initiative, ask: What do we want this to feel like when it’s working? Not just what it will look like on paper. What will it feel like to walk into this building? To sit in a team meeting? To get an email from your supervisor?

Before a hard conversation, name the relational tone you’re going for. Not just the talking points. The emotional texture of the interaction you’re trying to have.

Before a team retreat or planning session, spend time co-creating the “mood” of the culture you’re building together. Let people contribute images, words, metaphors. Let them say yes, that and not that.

Why this works neurologically

The nervous system responds to images and sensory cues long before it processes abstract concepts. When people can see, feel, or imagine a destination, safety begins to form around that vision. Hope becomes something embodied, not just cognitive.

A mood board approach activates the part of the brain that can dream, plan, and move toward something. That’s exactly what trauma-informed leadership is trying to restore.

The practical part

You don’t need a design degree or a Pinterest account. You need a willingness to ask:

What are we building toward, and what should it feel like to get there?

Let your team answer that together. Then use that as your compass.

My house is getting new light fixtures and a coat of paint in a color called “Agreeable Gray.” Apparently it photographs beautifully and makes buyers feel calm and hopeful.

Turns out that’s the goal in leadership too.

What does your team’s mood board look like? What feeling are you trying to create?

There’s a leadership trend I genuinely love in theory and have watched go sideways in practice more times than I can count.

Vulnerability in leadership.

When it’s real, it’s transformative. When it’s weaponized, it’s one of the most insidious forms of organizational harm I’ve seen. It’s also harder to name than outright cruelty, which makes it so much more damaging.

What Weaponized Vulnerability Actually Looks Like

A leader creates what feels like a culture of psychological safety. They share their own struggles. They invite you to do the same. They say things like “We’re family here” and “I want us to be real with each other.”

And so you are. You share that you’re struggling with the workload. You mention that a team dynamic is wearing on you. You admit you’re not sure you’re in the right role. You tell the truth about your life outside work because it was asked for and it seemed safe.

And then, slowly or suddenly, that information gets used.

Not always as a weapon swung hard. Sometimes it’s subtle. Your honesty about struggling becomes evidence that you’re not leadership material. Your boundary-setting gets framed as a performance issue. Your openness about a personal challenge mysteriously surfaces during a review. You get passed over and no one says why, but you know.

That’s weaponized vulnerability. It is a trauma response waiting to happen, or already happening, for the people in that organization.

What It Does to Organizational Culture

The nervous system doesn’t forget.

When someone reaches out in genuine openness and gets burned, their brain files that under “this environment is not safe.” A nervous system that doesn’t feel safe does not take risks, does not offer creative ideas, does not advocate for clients or colleagues, and does not stay long.

Worse, it teaches everyone else watching. Psychological safety is not just about what happens to you. It’s about what you watch happen to others. When one person gets punished for being honest, ten more go silent. The culture learns: perform openness, protect the real stuff.

You end up with a workplace full of people doing emotional theater, saying the right things in the right meetings while keeping their actual thoughts locked away. That is not a trauma-informed organization. That is a traumatized one.

Leaders who weaponize vulnerability are often not cartoon villains. Many of them genuinely believe they’re building connection. But good intentions don’t neutralize impact. The harm is real regardless of the motive.

If This Has Happened to You

What happened to you has a name, and that name is betrayal. Not a misunderstanding. Not “reading the situation wrong.” A betrayal of trust.

Grieve it before you analyze it. Before you figure out what to do, let yourself feel what happened. Anger is appropriate. Hurt is appropriate. Betrayal is a real relational wound and it deserves acknowledgment before strategy.

Name it clearly, at least to yourself. “My vulnerability was used against me” is a complete sentence. You don’t have to perform grace about it right now.

Recalibrate who has earned access to your inner world. Vulnerability is not a character flaw. Misplaced vulnerability in an unsafe environment is not stupidity. It’s a nervous system that was doing its best with the information it had. The problem wasn’t that you were open. The problem was that the environment wasn’t trustworthy. Going forward, you get to be discerning. Openness is a gift you extend when trust has been earned, not a performance requirement.

Assess your options with clear eyes. Is this a pattern with one leader or a systemic culture issue? Do you have recourse through HR, a union, or documentation? Is this a place you can still be effective, or has the psychological cost become too high? There’s no universally right answer, but you deserve to ask the questions honestly.

Find your people. Whether that’s a therapist, a coach, a trusted colleague outside the organization, or a community of peers who get it, you need witnesses who can reflect back your reality without the distortion of the system that harmed you.

A Word for Leaders Reading This

If you’re building a culture that values vulnerability and authenticity, keep going. AND ask yourself whether you have actually earned the level of openness you’re inviting. Ask yourself what happens in your organization when someone IS vulnerable and it doesn’t land well. Ask yourself whether you’ve ever used information someone shared in confidence to make a professional judgment about them.

Real psychological safety is built through consistent, repeated evidence that honesty is met with care, not through a single all-hands meeting about “bringing your whole self to work.”

Vulnerability without safety is just exposure.

And the people in your organization, often the most dedicated, highest-integrity, hardest-working people, are quietly calculating whether it’s worth it.

Let’s make sure the answer is yes.

Let me guess.

At some point in your leadership journey, someone taught you that caring about your people and holding them accountable are two different things. Maybe even opposite things.

Care is soft. Accountability is hard. Pick one based on the situation.

And if your team is going through something difficult? Obviously you lean toward care. You give grace. You let things slide. You convince yourself that lowering the bar is the compassionate choice.

But lowering the bar is not the same as lowering the harm.

When we do this, we actually make things worse for the person we’re trying to protect, for the rest of the team, and for the people your organization exists to serve.

That’s not trauma-informed. That’s conflict avoidance with a compassionate veneer.

So what does it actually look like to balance care and accountability?

It starts with understanding what stress and trauma look like at work because they rarely look the way we expect.

The team member who’s been snippy and defensive? That might be a fight response, not an attitude problem.

The one who’s been missing deadlines and going quiet? That might be freeze or flight, not laziness.

The one who agrees with everything you say and then doesn’t follow through? Fawn response. Not manipulation. Survival.

When you can see the stress response underneath the behavior, you don’t have to choose between compassion and accountability. You can hold both and address what’s happening instead of just reacting to the surface.

Here’s a question for reflection:

Is there someone on your team right now whose behavior you’ve been reading as a performance problem… that might actually be a stress response?

What would shift if you saw it that way?

(Important note: seeing it differently doesn’t mean ignoring it. It means responding more effectively.)

The framework I use when I’m working with supervisors is simple.

Before any accountability conversation, ask yourself three questions:

1. Is this a capacity issue or a commitment issue?

2. What is the cost of flexibility right now — to the team, to the people you serve, to this person long-term?

3. What does this person need from you to actually meet the expectation, not instead of accountability, but alongside it?

Sometimes the answer is flex. Sometimes the answer is hold. Often, it’s both at the same time.

That’s the work.

And when you need actual words (because abstract frameworks don’t help at 3pm when you’re in the hard conversation):

“I’ve noticed [specific behavior], and I want to check in before I make any assumptions.”

“I care about you AND I need to be honest with you about what I’m seeing.”

“The expectation is still [X]. What do you need from me to get there?”

“I’m not okay with [behavior], and I’m not giving up on you. Both of those things are true.”

That last one? That’s the whole philosophy in one sentence.

But what about when you’ve run out of runway?

Sometimes you’ve asked the questions. You’ve flexed where you could. You’ve had the honest conversations, offered the support, named the pattern, and held the expectation with as much care as you knew how to hold it.

And it’s still not working.

The team is absorbing the impact. The clients are absorbing the impact. And you’re starting to realize that continuing to manage this situation has its own cost. One that isn’t fair to distribute across everyone else indefinitely.

That’s real. And it deserves to be named.

Trauma-informed leadership does not mean the organization has unlimited capacity to carry an individual’s needs. It means you don’t get to skip the part where you try. It means the process matters. It means the person deserves honesty and dignity even, especially, when the answer is “this isn’t working and we need to make a change.”

Compassion doesn’t always look like staying. Sometimes it looks like a clear, honest conversation that says: This role isn’t the right fit for where you are right now. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise to avoid a hard moment.

The most caring thing you can do is be honest about that. Clearly. Directly. Without cruelty and without pretending.

The words still matter. If you’ve reached the end of the road: “I’ve thought carefully about this. I’ve tried to support the conditions for this to work. And I don’t think this role is the right place for you right now. I want to be honest with you about that because you deserve honesty.”

That’s not a failure of trauma-informed leadership. That’s what it looks like when you take it seriously.

Care and accountability are not opposites.

They belong together. And the leaders who figure out how to hold both, especially when it’s hard, especially when the world is heavy, are the ones their teams remember.

Not because they made it easy. Because they made it honest.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brent Rempe from First Alliance Credit Union last week at the Meaningful Mornings gathering in Rochester, MN. Learn more about the gathering here. The gathering is structured around a host interviewing a person answering the 3 “What” questions. After each question/answer, the audience is prompted to discuss a question from the speaker at their tables. It is a beautiful way of getting to know people.

Several people asked me for my comments so I thought I would share. I invite you to answer the questions for yourself at home.

Part 1: What? — Your Story & Purpose

If I look back over my life, the thread has been consistent.

My purpose has been to advocate for those who’ve experienced harm, to help people understand themselves deeply enough to heal, and to build systems that support that healing.

I started my career in sexual assault and domestic violence work. I sat with survivors of CSA, SA, and DV who were navigating the aftermath of profound harm. In those rooms, you learn quickly what matters.

Over time, I realized my work always had three parts: naming harm, supporting healing, and changing systems so harm isn’t repeated.

Later, when I began running nonprofits and supervising teams, I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. The same trauma patterns I had seen in survivors were showing up in leadership and team spaces. Things like hypervigilance, reactivity, people-pleasing, shutdown, power struggles.

The only difference was what we called it.

Now it was labeled “performance issues.”

That’s when my work evolved.

I realized that if we want healthier organizations, we need leaders who understand their own and others’ nervous systems. Because we all face adversity, chronic stress, crisis, maybe trauma. Those experiences don’t stay neatly compartmentalized. They show up in how we live, how we interact, and how we lead.

What moments most tested that purpose?

About 23 years ago, everything collided at once.

I had a traumatic brain injury. At the same time, I was running a nonprofit, parenting a four-year-old and a six-month-old, and my mother had a stroke. I was trying to care for her too. I was in constant pain, exhausted, and couldn’t work.

My identity had been deeply tied to my work. I saw it as a calling. So when I couldn’t perform the way I used to, I felt lost. Overwhelmed. Responsible for everything without the resources to manage it.

It forced me to ask a hard question:

If I can’t do the work, who am I?

What I learned and have had to relearn is that my identity is grounded in my values, not my productivity. Compassion. Dignity. Healing. Those don’t disappear when capacity shifts.

And I learned that self-care isn’t optional for me. It’s foundational.

That lesson has shaped how I lead and why I care so deeply about sustainable, trauma-informed leadership. Purpose without sustainability will eventually cost you and I don’t want that for anyone.

How does the good you’re doing now reflect what matters most to you?

When I think about the work I’m doing now, it really comes back to what has always mattered most to me.

