Trauma Informed Leadership Skills and Why They are Needed
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Speaker : SARAH O'BRIEN
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When : Thursday, July 10, 2025
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Time : 01 : 00 PM EST
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Sarah Fargo O’Brien (she/her) is an innovative trauma-informed leadership strategist. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW, LCSW-C), and has been a practicing psychotherapist specializing in Anxiety Disorders, Substance Use Disorders, and Relational/Betrayal Trauma for over 15 years. She has had many diverse and enriching experiences as a therapist that inform her work as a Trauma-Informed Consultant, including years as a crisis provider for a public mental health agency. She has been pivoting her clinical skills into other areas to reach wider audiences for impacting social change and overall person wellness. Sarah also writes, speaks, and educates others in efforts to reduce the stigma around mental health disorders & treatment, and to increase understanding of and accessibility to trauma-informed practices for all people and all businesses, as trauma informed care is the way of the future.
Not only is Sarah the Founder/CEO of both her psychotherapy practice and coaching/consulting business, she is the creator of the groundbreaking tool: the Trauma-Informed Crisis Response Guide. This step-by-step guide can be easily used and followed by any person, in any setting, to navigate the steps to address a mental health crisis in action. She has been featured in numerous media outlets to include Today, PsychReg, Authority Magazine, and Canvas Rebel. She is an international bestselling author, certified trauma informed life coach and consultant, and a vetted Subject Matter Expert in mental health, substance use, and trauma disorders, and trauma informed leadership practices. She strives to help folks wrap their minds around trauma-informed care in both clinical and non-clinical settings and work through their barriers to access transformational change, in life, in business, in self, in leadership.
Sarah lives out her beliefs in every aspect of her work, as she employs trauma informed principles to her business practices, marketing, design, content-creation, collaboration with other professionals or companies, and her work with clients. She has a contagious energy and uses it to empower every individual she works with to be their authentic selves…and wear it proudly. Her collaborative approach creates a synergy between herself and others that provides hype for motivation, follow-through on goals, and recognizable change. Neuroscience and evidenced-based practices are the driving forces behind Sarah’s approach to understanding how people create lasting and transformational change for themselves.
We will start with a definition of trauma informed, then trauma informed leadership specifically. We will outline the criteria in Sarah’s L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. framework. We will break down each component to lay out the specifics of each skill and how to improve in each skill. We will discuss three ways T.I. Leadership improves workplaces. You will receive tips and suggestions on how to improve in each skill and apply them to your setting and
leadership. We will review the top 3 skills to prioritize first.
Promised outcomes:
- The audience will walk away with solid knowledge about what trauma informed means; and what trauma informed leadership means.
- The audience will walk away with a clear indication of the skills needed to consider oneself a Trauma-Informed Leader.
- The audience will learn the specific skills of inclusive leadership.
- The audience will learn important differences between Trauma Informed Leadership and traditional Hierarchal Leadership; and why the latter is actually really detrimental for workplaces and the workforce.
- The audience will walk away with clarity about their role as a leader, supervisor, or manager and the influence they carry.
- They will be convicted on how they have neglected to consider the humans behind the work, and elevating the humans over the work produced.
- This talk should act as a catalyst for change through utilizing trauma-informed principles and practices to create a workplace culture committed to increasing safety and reducing harm for every person in the organization.
Areas Covered
- Definition for Trauma Informed and Trauma Informed Leadership
- Definition for Hierarchal Leadership; and the pitfalls
- The 10 necessary skills for Trauma Informed Leadership according to Sarah’s framework
- The required criteria for inpatient hospitalization
- Three (3) ways Trauma Informed Leadership improves workplaces
- Three (3) ways Hierarchal Leadership harms workplaces
- How to get leadership to actually improve in the application of these in the workplace, with a practice guide for real-life scenarios
Learning Objectives
- You will learn the definition for Trauma Informed, Trauma Informed Care, & Trauma Informed Leadership.