I want people to understand themselves. To know why they react the way they do, where those patterns came from, and how those patterns show up in their relationships and on their teams.

So often we interpret our adaptations as defects. But most of those reactions were intelligent responses to stress, adversity, or responsibility.

Whether I’m teaching trauma-informed supervision, supporting women leaders, or speaking about chronic stress, the heartbeat underneath it all is the same:

When we understand ourselves, we become more compassionate. When we become more compassionate, we create safety. And where there is safety, healing becomes possible.

When we understand ourselves, we become more compassionate. When we become more compassionate, we create safety. And where there is safety, healing becomes possible.

Audience Reflection: Where might more compassion change the way you lead or live?

Part 2: So What? — Impact, Meaning & Purpose

How do I know this work is making a difference?

I see it in people’s faces.

When a leader says, “Oh. This is normal. I’m stressed. That’s what’s causing this…”

When someone who has experienced adversity says, “That makes sense. My body was protecting me.”

When a team shifts from blame to curiosity.

So much of what we carry in trauma work, in leadership, and in relationships is compounded by misunderstanding. We pathologize survival strategies. We criticize overwhelm without addressing systems that cause it.

What do I hope people take away?

Understanding changes everything.

When we understand ourselves including our stress responses, our survival strategies, our patterns, we soften. We stop blaming ourselves for reactions that once kept us safe. We gain choice.

And when we understand each other through that same lens, we live and lead differently.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” We begin asking, “What happened?” or “What might be underneath this?”

Curiosity replaces judgment. Compassion replaces criticism. Connection replaces control.

Audience Reflection: Where might misunderstanding be increasing stress in your life or work?

Part 3: Now What? — Future & Legacy

So where is this purpose leading me next?

I teach and coach around the awareness we’ve been discussing. I call it being trauma-informed, but it’s simply about understanding ourselves and others in our beautiful, flawed humanness.

I coach leaders. I train teams. I consult in organizations.

I created a Trauma-Informed Leadership Certificate where I train leaders to lead with care and curiosity. I’m writing a book on Trauma-Informed Leadership. It feels like the culmination of my life’s work.

If someone wants to join me in amplifying this impact, I always say: start small.

Get curious before you judge. Learn what stress responses look like in adults. Take time to check in with yourself every day to see what you need. Fresh air? Laughter? Companionship? Exercise? We spend a lot of time making sure those around us are ok.

Legacy?

I hope my work helps people understand themselves and each other more deeply, so they can heal, lead with compassion, and build systems that truly care for people.

Audience Reflection: What would self-understanding change for you right now?

Last week I wrote about leading in the aftermath phase, that disorienting in-between space when the immediate crisis eases but the threat hasn’t actually ended.

A lot of you wrote back.

You said: yes. But also: what do we do when the aftermath just keeps going? When it’s not one event we’re recovering from, but an unrelenting series of them?

That’s where many of us are right now. Not in a single storm. In a storm season.

So this newsletter is about something harder than crisis leadership or aftermath leadership. It’s about sustained steadiness. The kind of leadership you have to cultivate deliberately, over time, when there’s no ‘all clear’ coming.

The goal isn’t to be unshaken. It’s to be someone your team can orient around when everything else is tilting.

This Isn’t a Storm You Wait Out

Here’s what makes this moment particularly hard to navigate:

• Policy instability is not going away. What was true last week may not be true next week.

• The communities many of us serve are living in a prolonged state of fear not an acute crisis, but a grinding, exhausting vigilance.

• Your team is calibrating to you. Whether you’re anxious, absent, or anchored, they feel it.

There is no tidy resolution on the horizon. And leading as if there is burns people out. It burns you out.

What’s required instead is a different kind of leadership posture. Not crisis mode. Not normal operations mode. Something built for the long middle.

The Key Distinction: Steady Doesn’t Mean Calm

This is probably the most important thing I want to say in this newsletter, so I’m going to say it directly: Performing calm and being steady are not the same thing. One is a mask. The other is a practice.

Performing calm looks like:

• Minimizing what’s real (”We’ll be fine!” without acknowledging what isn’t fine)

• Reassuring people with false certainty you don’t actually have

• Staying busy so you never have to stop and feel what’s happening

Over time, performed calm erodes trust. People can feel the gap between what you’re saying and what’s real. They fill that gap with dread.

Genuine steadiness looks like:

• Naming the difficulty without being consumed by it

• Holding ambiguity openly- “I don’t know what comes next, and here’s how we’re navigating anyway”

• Staying present in the discomfort rather than rushing past it

Your team doesn’t need you to pretend. They need you to demonstrate that hard things can be faced without falling apart. That’s the gift of genuine steadiness.

How to Build Steadiness Right Now

These aren’t tips. They’re practices. They require repetition, not just one-time implementation.

1. Regulate yourself first.

You cannot lead from a flooded nervous system. Sleep, movement, time away from your phone aren’t luxuries. They are leadership infrastructure. If you’re running on adrenaline and empty, you will transmit that to your team no matter how calm your words are. Your body is broadcasting.

2. Anchor in what you control.

Policies, politics, and enforcement actions are not yours to control. Your values, your organizational culture, how you treat people, how you make decisions under pressure are yours. Return to them. Daily. In times of sustained uncertainty, leaders who stay anchored in their values become a gravitational force for their teams.

3. Communicate on a rhythm, not just in crisis.

Regular, honest updates, even when nothing has changed, prevent the silence your team fills with worst-case scenarios. You don’t have to have answers. You have to be present. “Here’s what I know, here’s what I don’t, here’s what we’re doing” goes a long way.

4. Shrink the time horizon.

Don’t try to lead six months out right now. Lead this week. This meeting. This conversation. In times of macro-instability, the most protective thing a leader can do is make the immediate environment feel manageable and humane. Presence is protection.

5. Find your own steadiness sources.

You need somewhere to be unsteady so your team doesn’t have to be your processing container. Peer leaders. A coach. A therapist. A community. This isn’t weakness. It’s the infrastructure that makes sustainable leadership possible. Who holds you?

What Doesn’t Move When Everything Does

In times of sustained upheaval, it helps to explicitly identify what your anchors are. Not in the abstract, but written down, returned to, lived.

Your Values

What do you stand for that isn’t up for negotiation, regardless of what’s happening politically? Write them down. Lead from them even when it costs you something.

Your Relationships

Your people are not resources. They are the mission. Protecting that truth in every decision, even when the pressure is to optimize and cut, is a form of steadiness.

Your Commitments

What have you promised the people you serve? Honor it especially when it’s harder to do so now. Integrity under pressure is the currency of trust.

The Long Arc

This political moment is not the last one. Lead for who you’ll be when it passes. Future you, and the people you lead will be shaped by the choices you make right now.

The Steadiness Traps

Even well-intentioned leaders fall into these patterns under sustained stress:

Toxic positivity.

“We’ll be fine!” without acknowledging what’s actually not fine. It feels reassuring to say. It isolates people in their fear. They stop telling you the truth because they don’t want to be the one who breaks the mood.

Productive avoidance.

Staying so busy that you never stop to process. The unprocessed catches up. Usually at the worst possible moment, in the worst possible way.

Hero mode.

Carrying everyone else’s weight because asking for help feels like failure. Protecting your team from every difficulty because you don’t want to burden them. The result: you collapse, and your team is blindsided by it. Isolation masquerades as strength.

The antidote to all three is the same: name what’s hard. Share the load. Stay connected. That’s the steady.

Final Thoughts

You won’t always feel grounded. There will be days when the news cycle hits like a wave and you’re back in the thick of it, reactive and scared and running on cortisol. That’s not failure. That’s being human in an inhuman situation.

The practice isn’t about never being destabilized. It’s about what you do after. How you return to yourself. How you show up again. Steady isn’t a feeling. It’s a practice. And you do it again tomorrow.

The upheaval is real. The threat to the communities many of us serve is real. And your steadiness matters more because of it, not less.

You are not just managing an organization through difficult times. You are modeling for the people around you that it is possible to stay human, stay principled, and stay in motion even when the ground won’t stop moving.

That’s not a small thing. That might be the whole thing.

If this resonated, share it with a leader you know who’s in the thick of it right now. And if you’re navigating this and want to think it through together — my inbox is open.

And I’m noticing something in myself and in the leaders I’m talking to: we don’t know what to do with this.

The acute crisis mode, the hyper-vigilance, the constant mobilization, the checking the news every hour had a terrible clarity to it. We knew what we were facing. We knew we had to act.

But now? Now we’re in what I’m calling the aftermath phase. Except it’s not actually “after.” The threat hasn’t ended. The policies are still in place. The trauma is still fresh. People’s lives have still been upended. Some are being held unjustly in captivity. The next escalation could come tomorrow, next week, next month.

And we’re supposed to... what? Go back to normal? Stay mobilized? Rest? Lead our teams through this ambiguous middle space where nothing is resolved but there aren’t as many active fires either?

This phase is harder than anyone talks about.

What the Aftermath Phase Does to Leaders

Here’s what I’m experiencing, and what I’m hearing from other leaders:

The crash. When you’ve been running on adrenaline for weeks, and the immediate threat eases even slightly, your body doesn’t celebrate. It collapses. All the exhaustion you bypassed to survive the crisis hits you at once. I slept 12 hours last night and woke up more tired than when the crisis was acute.

The hyper-vigilance that won’t turn off. Even though ICE has drawn down, I’m still checking my phone constantly. Still bracing for the next enforcement wave. My nervous system doesn’t believe the threat is over, because it’s not.

The grief that was postponed. When you’re in survival mode, you don’t have time to feel what’s happening. Now there’s space. The grief for what our communities experienced, for the trauma that doesn’t disappear, for the trust that’s been broken is overwhelming.

The doubt. Should we have done more? Did we handle it right? When you’re in the middle of crisis, you just do what needs doing. In the aftermath, you second-guess everything.

The pressure to move on. “The major crisis is over, let’s get back to normal operations.” Except it isn’t. Our teams aren’t okay. Our communities aren’t okay. We’re not okay. And now we’re supposed to pretend we are?

What the Aftermath Phase Does to Teams

Your team is experiencing their own version of this:

Some people are crashing. The person who was showing up strong throughout the crisis suddenly can’t get out of bed. They held it together when it mattered, and now they’re falling apart.

Some people are still activated. They can’t relax. They’re still in fight mode, still ready for the next threat, and they’re frustrated with teammates who seem to be “moving on” when the danger hasn’t passed.

Some people are numb. They went into freeze during the crisis and they’re still there. They’re going through the motions, but you can see no one is home.

Some people are angry. At the federal government, yes. But also at leadership for not protecting them better, for pushing too hard, for not pushing hard enough, for everything and nothing.

And they’re looking to you to navigate this. While you’re experiencing your own version of all of this.

The Double Bind of the Aftermath Phase

Here’s the new paradox we’re facing:

If we return to “normal operations,” we’re denying the ongoing trauma and the continued threat. We’re asking people to perform as if nothing happened.

If we stay in crisis mode, we’re perpetuating exhaustion and hypervigilance. We’re telling people they can never rest because the threat might return.

Both feel wrong. Because both ARE wrong when the situation is: not-quite-crisis, not-quite-safe, definitely-not-over.

So what do we do?

A Framework for Leading in the Aftermath Phase

I don’t have this figured out. But here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Name the Phase We’re In

The most helpful thing I’ve done as a leader is simply name this:

“We’re in an aftermath phase. ICE has drawn down some, but the policies haven’t changed. The trauma is still fresh. The threat could escalate again. This is a different kind of hard than the acute crisis was. And we’re going to navigate it differently.”

Just naming it releases people from the confusion of “why don’t I feel relieved?” or “why can’t I just move on?”

2. Shift from Crisis Response to Sustained Vigilance

We can’t stay in full crisis mobilization. But we also can’t pretend the threat is gone.

What this looks like practically:

Create a monitoring system that doesn’t require everyone to be hypervigilant.

• “I’m tracking federal policy changes. I’ll alert the team if there’s anything requiring immediate response. You don’t have to watch the news constantly anymore.”

Establish different readiness levels.

• “We’re moving from Code Red (acute crisis) to Code Yellow (elevated threat). Here’s what each means for our operations and what I need from each of you.”

Build in regular check-ins without demanding constant activation.

• “We’ll do a 15-minute team pulse check every Friday. That’s the time to share concerns, updates, needs. The rest of the week, you can focus on your work.”

3. Make Space for the Grief and Processing

Your team needs permission to feel what they didn’t have time to feel during the crisis.

Create structured opportunities:

• “We’re dedicating our next team meeting to processing what happened. Not problem-solving. Just witnessing.”

• “I’ve brought in a trauma-informed facilitator to help us work through this together.”

Normalize the range of responses:

• “Some of you are exhausted. Some are still activated. Some are numb. Some are angry. All of these are normal responses to what we’ve been through.”

Don’t rush the timeline:

• “Healing from collective trauma doesn’t happen on a schedule. We’re going to give this the time it needs.”

4. Redefine What “Productivity” Means Right Now

Your team is not going to operate at pre-crisis levels for a while. Maybe a long while.

Be explicit about adjusted expectations:

• “Our priority right now is stabilization, not optimization. We’re doing the essential work. Everything else can wait.”

Measure different things:

• Not: “How much did we produce?”

• Instead: “Did people show up? Did they support each other? Did we maintain basic operations while allowing space for recovery?”

Protect against burnout creep:

• “I know there’s pressure to ‘catch up’ on everything we postponed during the crisis. We’re not doing that. We’re going to slowly ramp back up, watching for signs of overwhelm.”

5. Prepare for the Next Wave (Without Living in Fear of It)

The threat hasn’t ended. Federal policy could shift again. ICE could ramp up operations tomorrow.

Strategic preparation without constant panic:

• “We’re updating our rapid response plan based on what we learned. We’ll do this once, get it in place, and then we won’t have to think about it every day.”

Build capacity while honoring current limits:

• “We’re going to strengthen our networks and resources during this calmer period. But we’re doing it at a sustainable pace.”

Name the uncertainty without letting it consume us:

• “We don’t know if this will escalate again. We’ll be ready if it does. And we’re going to live our lives in the meantime.”

We’re in the long middle now. The part where we have to sustain without the clarity of acute crisis. The part where we have to heal while staying ready. The part where we have to live while the sword still hangs over us.

This is the hard part. And we’re learning how to do it together.

What are you noticing in yourself and your team as the acute crisis eases but the threat remains?

What’s helping you navigate this phase? What are you struggling with?

Drop a comment or message me. None of us have done this before. We’re figuring it out together.

Every leader, really every person I talk to, is caught in the same impossible bind.

When you rest, you feel complicit. Like you’re choosing comfort while people suffer. When you don’t rest, you can feel yourself getting brittle, reactive, less capable of the clear thinking this moment requires.

When you push your team, you wonder if you’re asking too much of people who are already struggling with their own fear and trauma. When you don’t push, you worry that you are failing the people who need us most, the clients and the community members in impossible situations who have nowhere else to turn.

You can feel yourself burning out at this pace. Your sleep is terrible. Your patience is thin. But when you imagine slowing down, you think: how can I? How can any of us?

This is the paradox of action and restoration during crisis. This paradox is the daily reality of life and leadership in Minnesota right now. The threat isn’t hypothetical but present every day.

I don’t have this figured out. But I am trying to use a trauma-informed lens to reflect on how to help.

How Your Body Responds

You are experiencing a physiological reality along with the obvious practical and moral ones.

When we face threat, our nervous system has four primary survival responses available:

1. Fight - Push back, resist, take action

2. Flight - Escape, avoid, create distance

3. Freeze - Shut down, go numb, can’t move

4. Fawn - People-please, over-accommodate, lose boundaries

When we experience stress/threat, whether it is real or perceived, we go through a cycle of response. Our body mobilizes energy to deal with threat (fight/flight), or it shuts down to conserve energy when threat feels overwhelming (freeze/fawn). Once we’ve responded to the threat, our body needs to release that mobilized energy and signal “I’m safe now.” This happens through physical movement, crying, shaking, laughing, connecting with others. Basically, we need to do something that tells our body the threat has passed.

In a normal stress cycle, you encounter threat → you respond → the threat ends → your body completes the cycle → you return to baseline. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it’s designed to do under ongoing threat.

But in ongoing crisis? The threat doesn’t end. You respond, but there’s no completion. Your body stays flooded with stress hormones, ready to mobilize again, or it crashes into freeze because it can’t sustain activation indefinitely. Either way, you never get back to baseline. You’re just cycling through crisis responses without resolution.

You may find that some days you’re mobilized attending meetings, making calls, organizing. Some days you can’t look at the news. Some days you’re completely numb, watching yourself go through the motions. Some days you’re saying yes to everything, unable to say no even when you’re depleted.

All of this is happening while you are leading others who are cycling through the same responses. Our teams are fighting, fleeing, freezing, fawning. They’re looking to us for answers we don’t have, for safety we can’t provide.

This is the double bind: You need to move through these stress responses and return to regulation to sustain action. But the conditions requiring action don’t allow the cycle to complete.

When the threat is persistent, there’s no moment where your nervous system can say “okay, it’s over, we survived.”

How do you lead through this?

What We Get Wrong About Action

When leaders are in crisis mode, we may think action means:

• Doing more

• Doing it faster

• Doing it constantly

• Doing it alone

We think we need to attend every rally, sign every petition, fight every policy, protect every vulnerable person, respond to every escalation.

But this is panic masquerading as productivity. This is your activated nervous system trying to control the uncontrollable.

Sustainable action during ongoing stress or threat actually means:

Specificity over sprawl.
Not “I must resist everything the federal government is doing,” but “Today I will call these three legislators about this specific enforcement action in our community.”

Or if you’re directly targeted: “Today I will make sure my family has updated documents and know-your-rights information. That’s the one thing I can control today.”

Collaboration over martyrdom.
Not “I must protect everyone,” but “Who else is doing this work? How do we share the load? Where can I plug into existing resistance rather than creating more from scratch?”

If you’re the one who needs protecting, if ICE is in your neighborhood, if your immigration status is precarious, if your family is at risk; your action might be connecting with mutual aid networks, finding your people, asking for help. That’s not weakness. That’s strategy.

Boundaries over boundlessness.
Not “I’ll do whatever it takes until this ends,” but “I’ll do what I can, for this amount of time, and then I’ll stop. Because this won’t end tomorrow. Or next week. And I need to be here next month too.”

For those directly targeted, this might mean: “I can’t attend the rally because I need to stay off law enforcement radar. I can donate $20. I can share information with my network. That’s what I have capacity for, and it matters.”

Strategy over urgency.
Not “Everything is equally critical,” but “What will actually move the needle? What’s reactivity? Which battles can we win, which do we need to hold the line on, and which do we need to let others fight?”

Strategy for those directly in the line of fire, might be survival first, resistance second. Both are legitimate. Both are necessary.

The most sustainable leaders in long-term crisis aren’t doing more. They’re doing less, but they’re doing it consistently over time. And they’re doing different things depending on their proximity to immediate threat.

In Minnesota, f you have privilege that creates distance from ICE enforcement (if you’re a citizen, if you’re white, if you have economic stability) your sustainable action might look like showing up visibly, taking risks, using your body and resources as a shield.

If you’re directly targeted, if you’re undocumented, if you’re Muslim, if your family is at risk your sustainable action might look like strategic invisibility, protecting yourself first so you can be here for the long haul, letting others take the visible risks while you do the behind-the-scenes work that only you can do.

Both matter. Neither is more important. We need people doing all of it.

And if you’re in freeze?
If you’re reading this and realizing you’ve been numb for days or weeks, if you can’t seem to make yourself do anything, if you’re just going through the motions while feeling nothing; please hear this. You’re not lazy. You’re not weak. You’re not a bad leader or a bad person.

Freeze is your nervous system’s way of protecting you when the threat feels too big and the options feel too limited. It’s not a choice you’re making; it’s a biological response to overwhelm.

The path out of freeze isn’t to shame yourself into action. It’s to start incredibly small, so small it feels almost silly. Can you stand up and shake your arms for 30 seconds? Can you step outside and feel sun or cold on your face? Can you text one person “I’m struggling”? Freeze thaws through tiny movements, gentle reconnection to your body, and massive self-compassion. You will move again. Your capacity will return. In the meantime, be as kind to yourself as you would be to someone you love who’s struggling. You’re not behind. You’re surviving.

How are you managing? I’d love to hear from you.

Terri

If you are looking for a little more support these days, I am opening a third monthly Holistic Leadership Circle for women leaders in March. Here is more info: https://www.allredconsulting.com/holisticleadershipcircle

If you want to learn more about trauma-informed leadership, join me for the Trauma-Informed Leadership Certificate beginning in April. Here is more information: https://www.allredconsulting.com/traumainformedleadershipcertificate

The loneliest I’ve ever been as a leader wasn’t when I was facing workplace violence, or navigating budget crises, or making impossible decisions. It was when I tried to do all of that without anyone who understood what I was carrying.

I had friends. I had family. I had a therapist. But I didn’t have other leaders who were grappling with the same impossible questions: How do you protect your staff when the systems are failing them? How do you lead through crisis when you’re barely surviving yourself? How do you set boundaries when the needs are infinite? How do you sustain this work without it destroying you?

Until I found other leaders who got it, I was trying to figure it all out alone. And that almost broke me.

Leadership Is Not a Solo Sport

We talk about leadership like it’s an individual endeavor. Like if you’re good enough, smart enough, resilient enough, you should be able to handle it alone.

But that’s not how any of this works. Ethical, sustainable, trauma-informed leadership requires community. It requires people who understand the weight you’re carrying because they’re carrying it too. It requires spaces where you can be honest about struggling without it affecting your credibility. It requires others who will tell you when you’re heading toward burnout, when you’re sacrificing too much, when you need to set a boundary you can’t see yet.

Right now, with everything that’s happening, the ICE crisis, community trauma, organizational overwhelm, leaders need community more than ever.

What Happens When Leaders Try to Do This Alone

I’ve watched leaders try to navigate crisis without support. They burn out and leave the work entirely, taking years of expertise and relationships with them. They make decisions in isolation that they later regret because there was no one to reality-check them. They sacrifice their health, relationships, and wellbeing because they don’t have anyone telling them to stop. They perpetuate harmful practices because they don’t have peers challenging them to do better. They stay stuck in patterns that aren’t working because they have no outside perspective.