- You will learn definition of Hierarchal and Coercive Leadership.
- You will learn 10 specific skills for enhancing your Trauma Informed Leadership
- You will be able to name at least three ways in which applying Trauma Informed Leadership skills improves workplaces
- You will be able to name at least three ways using Hierarchal Leadership harms people and workplaces
- You will be able to determine where you need to improve in your inclusive leadership skills
- You will be able to name at least two practices for growing in Trauma Informed Leadership, and how to apply them to real-life settings
- You will learn why understanding and applying Trauma Informed Leadership skills is necessary for workplace health and workforce health, as well as trust and safety within a workplace
- You will consider your leadership role in understanding how you influence the culture and the workforce with the way you lead
- As a leader, you will consider how your inability to prioritize psychological safety puts your business, talent, and bottom line in jeopardy
- You will be able to see and understand that the importance of doing your work and practicing regularly is what leads to skill acquisition
Who Should Attend
Leaders, managers, supervisors, C-Suite Executives, directors, sales executives, IT managers, Customer service, Marketing, Human resources, team leads. Anyone in a Leadership position, Anyone in charge of making decisions that affect others.
Why Should You Attend
Have you ever been told you are not privy to certain information needed to do your job because you weren’t in a position of leadership? As a leader or supervisor, have you ever mentioned an upcoming performance evaluation as a means to motivate? If so, did you know this is using coercive power to lead?
Organizations and workplaces have people. Many organizations serve the public in some way or provide a product that people use. People are often the most integral part of an organization’s success, whether employees, leaders, or the customers
they serve. Without people doing the work, producing, selling, earning, or finishing tasks, then likely the organization wouldn’t exist…or would be suffering greatly. The need for acknowledgement and acceptance that people are dynamic, experience emotions, and are imperfect is long overdue in workplace settings. Adopting trauma informed leadership skills demonstrates greater success all around for an organization. Providing supportive and inclusive leadership for everyone at work results in higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover, higher productivity, lower absence due to illness or burnout, and ultimately, better quality work.
Trauma Informed Leadership is the way of the future. Today’s workforce is more aware of their emotional and mental needs. Psychological safety is quickly becoming a non-negotiable for workers and employees of all kinds, in all industries. Mental illness, past trauma, and burnout symptoms don’t stop at the door. Folks need to be more compassionate about the people they lead.
Sarah encourages her audience to understand what a Trauma Informed Leader is and the importance of equipping leaders with effective skills to lead in today’s workforce. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that past trauma experiences are likely for just about everyone at this point, and learning skills to lead with compassion is a game-changer for motivating today’s workforce in productivity and company goals. She will highlight key statistics from the APA’s recent workforce study.
Topic Background
Leadership today lacks some seriously needed skills to lead effectively and without causing harm. Trauma Informed Leadership does this best. Created a framework with a handy acronym to help leaders hone in on skills needed in today’s leadership landscape.
As a Trauma Informed Leadership Strategist and practicing clinician, Sarah Fargo O’Brien both sees and understands the effects of leadership on the mental health and wellness of those they lead. As she consults and trains on leadership strategy and organizational wellness, she has found that many organizations use top-down hierarchal forms of leadership. The issue with this form of leadership is that it’s often toxic, or can easily turn toxic. Leaders need trauma-informed skills to lead without causing more harm. One of the ways leaders can improve is by increasing their Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Skills, two main pillars behind Sarah’s framework.
In this webinar, Sarah Fargo O’Brien lays out the details of her L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. framework to highlight the most important trauma informed skills needed for effective, safe, inclusive, and equitable leadership. She will describe each skill (s) associated with each letter, as well as discuss the importance of learning and applying these skills to workplaces and other organizations. When we can lead with trauma informed principles like value for effective conflict resolution, embracing differences among us, leading with our own authenticity, it’s more likely we can create workplaces that are healthy which leads to talent retention and better results. Creating this type of culture benefits everyone and ultimately improves outcomes and the bottom line.
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$160.00
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