None of this serves the people they’re trying to lead. And none of it is necessary.

The most effective leaders I know aren’t the ones who figured it all out alone. They’re the ones who built communities of other leaders to learn with, struggle with, and grow with.

What I’m Building

This isn’t a typical leadership coaching group. There won’t be a hot seat. It’s not about performance optimization or productivity hacks. It’s about building sustainable, ethical, trauma-informed leadership practices in community with others who are committed to doing the same.

We’ll explore topics like:

• Leading through collective trauma without burning out

• Setting boundaries that honor your capacity

• Supporting traumatized staff while managing your own mental health

• Making ethical decisions when there are no good options

• Building organizational cultures of sustainability instead of martyrdom

• Integrating your values with your leadership practice

This is a space for leaders who are done pretending they have it all figured out and ready to do this work in community.

Interested? Learn more or contact me!

Space is limited to 8 participants to ensure depth of connection and meaningful engagement. Next cohort starts in March. It will be held virtually on the Third Wed of the month from 8-9am Central.

Sustainable leadership requires sustainable people. And sustainable people require community.

If you’re ready to stop trying to figure this out alone, I’d love to have you in the circle.

Terri

Learn more about the Holistic Leadership Circle

Questions? Want to talk about whether this is right for you? Reach out at Terri@AllredConsulting.com. I’m happy to connect.

Cross post from LinkedIn

There are days when I can barely get out of bed. Days when the anxiety is so acute I can’t think straight. Days when the depression sits on my chest like a physical weight and I have to convince myself that getting up, showering, and showing up is worth it.

And on most of those days, I still choose to lead.

I’ve lived with chronic anxiety and depression for most of my adult life. I’ve led teams, run organizations, made critical decisions, and supported people through crisis while managing a brain that sometimes tells me everything is hopeless.

If you have similar challenges, I see you. You are trying to navigate the ICE crisis in Minneapolis, support traumatized employees, hold your organizations together while also dealing with your own mental health struggles, trauma, and exhaustion.

You can lead through crisis while also being in crisis yourself. But not the way you think. And not the way anyone teaches you.

The Myth of the Unshakeable Leader

We’re taught that leaders need to be strong, steady, unflappable. That we hold it together for everyone else. That our job is to be the calm in the storm, the rock people can depend on, the person who has answers when everyone else has questions.

That’s bullshit.

Not because leaders shouldn’t be steady when they can be. But because it creates this impossible standard. When you’re struggling with your own mental health, your own trauma, your own crisis; you think you’re failing at leadership. You think you need to hide it, power through it, pretend you’re fine so you can be what everyone needs.

That just doesn’t work. What it does is make you sicker, make your leadership worse, and model for everyone around you that suffering in silence is what strength looks like.

What It Means to Lead While Struggling

I’m not saying you need to share every detail of your mental health with your team.

I’m not saying there aren’t boundaries.

I’m not saying your employees should be your therapists.

What I’m saying is that you can acknowledge your humanity while still providing leadership. In fact, you have to. Because trying to lead while pretending you’re not struggling doesn’t work. It just makes you less effective and more exhausted.

Here’s what leading while struggling actually looks like:

You’re honest about your capacity.

Some days I can handle a packed schedule and complex decisions. Other days I can’t. On those days, I’m honest: “I’m not at my best today. I can do X and Y, but Z needs to wait until tomorrow.” Or “I need to reschedule this meeting because I don’t have the capacity to make this decision well right now.”

This isn’t shirking responsibility. It’s being realistic about what I can deliver with integrity.

You model boundaries.

I leave at 5pm most days. I don’t check email after hours. I take my mental health days. I say no to things that would overextend me. And I’m explicit about it: “I’m not available after 6pm because I need that time for my wellbeing.”

When leaders model boundaries, it gives everyone permission to have them. When leaders work themselves into the ground, it teaches everyone that’s the expectation.

You’re transparent about when you need support.

“I need help thinking through this decision, can we brainstorm together?” “I’m struggling to see clearly on this issue because of my own stuff. Who can offer a different perspective?” “I need someone else to lead this meeting because I don’t have the bandwidth right now.”

Asking for support isn’t abdication. It’s collaboration.

You prioritize the non-negotiables and let the rest go.

When I’m really struggling, I can’t do everything. So I figure out what’s truly essential and I let the rest slide temporarily. That report that’s nice to have but not critical? It can wait. That initiative that’s important but not urgent? It can be deferred. That meeting that’s mostly informational? It can be cancelled.

Leadership during crisis, especially when you’re also in crisis, isn’t about doing more. It’s about being strategic about what you can actually sustain.

What to Tell Your Team

Here are some things I’ve said to teams I’ve led:

“I want you to know that I’m managing some personal challenges right now that are affecting my capacity. I’m still here, I’m still committed to this work, and I’m still making sure the essential things get done. But I might not be as available as usual, and I might need to delegate some things I’d normally handle myself. Thank you for your patience and support.”

“I’m struggling with anxiety around what’s happening in our community right now. I know many of you are too. I want us to be able to support each other without anyone having to pretend they’re unaffected. So I’m going to be honest about when I’m having a hard day, and I hope you’ll feel you can do the same.”

“I need to prioritize my mental health right now, which means I’m going to be more boundaried about my time and energy. I’ll be leaving at 5pm, not checking email after hours, and being more selective about what I take on. I hope you’ll do the same, because sustainable leadership requires sustainable people.”

Notice what these don’t include: detailed explanations of my diagnosis, descriptions of my symptoms, or apologies for being human. They’re honest without being oversharing. They’re boundaried without being distant. They’re vulnerable without being inappropriate.

Building Leadership That Doesn’t Depend on Your Constant Availability

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that good leadership creates systems that don’t require the leader to be constantly available or constantly at 100%.

Here’s what that looks like practically:

• Distributed decision-making: Empower your team to make decisions without always needing your approval. Clear guidelines about what they can decide autonomously.

• Backup leadership: Identify who can step in when you’re unavailable. Make sure they have the authority and information they need.

• Clear priorities: Everyone knows what’s essential vs. what can wait. When you’re struggling, the non-essential things can pause.

• Regular check-ins: You don’t need to be available 24/7 if you have structured times when people know they can bring you issues.

• Documentation: When you’re having a good day, document decisions and processes so others can continue when you’re not at your best.

This isn’t just about managing your mental health. This is good leadership practice that makes organizations more resilient overall.

A Word About Privilege

I want to acknowledge something: I have privilege that allowed me to be open about my mental health struggles. I’m white. I had organizational power. I had education and resources and support systems.

If you’re a leader of color, if you’re in a marginalized community, if you’re newer to leadership then being open about mental health carries different risks. You might face stigma I didn’t face. You might be judged more harshly. You might have less room for error.

So I’m not saying everyone can or should be as transparent as I’ve been. But I am saying: you still deserve support. You still deserve to set boundaries. You still deserve to lead in ways that honor your capacity. And you still deserve grace when you’re struggling.

Find the people who can hold that truth with you, even if it can’t be public.

What Gives Me Hope

You know what gives me hope? Leaders who are honest about struggling. Leaders who set boundaries. Leaders who ask for help. Leaders who say “I can’t do this alone.”

Because that’s how we change the culture of leadership. That’s how we build sustainable movements instead of burnout factories. That’s how we create organizations that can weather long-term crisis without sacrificing the people doing the work.

Every time a leader says “I’m struggling and I’m still here,” they give permission to everyone around them to be human. Every time a leader sets a boundary, they make it safer for others to do the same. Every time a leader asks for support, they normalize that leadership isn’t a solo act.

We need you. But we need you sustainable, not superhuman. We need you honest, not invulnerable. We need you here for the long haul, not burnt out in six months.

The most courageous thing you can do as a leader right now is to be honest about your limits and build systems that honor them.

You’re not failing. You’re human. And your humanity is not a liability. It’s what will help you lead with the compassion and wisdom this moment requires.

Keep going. We need you.

With solidarity and understanding,

Terri

If you’re a leader struggling with mental health while trying to navigate this crisis, please reach out for support. Whether that’s therapy, peer support, or just someone to talk to—you don’t have to do this alone. And if you need resources or just want to connect, I’m here.

What’s happening in Minneapolis right now is occupation. This is state-sponsored violence targeting specific communities. This is organized terror designed to make people afraid to exist in public space.

If you’re a leader in Minnesota right now, particularly if you lead an organization that serves or employs immigrant communities, you’re not just navigating “a difficult situation.” You’re leading through occupation. And that requires a fundamentally different approach than crisis management 101.

What Occupation Does to People

When I talk about occupation, I’m not being metaphorical. I mean the actual experience of living under the threat of force from a militarized presence that targets you based on your identity.

Here’s what that looks like in Minneapolis right now:

• Immigrant families are afraid to leave their homes

• Parents are keeping children home from school

• People are avoiding medical appointments, grocery stores, their workplaces

• Communities are organizing safety networks just to move through their own neighborhoods

• Every sound outside could be ICE. Every knock on the door could be the beginning of family separation.

This isn’t background stress. This is living under siege.

Why Traditional Leadership Frameworks Fail

Most leadership training teaches you to manage change, navigate uncertainty, communicate during crisis. Those frameworks assume that the crisis is temporary, that systems are fundamentally stable, that people just need reassurance and clear direction.

But occupation doesn’t respond to those frameworks. Because occupation isn’t a crisis that will pass; it’s an ongoing condition. And people don’t need reassurance that things will be okay. They need tangible protection from a real threat.

When you try to lead through occupation using traditional crisis management approaches, here’s what happens:

You minimize the threat. “I know things are difficult right now, but we need to stay focused on our mission.” Translation: Your terror isn’t important enough to disrupt our work.

You emphasize resilience. “We’ve been through hard times before and come out stronger.” Translation: Your trauma is a character-building opportunity.

You focus on what people can control. “Let’s concentrate on the work in front of us.” Translation: Ignore the fact that federal agents might separate you from your family today.

None of this works. All of it causes harm. Because it’s fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of what people are experiencing.

You cannot lead people out of occupation using the same frameworks you’d use for a budget shortfall or an organizational restructuring. Occupation requires resistance, not resilience.

What Leadership During Occupation Actually Requires

If you’re going to lead effectively right now, you need to fundamentally reorient your understanding of your role. You’re not managing a temporary crisis. You’re supporting people who are living under ongoing threat of state violence. That changes everything.

1. Name what’s happening

Stop using euphemisms. Stop calling this “a challenging time” or “increased immigration enforcement.” Call it what it is: organized state violence targeting immigrant communities. Federal agents militarizing neighborhoods. Terror designed to make people afraid.

Your employees need you to name the reality they’re living. When you soften it or make it palatable, you’re gaslighting them about their own experience.

2. Acknowledge that normal expectations are obscene

You cannot expect people to perform normally when they’re living under occupation. Full stop.

If someone is afraid their spouse might be detained on the way home from work, they cannot give you strategic thinking about Q3 goals. If someone is coordinating safety networks so their community can get groceries, they cannot focus on that report you need by Friday. If someone is processing the murder of a woman who looks like them, who could be them, they cannot “just push through.”

Expecting normal performance during occupation isn’t high standards. It’s cruelty.

3. Provide material protection, not just emotional support

Your employees don’t need you to empathize. They need you to use your organizational power to protect them.

What does that mean?

• Have a lawyer review what you’re required to provide to ICE (hint: it’s less than you think)

• Create explicit protocols for if ICE shows up at your workplace

• Fund legal support for employees facing immigration issues

• Provide paid time off for immigration-related needs without documentation requirements

• Create emergency funds for employees who need to support family members

• Make it possible for people to work remotely if they’re afraid to travel

These aren’t accommodations. These are baseline safety measures.

4. Accept that you cannot be neutral

I know you want to “stay out of politics.” I know you’re worried about alienating stakeholders or board members. But here’s the thing: when state violence is targeting specific communities, neutrality is complicity.

You don’t have to make this partisan. But you do have to make it clear where you stand. Do immigrant lives matter to your organization, or don’t they? Will you use your resources to protect vulnerable people, or won’t you?

There’s no middle ground here. Your employees are watching to see which side you’re on.

5. Build networks of mutual protection

Individual organizations cannot protect people from federal enforcement. But networks of organizations can create safety in ways that isolated responses can’t.

Connect with other employers, faith communities, schools, legal organizations, and community groups. Share information. Coordinate responses. Build rapid-response networks. Create systems where if ICE targets one workplace, others can support affected families.

This isn’t just good practice—it’s how communities survive occupation.

The Questions You Should Be Asking

Instead of asking “How do we maintain productivity?” or “How do we meet our goals?”, you should be asking:

• How many of our employees are directly at risk of ICE enforcement?

• Do our employees know what their rights are if they’re approached by ICE?

• What would we do if an employee was detained tomorrow?

• How are we documenting ICE activity in our area so we can warn community members?

• Which other organizations are we coordinating with for mutual protection?

• What resources can we provide to employees who need legal support?

• How are we using our organizational power to resist this violence?

These are the questions leaders ask during occupation. Everything else is secondary.

The question is not “How do we maintain normal operations during crisis?” The question is “What does it mean to be a responsible employer when the state is terrorizing our employees?”

The Limits of Individual Leadership

I want to be clear about something: you cannot, as an individual leader, stop ICE enforcement. You cannot single-handedly end occupation. Your power, while real, has limits.

And that’s okay. Nobody is asking you to solve this alone.

What we’re asking is that you use the power you do have. That you protect the people within your sphere of influence. That you connect your resources to larger networks of resistance. That you refuse to participate in the normalization of state violence.

You can’t fix this. But you can refuse to make it worse. You can create pockets of safety. You can use your platform to tell the truth about what’s happening. You can model what it looks like to prioritize human dignity over organizational convenience.

That matters. It doesn’t solve everything, but it matters.

What Comes Next

This isn’t going to end quickly. ICE enforcement will continue. Communities will continue living under threat. The terror will continue to be organized, deliberate, and targeted.

Which means you need to think about sustainability for your organization and for the people you employ and serve.

You cannot ask people to live in crisis mode indefinitely. You cannot expect sustained high performance from people who are being terrorized. You cannot build long-term impact on the backs of short-term exploitation.

So you need to make structural changes that are sustainable. Policies that protect people without burning them out. Networks that distribute the burden of mutual aid. Resources that don’t depend on individuals sacrificing themselves.

This is marathon work. Lead accordingly.

Leadership during occupation means building sustainable resistance, not heroic martyrdom. It means creating systems that protect people, not asking individuals to endure more than anyone should have to bear.

A Final Word

I know this is heavy. I know you’re already carrying a lot. I know the asks feel impossible and the stakes feel overwhelming.

But your employees need you. They’re living with terror. They’re making impossible choices about safety and survival every single day. They’re showing up to work while wondering if their families will still be intact when they get home.

And they’re watching you. They’re waiting to see if you’ll rise to this moment or retreat into comfortable neutrality. They’re hoping you’ll use your power to protect them, but preparing themselves for you to prioritize your own comfort instead.

Please don’t let them down.

With urgency and solidarity,

Terri

If you’re a leader grappling with these questions, or if you’re an employee experiencing this terror and wondering if your leader will show up please reach out. None of us should navigate this alone. We need each other.

I know you’re carrying an impossible weight right now.

Funding is uncertain. Demand is increasing. Your community is facing compounding crises. And you’re trying to figure out how to keep serving people with fewer resources than you need.

I also know what you’re probably doing: asking your staff to stretch further, take on more, work harder. Because the needs are real. Because people are suffering. Because if you don’t serve them, who will?

And I want to offer you something you might not have given yourself permission to consider: What if the answer right now isn’t doing more, but doing less?

I’ve been where you are. I’ve been the nonprofit leader trying to serve everyone while watching my staff buckle under the weight. I’ve been the staff member absorbing more and more until I couldn’t anymore. I know the guilt of turning people away. I know the fear that cutting anything means failing your mission.

But I also learned something crucial: sometimes the most protective thing you can do for your staff, and ultimately for the people you serve, is to radically simplify what you’re asking of them.

Why This Moment Demands Different Leadership

We’re not in normal times. Your staff aren’t just managing their regular workload. They’re also processing collective trauma, navigating personal crises, and operating in survival mode alongside the communities you serve.

When people are in that state, their capacity is genuinely reduced. Not because they’re not trying hard enough, but because trauma and chronic stress literally impair cognitive function. The brain in survival mode can’t access the same problem-solving, creativity, and focus it normally can.

So when we keep the same workload or worse, add to it during crisis, we’re not just asking a lot. We’re asking for something that’s neurologically difficult or impossible to deliver.

Eliminating non-essential work isn’t lowering your standards. It’s being realistic about what human beings can actually sustain during impossible times.

What Happens When We Don’t Simplify

Here’s what I’ve observed happens when nonprofit leaders try to maintain everything during crisis:

Quality declines across the board. When staff are stretched too thin, they can’t do anything well. You think you’re serving more people, but you’re actually serving more people poorly, which isn’t the same thing.

Staff burn out and leave. You lose institutional knowledge, relationships with clients, and the trust it took years to build. The cost of that turnover far exceeds the cost of reducing services temporarily.

The most dedicated people suffer most. The staff who care deeply about the mission will keep trying to do everything until they completely break. They won’t advocate for themselves because they don’t want to let people down. So it’s on you to protect them from their own dedication.

You set unsustainable expectations with funders. When you demonstrate that you can serve 500 people with a team of three during a crisis, funders assume that’s the baseline. You make it harder to advocate for adequate resources later.

None of this serves your mission. All of it harms your staff.

What Non-Essential Work Looks Like Right Now

I want to give you permission to question everything on your plate right now. Not forever, just for this acute crisis period. Ask yourself about each program, task, and initiative: Is this truly essential, or is this something we’re doing because we’ve always done it?

Things that might be non-essential right now:

• New initiatives or pilots: Can these wait six months? A year? Is this the time to innovate, or the time to focus on core services?

• Extensive reporting or metrics: Can you simplify what you track? Focus on the minimum required by funders and let the rest go temporarily?

• Committee meetings or working groups: Which meetings could be paused? Which could be monthly instead of weekly?

• Professional development or trainings: While growth matters, survival matters more right now. Can some of this be deferred?

• Community events or outreach: What could be scaled back or postponed without harming your core services?

• Administrative tasks: What processes could be simplified? What “nice to haves” could be dropped?

• Grant applications for stretch funding: If pursuing a grant requires significant staff time for uncertain payoff, is it worth it right now?

Try this exercise: Make a list of everything your organization is currently doing. Ask your staff which things drain energy without clear impact. You might be surprised what they identify as burdensome that you thought was essential.

How to Actually Cut Back

I know this feels scary. You’re worried about letting people down, losing funding, or appearing to shrink when needs are growing. Those fears are valid. But here’s how you can approach this thoughtfully:

Be transparent with your board and funders.

Tell them the truth: “Our staff are managing the same collective trauma as the communities we serve. To maintain quality and prevent burnout, we’re temporarily focusing on core services. Here’s what we’re pausing and why.”

Most funders would rather have you deliver strong core services than collapse trying to do everything. And if they don’t understand that, it’s information worth having about whether they’re partners worth keeping.

Set clear boundaries about capacity.

When asked to take on more clients, serve more people, or expand services, practice saying: “We don’t have the capacity to do that well with our current staffing.” Not “we’ll try” or “we’ll make it work.” Just honest clarity about limits.

If someone offers funding to expand, it needs to include funding for adequate staffing, not just program costs. Be clear about that upfront.

Involve staff in decision-making.

Your frontline staff know better than anyone what’s draining energy without creating impact. Ask them what could be cut or simplified. They might have relief-giving insights you haven’t considered.

And when staff suggest cutting something, resist the urge to defend it. Listen. Consider. Give weight to their lived experience of what’s sustainable.

Communicate clearly about temporary changes.

Let community members know: “Due to increased need and reduced capacity during this crisis, we’re focusing on core services. Here are the resources we can provide right now, and here are other organizations that might be able to help with X, Y, Z.”

Most people understand resource constraints. They’ll respect honesty more than over-promise and under-deliver.

I know this is hard. Every program you pause, every person you can’t serve, every initiative you delay feels like failure. Like you’re not doing enough.

But protecting your staff’s capacity isn’t failure. It’s sustainability. It’s recognizing that you can’t serve people well if your staff are too depleted to show up fully. It’s choosing quality over quantity, impact over volume.

What You’re Actually Protecting

When you eliminate non-essential work and set boundaries around capacity, here’s what you’re protecting:

Your staff’s health and wellbeing. They can go home at reasonable hours. They can take days off without guilt. They can have energy left for their own lives and relationships.

Quality of services. When people aren’t stretched impossibly thin, they can actually be present with clients. They can build relationships, solve problems creatively, do the work that matters.

Institutional sustainability. Staff who aren’t burning out stay longer. They build deeper expertise. They become invaluable community resources. That’s worth more than any single program.

Your own capacity to lead. When you’re not in constant crisis mode trying to make impossible math work, you can think strategically, support your staff, and actually lead rather than just react.

You cannot pour from an empty cup. And you cannot build sustainable community impact on the backs of unsustainable staff workloads.

A Different Kind of Leadership

There’s a particular kind of courage required to say “no” or “not right now” when needs are urgent and visible. It goes against everything we’re taught in the nonprofit sector about dedication, sacrifice, and going the extra mile.

But what if that model was always broken? What if the most radical thing you could do as a nonprofit leader is refuse to participate in a system that depends on exploiting mission-driven people’s dedication?

What if protecting your staff’s capacity, even when it means serving fewer people, is actually the most mission-aligned choice you can make?

You can’t build a just, equitable world by burning out the people trying to create it. You can’t provide trauma-informed services to your community if your staff are too traumatized to function. You can’t sustain impact if you can’t sustain your people.

Starting This Week

If you take nothing else from this, take this: Look at your organization’s current workload and ask yourself what one thing could be paused, simplified, or eliminated this week.

Maybe it’s a weekly meeting. Maybe it’s a report. Maybe it’s a program that’s draining resources without clear impact. Maybe it’s saying no to one more request when you’re already at capacity.

Just one thing. This week.

And then notice what happens. Notice if your staff breathe a little easier. Notice if quality improves when people have space to focus. Notice if the sky doesn’t fall when you set a boundary.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What are we doing because we’ve always done it, not because it’s currently essential?

• What would my staff say drains energy without creating meaningful impact?

• If we could only do three things well right now, what would they be?

• What am I afraid will happen if we pause or cut something and is that fear based on evidence or assumption?

• What would it look like to prioritize sustainability over volume for the next 6 months?

You’re Not Alone In This

Every nonprofit leader I know is grappling with these same impossible choices right now. You’re not the only one feeling stretched too thin. You’re not the only one worried about letting people down. You’re not the only one wondering how to do more with less.

The leaders who will still be here in five years, still making impact, still creating change are the ones who learned to protect their staff’s capacity even when it was hard. Even when it felt wrong. Even when it meant saying no to real needs.

Because sustainable impact requires sustainable people. And sustainable people require leaders who are willing to set boundaries, eliminate non-essential work, and prioritize quality over quantity.

Your staff need you to be that leader for them. And the communities you serve need you to build something that lasts, not something that burns bright for a moment and then collapses.

Saying no to some things right now isn’t giving up on your mission. It’s protecting your capacity to live that mission for the long haul.

With deep respect for the impossible choices you’re navigating,

Terri

If you’re a nonprofit leader struggling with these questions, or if you’ve successfully simplified your work during crisis, I’d love to hear from you. We learn best from each other.

I know you’re exhausted. You’ve sent the email acknowledging what happened in Minneapolis. You’ve told your team you see them and care. Now you’re sitting with the uncomfortable awareness that words aren’t enough, but you’re also not sure you have anything left to give.

I see you. What I’m about to say comes not from judgment, but from someone who’s been both the person needing protection and the person responsible for providing it.

When I ran a nonprofit while facing threats and violence, I was also a leader supporting my traumatized team. I know what it’s like to be drowning while everyone expects you to be the lifeboat. What I am about to share isn’t a guilt trip, it’s a roadmap. Not because you’re failing, but because you’re trying.

Why Words Alone Don’t Work

I’ve lived through this disconnect more times than I can count. When I was running that nonprofit, facing threats and violence, I had leaders who said all the right things. “We’re so concerned about your safety.” “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.” “We value you so much.”

And then they’d turn around and refuse to fund security measures. They’d expect me to continue working alone in dangerous situations. They’d tell me my trauma responses were “unprofessional.” Their words said they cared. Their actions said I was expendable.

I learned something important from that experience: people don’t remember what you say when they’re in crisis. They remember what you do. And more specifically, they remember what you refuse to do.

Your employees, those directly and indirectly affected by ICE enforcement, are in that position now. They’ve heard your words. They’re waiting to see if anything changes.

Trauma-informed leadership isn’t about having the right feelings. It’s about making structural changes that prioritize human safety even when those changes are hard, expensive, or uncomfortable.

What Your Employees Actually Need

I’m not asking you to fix immigration policy. I’m asking you to use the power you have within your sphere. You have more than you think.

Change Your Policies

• Work with legal to create an ICE access protocol. Make it public so employees know their protections. Share it with your clients so that they know as well.

• Give blanket flexibility for remote work, adjusted hours, time off without requiring personal explanations.

• Create emergency leave for immigration-related situations that doesn’t count against PTO.

• Clarify in writing what employee information you’ll never provide without a judicial warrant.

Invest Resources Intentionally

Yes, this costs money. But the cost of not supporting traumatized employees is almost always higher. Start where you can:

• Partner with immigration attorneys for employee consultations

• Ensure mental health benefits include immigration trauma specialists

• Bring in immigrant rights organizations for Know Your Rights trainings

• Create even a small emergency fund for legal or family support

Adjust Your Expectations

You cannot expect normal performance during abnormal times. When people are in survival mode, their brains literally cannot access the same cognitive capacity.

• Actually reduce workloads, not just say “take your time”

• Cut non-essential meetings and initiatives

• Make it genuinely okay to say “I can’t take this on”

• Consider pausing performance evaluations during acute crisis

I know this is hard. You’re thinking, “But we have deadlines. Obligations.” You’re right. But what’s the alternative? Push people until they break? Watch productivity crater anyway because people are too dysregulated to focus? Adjusting expectations isn’t letting things slide, it’s being realistic about what’s actually possible.

Support Your Managers

Your managers are caught between your directives and their teams’ needs. Give them clear guidance:

• What trauma responses look like (not “performance issues”)

• What questions they should never ask about immigration status or personal details

• How to redistribute work fairly when team members are struggling

• Permission to prioritize people over metrics when necessary

Use Your Positional Power

You have influence beyond your workplace. Consider using some of it:

• Make a statement supporting immigrant communities

• Partner with local immigrant rights organizations

• Let elected representatives know this matters to you as a business leader

• Share what you’re learning with other leaders

What This Costs—And Why It Matters

Trauma-informed leadership costs money, time, comfort, and control. And it’s still worth it. Because employees who feel abandoned don’t just leave, they tell others. Productivity doesn’t just dip, it craters when people are too traumatized to function.

But beyond the business case: you’ll have to live with the kind of leader you chose to be during this time.

Your Own Limits Matter Too

You can be trauma-informed and still have limits. You can care deeply and still have boundaries. You can do your best and still fall short sometimes.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, start with one thing. Partner with people who have expertise you don’t. Ask for help. Admit when you don’t know what to do.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s to be the kind of leader who tries, who makes changes where they can, who’s honest about limitations, and who keeps showing up even when it’s hard.

Where to Start

Pick one thing from this list that feels doable. Just one. Do that this week. Then reassess and pick the next thing.

Maybe it’s drafting that ICE protocol. Maybe it’s talking to your management team about adjusting expectations. Maybe it’s reaching out to an immigrant rights organization. Maybe it’s setting up a small emergency fund.

One thing. This week.

Your employees aren’t expecting perfection. They’re hoping you’ll be present. They don’t need you to fix everything. They need you to do something.

Years from now, you’ll remember the kind of leader you chose to be. Your employees are counting on you, yes. But they’re also rooting for you. They want you to succeed at this. They want to believe their leader will show up when it matters.

Give them a reason to believe.

With deep respect for the weight you carry,

Terri

Years ago, I worked with people who had committed sexual offenses. It was difficult work, the kind that makes people uncomfortable at dinner parties.

One day, I discovered that one of the individuals we were working with had been casing my house. He knew where I lived. He’d been watching my routines, my patterns, my vulnerabilities. When I found out, my body went into a state I can only describe as primal terror. Every sound at night became a threat. Every shadow outside my window was him. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. My nervous system was stuck in permanent fight-or-flight.

I wasn’t fine.

That was just one incident. There were others. I’ve been attacked, repeatedly. I’ve worked inside prisons where the threat of violence was constant and where I had to learn to read a room for danger before I could think about anything else. I’ve needed police escorts just to leave my own nonprofit building because of neighborhood violence.

I know what it’s like to lead while your body is screaming at you to run. I know what it’s like to try to focus on a strategic plan when your amygdala is convinced you’re about to die. I know what it’s like when the people who are supposed to support you act like you should just “handle it” and “stay professional.”

I also know what secondary trauma looks like. I’ve watched my team members absorb the violence and fear we were exposed to. I’ve seen brilliant, capable people break down because they couldn’t hold it anymore. I’ve witnessed the toll that living in proximity to danger takes on people who are just trying to do good work.

So when I heard about Rene Good being killed by ICE in Minneapolis, I didn’t just feel sad. I felt it in my body. Because I know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that violence can find you anywhere. I know what it’s like to wonder if today is the day. I know what it’s like when the people in power, the people who could make you safer, choose silence instead.

I’m writing this because I need you to understand something: your employees who are living in fear of ICE are experiencing exactly what I experienced. Their nervous systems are dysregulated. Their bodies are in survival mode. They’re trying to show up and perform and be “professional” while every cell in their body is telling them they’re in danger.

If you’re a leader in Minnesota right now, your immigrant employees, your employees of color, your employees with mixed-status families are sitting in your meetings with their hearts racing. They’re trying to focus on spreadsheets while their bodies are preparing to fight or flee. They’re wondering if you see them, if you care, if you’ll protect them.

The question is: what are you going to do about it?

Why This Matters to Every Minnesota Leader

I get it. You didn’t sign up to be an immigration expert. You’re trying to run a business, manage a team, hit your targets. You might be thinking, “This is a federal issue. What does it have to do with my workplace?”

Everything. It has everything to do with your workplace.

When I was living with those threats, do you know what made it worse? It was the people who acted like it wasn’t a big deal. The colleagues who suggested I was overreacting. The board members who wanted me to focus on fundraising goals while I was trying to figure out if I’d make it home alive. The silence from people who had the power to help but chose comfort instead.

That silence didn’t protect me. It isolated me. It made me feel like my safety didn’t matter, like my fear was inconvenient, like I was supposed to just push through and be “resilient.”

That’s what you’re doing to your employees right now if you stay silent about what’s happening with ICE enforcement. You’re telling them their fear is inconvenient. You’re telling them to be resilient while their bodies are in survival mode. You’re choosing your own comfort over their safety.

And I’m here to tell you: that’s not leadership. That’s abandonment.

Minnesota is home to one of the most vibrant and diverse immigrant populations in the country. We have the largest Somali community in the United States. Our Latino population has grown by over 75% in the last two decades. We have thriving Korean, Hmong, Ethiopian, and Liberian communities to name a few. These aren’t just statistics; these are our neighbors, our coworkers, our employees.

Right now, many of them are living in a state of terror.

When ICE killed Renee Good on the streets of Minneapolis, the trauma doesn’t stop at her family. It radiates outward through every immigrant community, every mixed-status family, every person of color who has ever been made to feel like they don’t belong here.

Your employees are affected. Whether they’re directly at risk or not, whether they’re undocumented or third-generation citizens, they are processing this trauma. And if you don’t acknowledge it, you’re telling them their fear doesn’t matter. You’re telling them their humanity is irrelevant to you.

Silence isn’t neutrality. It’s a choice. And it’s a choice that wounds.

What You Actually Need to Know About ICE

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: most leaders are dangerously uninformed about immigration enforcement. And that ignorance puts your employees at risk. So let me break down what you need to understand, right now.

1. ICE Enforcement Is Escalating and It’s Not Just Targeting “Criminals”

I know what you’ve heard: “ICE only goes after dangerous criminals.” That’s not true. That’s never been fully true, and it’s especially not true right now.

ICE operations have expanded dramatically. The definition of “priority targets” has broadened. Workplace raids are happening. “Collateral arrests” (when agents detain people who happen to be present during an operation targeting someone else) are increasing. And the use of force, as we’ve just seen, can be deadly.

What this means for your team:

• People are afraid to leave their homes. Employees might be late, absent, or anxious about commuting because they fear being stopped by ICE.

• Families are living in constant crisis mode. Your employee might be distracted because their spouse didn’t make it home from work, or because their kid’s school called about an ICE presence nearby.

• Mental health is deteriorating rapidly. Hypervigilance, panic attacks, insomnia, depression aren’t overreactions. These are normal responses to living under threat.

Real talk: If you’re expecting your employees to perform at 100% right now, you’re delusional. Trauma doesn’t care about your quarterly goals. The human nervous system doesn’t operate on your timeline.

2. Your Workplace Could Be Targeted and You Need to Know Your Rights

ICE can show up at your workplace. And when they do, you have rights. Your employees have rights. But if you don’t know what those rights are, you can’t protect anyone.

Key things to know:

• ICE often uses administrative warrants, which are NOT the same as judicial warrants. You are not required to grant them access to non-public areas of your workplace without a warrant signed by a judge.

• You have the right to ask to see any warrant and to consult with your attorney before allowing entry.

• You are not required to provide employee information (like I-9 forms or personnel files) to ICE unless they present a judicially-issued warrant or subpoena.

• Your employees have the right to remain silent and to speak with an attorney.

I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying this because being informed is your responsibility. If ICE shows up and you don’t know your rights, you could inadvertently put your employees in danger. You could hand over documents you’re not legally required to provide. You could allow access you’re not obligated to grant.

Get educated. Work with an immigration attorney. Create a protocol. Train your managers. Make this information transparent to your workforce.

3. Mixed-Status Families Are Everywhere—And They’re In Pain

Let me tell you about Maria (not her real name). She’s a U.S. citizen. Born here. Voted in every election since she turned 18. Her husband? Undocumented. He’s been here for 20 years, works two jobs, has never had so much as a speeding ticket. They have three kids, all U.S. citizens.

Maria wakes up every single day terrified that her husband won’t come home. Every time there’s a news story about ICE enforcement, she has a panic attack. She’s constantly updating their family emergency plan: who will pick up the kids if he gets detained, where the important documents are, how they’ll survive financially if he’s deported.

Maria is your employee. Maybe not literally, but someone like her is on your team right now. And you probably have no idea what she’s going through.

Mixed-status families live in a constant state of fragmentation. They are always one traffic stop, one workplace raid, one knock on the door away from being torn apart.

These families need:

• Flexibility when they need to attend immigration hearings, meet with lawyers, or handle family emergencies

• Mental health support that understands immigration-related trauma

• Financial assistance for legal fees (which can run into tens of thousands of dollars)

• A workplace where they don’t have to hide their fear or pretend everything is fine

What Leadership Actually Looks Like Right Now

Okay, so you’re informed now. You understand the stakes. The question is: what do you actually do?

Step 1: Break the Silence

Start with sending an email. Call a team meeting. Post on your internal channels. Say something. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be long. But it has to be genuine.

Here’s a template if you need one:

“I want to acknowledge the devastating news of Renee Good who was killed by ICE in Minneapolis. I know this event is causing fear, pain, and uncertainty for many people in our community, particularly those in immigrant families.

I want you to know: this organization sees you. We value you. Your safety and wellbeing matter to us. We are committed to supporting you in any way we can, and we are here to listen, to learn, and to act.

If you need time, space, resources, or support; please reach out. We will figure this out together.”

That’s it. You don’t need to solve immigration policy. You just need to be human.

Step 2: Get Your Team Educated on “Know Your Rights”

Partner with local immigrant rights organizations to bring “Know Your Rights” training to your workplace. Here in Minnesota, we’re fortunate to have incredible organizations like:

• COPAL: https://copalmn.org/

• Immigrant Defense Network: https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/

• Navigate MN: http://mimercadocentral.com/profile/navigate-mn/

• The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota: https://www.ilcm.org/

Reach out to them. Bring them in. Make this training available to all employees, regardless of immigration status. Make it clear that attending is voluntary and confidential.

And don’t just send an email with a PDF. Actually facilitate access. Offer it during work hours. Provide translation. Remove every barrier you can.

Step 3: Review and Communicate Your Workplace Policies

Work with your legal team to:

• Clarify what information you will or won’t provide to ICE without a judicial warrant

• Create a clear protocol for what happens if ICE agents arrive at your workplace

• Train managers, HR, and security on these procedures

• Communicate these policies transparently to your entire workforce

Transparency reduces fear. When people understand their protections, they can breathe a little easier. When everything is ambiguous, anxiety fills the gaps.

Step 4: Provide Real, Tangible Support

Words matter. But resources matter more. Consider:

• Expanding EAP benefits to include counseling for immigration-related trauma

• Creating an emergency fund to help employees cover legal fees, bail, or family support costs

• Partnering with immigration attorneys to provide free or reduced-cost consultations

• Offering paid time off for immigration-related appointments and hearings

• Providing financial stipends for employees who need to travel to see detained family members

Yes, this costs money. But you know what else costs money? Losing talented employees because they don’t feel safe. Decreased productivity because people are too traumatized to focus. Turnover because your best people leave for organizations that actually care.

Let me tell you about secondary trauma, because I’ve lived it and I’ve watched it destroy teams.

When I was running that nonprofit, working with individuals who’d committed sexual offenses and navigating constant threats to my own safety, I wasn’t the only one affected. My entire team was absorbing the violence we were exposed to. One of my staff members started having panic attacks in the parking lot before coming into work. Another couldn’t sleep for weeks after a particularly threatening incident. One of our most talented program managers eventually quit because she said, “I can’t carry this anymore. I’m bringing it home to my kids.”

Secondary trauma is real. It’s what happens when you’re in proximity to other people’s danger and fear. It’s what happens when you witness violence or hear about it constantly. It’s what happens when you care about people who are living in terror.

You can’t just expect people to power through it. You can’t just say “practice self-care” and think that’s enough. You have to actually create structural support. You have to acknowledge the reality of what people are experiencing. You have to make it okay to not be okay.

Your employees who aren’t directly targeted by ICE but who have colleagues, friends, family members, or community members who are? They’re experiencing secondary trauma right now. They’re absorbing their coworkers’ fear. They’re witnessing the terror in their communities. They’re wondering what they would do if ICE came to their workplace and targeted someone they work with every day.

This isn’t just affecting immigrant employees. This is affecting everyone with a conscience, everyone with empathy, everyone who’s paying attention.

This is an investment in your people.

Step 5: Create Space for Grief

You cannot demand business as usual right now. You just can’t. People are grieving. People are terrified. People are exhausted from holding it together.

Offer:

• Optional listening circles or community gatherings

• Radical flexibility around schedules and deadlines

• Mental health days that don’t require documentation

• Permission to step back, to be less than perfect, to not be okay

And managers? You need to model this. If you’re struggling, say so. If you’re feeling the weight of this, acknowledge it. When leaders are vulnerable, it gives everyone permission to be human.

A Personal Plea to Minnesota Leaders

I’ve been doing leadership development work for years, but before that, I was in the trenches. I was the person who needed protection. I was the person whose safety was an afterthought. I was the person who kept showing up even when my body was telling me to run.

I know what it feels like when leaders choose silence. I know what it feels like to be told your fear is “too much” or “not professional.” I know what it feels like to carry trauma alone because the people in power can’t or won’t acknowledge what’s happening.

And I also know what it feels like when someone finally does show up. When someone finally says, “I see you. What you’re experiencing is real. Let me help.” That moment, that simple act of acknowledgment and solidarity, changes everything. It doesn’t fix everything, but it changes everything.

I’m writing this because I don’t want your employees to feel the way I felt. I don’t want them to carry this terror alone. I don’t want them to feel abandoned by the people who are supposed to care about their wellbeing.

You have power. You might not be able to change federal immigration policy, but you can change what happens inside your organization. You can create a pocket of safety in a world that feels dangerous. You can be a leader who shows up when it matters most.

This is not about politics. This is about people. Your people. The human beings who show up every day and give you their time, their energy, their talent, their trust.

They’re watching to see what you’ll do. They’re waiting to see if you’ll acknowledge their pain or pretend it doesn’t exist. They’re wondering if you’ll be brave enough to lead with compassion even when it’s uncomfortable.

Please don’t let them down.

What “Minnesota Brave” Looks Like

We love to talk about “Minnesota Nice.” We pride ourselves on being welcoming, on being a refuge, on being good neighbors.

But nice isn’t enough right now. Nice is passive. Nice is comfortable. Nice can coexist with silence.

What we need is Minnesota Brave.

We need leaders who are brave enough to get informed about ICE enforcement even when it’s complicated and uncomfortable.

We need leaders who are brave enough to acknowledge what’s happening even when it feels politically risky.

We need leaders who are brave enough to take concrete action to protect their most vulnerable employees even when it costs money and requires change.

We need leaders who are brave enough to say: “Your humanity matters more than our bottom line. Your safety matters more than our comfort. Your dignity matters, period.”

So here’s my challenge to you:

Before this week ends, do one thing. Just one.

Send that email. Schedule that Know Your Rights training. Research those local organizations. Talk to your legal team. Check in with your employees.

Do something. Because doing nothing is a choice. And it’s a choice that will be remembered.

This Is Your Legacy

Years from now, your employees will remember how you showed up during this time. They’ll remember whether you acknowledged their fear or ignored it. They’ll remember whether you took action or stayed silent. They’ll remember whether you chose comfort or courage.

I remember every leader who failed me when I was in distress. I remember the ones who told me to be more resilient, to not let it affect my work, to just focus on the mission. I remember the ones who stayed silent because addressing my safety felt too complicated or too uncomfortable.

But I also remember the ones who showed up. The colleague who insisted I shouldn’t have to work alone. The board member who demanded we invest in security. The supervisor who said, “Your safety matters more than this program.” Those people changed my life. They’re why I survived. They’re why I’m still here, writing this to you.

You have the opportunity to be that person for your employees. The one who shows up. The one who says their safety matters. The one who takes action even when it’s hard.

You’re that someone. You have that power.

The question is: what are you going to do with it?

With urgent hope and deep conviction,

Terri

If this resonated with you, please share it with other leaders in Minnesota. Let’s build a community of brave, informed, compassionate leadership together.

Let’s begin by acknowledging something important: before you can hold space for others, you need to tend to yourself. The weight you’re carrying right now—the…

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I write to you today with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility. The murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by ICE has sent shockwaves through our communities, our workplaces, and the hearts of countless people who are grappling with fear, grief, and profound uncertainty. For many of our employees, particularly those from immigrant communities, people of color, and anyone who has experienced state violence or systemic oppression, this isn’t just news. It’s trauma. It’s personal. It’s terror brought to their doorstep.

And as leaders, we have a choice: Do we look away, maintain “business as usual,” and hope the distress passes? Or do we step forward with courage, compassion, and the recognition that our people are hurting and that our response matters profoundly?

The Reality We Must Face

Trauma-informed leadership begins with acknowledgment. We cannot lead through what we refuse to see. Right now, many of your employees are experiencing acute fear about their own safety or the safety of loved ones. For immigrant employees, mixed-status families, and undocumented workers, this incident is a visceral reminder of their vulnerability. They may be wondering: Could this happen to me? To my mother? My sister? My child?

Re-experiencing past trauma. This event doesn’t exist in isolation. For many, it reopens wounds from previous encounters with law enforcement, ICE raids, family separations, discrimination, or violence. The body remembers, even when the mind tries to move forward.

Feeling invisible and unsafe at work. When leadership stays silent on events that fundamentally threaten employees’ sense of safety and dignity, it communicates that their humanity is not valued. Silence is not neutrality, it’s a choice that wounds.

Struggling to concentrate, perform, or engage. Trauma dysregulates the nervous system. Your employees may be hyper-vigilant, dissociated, exhausted, or emotionally raw. Expecting “normal” productivity right now is not only unrealistic, it’s harmful.

These are not hypotheticals. This is the lived reality for many people on your teams right now. The question is: What will you do about it?

What Trauma-Informed Leadership Looks Like

1. Acknowledge the pain

Trauma thrives in silence. Healing begins when we name what is happening. Send a message to your team. You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to show up. Something like:

“I want to acknowledge the devastating news of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE in Minneapolis. I know this event may be affecting many of you deeply; whether because of personal connection, shared identity, or simply because you are a human being who cares about justice and safety. I want you to know that I see you, I am here for you, and this organization stands with you during this painful time.”

2. Create space for processing

People need permission to not be okay. Consider offering optional listening circles, mental health hours, or team check-ins where people can share how they’re feeling without fear of judgment or professional consequences. Bring in trauma counselors or Employee Assistance Program resources. Make it clear that it’s okay to take time to grieve, to be angry, to need support.

3. Extend flexibility and grace

This is not the time for business as usual. If someone needs to leave early, work from home, take a mental health day, or simply cannot give their full attention to a project, honor that. Trauma is exhausting. The fight-or-flight response is running in the background for many of your employees right now. Flexibility is not a favor, it’s a necessity.

4. Provide concrete resources

Compile and share information on legal support, mental health services, immigrant rights organizations, and community resources. If your company has the means, consider creating or contributing to an emergency fund for employees or community members affected by immigration enforcement. Action speaks louder than words.

5. Amplify safety where you can

If your workplace has undocumented employees or immigrant team members, now is the time to review your “know your rights” policies and ensure people understand their legal protections. Work with legal counsel to clarify what information your organization is or isn’t required to provide to law enforcement. Transparency about these policies can reduce fear and build trust.

6. Model vulnerability

If you’re struggling with this news too, say so. Leaders don’t have to have all the answers or be unaffected by tragedy. By showing that you’re also processing, learning, and grappling with difficult emotions, you give your team permission to do the same. Vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s connection.

What This Moment Demands of Us

Trauma-informed leadership is not a checklist. It’s a commitment to seeing the full humanity of the people we lead and responding to their needs, especially when those needs are uncomfortable, inconvenient, or politically fraught. It’s about creating workplaces where people don’t have to choose between their safety and their livelihood, between their grief and their professionalism, between their identity and their job.

This moment is asking us to be more than managers or executives. It’s asking us to be helpers, advocates, and witnesses. It’s asking us to use whatever power and privilege we have to protect and support the most vulnerable among us.

This moment is asking us to be more than managers or executives. It’s asking us to be helpers, advocates, and witnesses. It’s asking us to use whatever power and privilege we have to protect and support the most vulnerable among us.

Your employees are watching. They are waiting to see whether you will meet this moment with courage or look away. They are wondering whether your values are real or just words on a website. They are deciding whether they can trust you to care for them when the world feels dangerous.

Please, don’t let them down.

A Personal Plea

I know this is hard. I know speaking up feels risky. I know you might worry about saying the wrong thing or being seen as “too political.” But here’s the truth: People’s lives are not political. Safety is not political. Dignity is not political. And in moments like this, silence is complicity.

So I’m asking you, leader to leader: Step up. Show up. Be brave. Your people need you, not your perfection, but your presence. Not your solutions, but your solidarity. Not your power, but your compassion.

We are living through a moment that will define us. Let’s make sure that when our employees look back, they remember that we chose to lead with love, with courage, and with an unwavering commitment to their humanity.

With hope and resolve,

Terri

We were talking about a difficult situation I’d been wrestling with, and I found myself spiraling into that familiar pattern: Was my perception accurate? Was my response affective? Were my feelings legitimate? My therapist paused and said something simple but profound: “It sounds like you’re needing validation that what you experienced was real and that your response made sense.”

And there it was. The thing I’d been dancing around for weeks.

Validation isn’t just nice to have, it’s actually essential to healing from adversity and trauma. When we’ve been through something hard, when our reality has been questioned or our experiences minimized, being truly seen and affirmed becomes a fundamental part of making our way back to wholeness. It’s not weakness or neediness. It’s how we integrate what happened and reclaim our sense of self.

This realization opened up something else for me: there’s a quiet tension that lives in the heart of trauma-informed leadership. It rarely gets named in leadership development circles but shapes how we show up every single day.

It’s the tension between trusting ourselves and seeking confirmation from others. Between internal knowing and external feedback. Between self-validation and the very human need to be seen, recognized, and affirmed by those around us.

For leaders doing trauma-informed work, this tension isn’t just philosophical. It’s deeply practical, often painful, and always worth examining. And it’s deeply connected to our own healing journeys.

The Self-Validation Imperative

Trauma-informed leadership requires an unusual degree of self-trust. When you’re creating psychologically safe spaces, challenging systemic harm, or holding complexity that others want to flatten into binaries, you can’t wait for consensus to know you’re on the right path.

Self-validation means trusting your read of a situation even when it contradicts the dominant narrative. It means knowing that your trauma-informed approach is sound even when traditional leaders question you. It means holding your ground when rapid growth culture clashes with sustainable, healing-centered practices.

This internal compass becomes especially critical because trauma-informed work often means being the first person in the room to name something uncomfortable. The power dynamic that just shifted. The way a policy might re-traumatize. The gap between stated values and lived experience. You need the capacity to trust what you see and feel before anyone else validates it.

Without self-validation, trauma-informed leaders become chameleons, shape-shifting to match whatever response seems safest in the moment and abandoning their knowing to avoid conflict or rejection.

The External Validation Necessity

And yet.

Seeking external validation isn’t a weakness. It’s part of being a connected, accountable human. When you understand validation through the lens of healing, it becomes even clearer why it matters so profoundly.

When we experience trauma, adversity, or crisis, one of the most damaging aspects is often the isolation—the sense that what we went through doesn’t make sense to anyone else, that our reactions are “too much” or “wrong,” that maybe we’re the problem. Validation breaks through that isolation. It says: what happened to you was real, your response makes sense, you’re not crazy or broken for feeling what you feel.

This is why trauma-informed leadership is inherently relational work. We can’t do it in isolation from feedback, reflection, and the lived experiences of those we serve. External validation, when it comes from trusted sources, helps us reality-test our perceptions, catch our blind spots, and ensure we’re not confusing our trauma responses with leadership wisdom.

But it’s also doing something deeper: it’s continuing our own healing. Every time we’re truly seen and affirmed in the complexity of what we’re navigating, it reinforces our capacity to trust ourselves. It helps us metabolize difficult experiences rather than carry them as undigested shame or doubt.

There’s a reason supervision, peer consultation, and community accountability are cornerstones of trauma-informed practice. We need others to help us see what we can’t see from inside our own nervous systems. We need witnesses to our struggles and our growth.

External validation also matters because trauma-informed leaders are doing hard, often invisible work that takes a toll. Being witnessed and affirmed in that work isn’t indulgent, it’s sustaining. It helps prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. It reminds us we’re not alone in trying to build something different.

The goal isn’t to eliminate the need for external validation. The goal is to ensure we’re seeking it from people who understand what we’re building and why it matters and who can offer the kind of validation that actually supports healing rather than just soothing our egos.

Validation as a Healing Practice

What became clear to me in that therapy session is that the validation we need as leaders is inseparable from the validation we need as people moving through our own healing.

When we lead from a trauma-informed lens, we’re not just implementing best practices, we’re often reworking patterns from our own histories. The way we respond to conflict, the boundaries we struggle to hold, the moments we freeze or over-function aren’t just leadership challenges. They’re invitations to heal.

Healing requires validation at multiple levels:

Validation that our trauma was real. Not overdramatized, not imagined, not our fault. This allows us to stop minimizing what we’ve been through.

Validation that our responses made sense. The ways we protected ourselves, the strategies we developed, the parts of us that are still on high alert all made perfect sense in context. This allows us to move from shame to self-compassion.

Validation that we’re making sense now. That our current perceptions, instincts, and choices are grounded in reality, not just old wounds. This allows us to trust ourselves in the present.

Validation that growth is happening. That the work we’re doing, both internally and in our leadership, matters and is moving us forward. This allows us to keep going when change feels imperceptible.

As trauma-informed leaders, we’re in the position of offering these forms of validation to others while also needing them ourselves. Understanding this reciprocal nature changes everything. It makes seeking validation feel less like neediness and more like an act of integration, bringing together our healing and our leadership into a coherent whole.

When the Balance Tips

Problems arise when we lean too far in either direction.

Over-reliance on self-validation can look like rigidity disguised as conviction. It can mean dismissing valid feedback as “not getting it” or using trauma-informed language to avoid accountability. It can lead to isolation, echo chambers, and the very top-down leadership we’re trying to transform.

Over-dependence on external validation shows up as constant second-guessing, people-pleasing that compromises boundaries, and abandoning trauma-informed principles when they’re unpopular. It means making decisions based on who will approve rather than what the moment requires.

Both extremes ultimately undermine the trust and authenticity that trauma-informed leadership requires.

Finding Your Balance

So how do we walk this line? A few practices that help:

Distinguish between sources. Not all external validation carries the same weight. Feedback from someone who shares your values and understands trauma-informed work differs fundamentally from criticism rooted in discomfort with change. Get clear on whose opinions matter to you and why.

Notice your patterns. Do you tend to seek reassurance before making decisions? Or do you dismiss concerns too quickly? Understanding your default helps you course-correct.

Build a trusted circle. Create relationships with peers, mentors, or supervisors who can offer both validation and challenge. People who will affirm your commitment while also asking hard questions about your impact.

Check your body. Your nervous system often knows the difference between genuine uncertainty (which benefits from external input) and old trauma patterns (which might be triggering excessive doubt or defensiveness). Learn to read those signals.

Hold both truths. Practice saying: “I trust my assessment AND I want to hear other perspectives.” “I believe in this approach AND I’m open to learning I’m wrong.” This isn’t wishy-washy—it’s integrated leadership.

The Deeper Work

Ultimately, navigating self and external validation as a trauma-informed leader requires us to do our own healing work. We have to examine where our needs for validation come from, what old wounds get activated in leadership moments, and how our own trauma histories shape what feels safe or threatening.

This isn’t about achieving some perfect balance. It’s about building enough self-awareness and self-compassion to notice when we’re tipping too far in one direction and having the tools to rebalance. It’s about recognizing that our need for validation isn’t a deficiency to overcome. It’s part of being human, and especially part of healing from what we’ve been through.

The conversation with my therapist today reminded me that I don’t have to choose between trusting myself and needing others to see me. Both are true. Both are necessary. Both are part of the same healing journey.

The leaders who create the most transformative, trauma-informed spaces aren’t the ones who never need external validation or who always trust themselves completely. They’re the ones who can hold both needs with wisdom, who know when to stand firm and when to lean into feedback, who remain humble students of their own humanity even as they guide others.

They’re the ones who understand that seeking validation, the right kind, from the right people, isn’t a sign they haven’t healed enough. It’s evidence that they’re still healing, still growing, still willing to be seen in their full complexity.

What’s your relationship with validation right now? Are you leaning more heavily on internal knowing or external feedback? And how does your own healing journey show up in how you lead? I’d love to hear what resonates or challenges you about this framework.