Trauma-Informed
Discover our short and experiential trauma-informed leadership development programs for leaders, people managers, and HR professionals.
Understand the impact of trauma and Adverse childhood experiences on high-performance teamwork, positive workplace cultures, innovation, and business transformation—as well as on individual performance, resilience, and relationships.
Empowering people with the skills and practices to consciously and compassionately transform maladaptive behaviors, beliefs, and emotions to unleash trapped energy, foster increased team aliveness, and open up new possibilities for growth and success.
Key Benefits Of Our Trauma-Informed
Leadership Development Programs
Understand The Basics Of Trauma, Brain Science & Interpersonal Neurobiology
Learn key concepts of trauma-informed leadership; understand the fundamentals of how stress, overwhelm, and adverse experiences impact the brain and body; and integrate basic principles for trauma-informed support, management, and leadership
Switch On Self-Awareness & Expand Empathy
Understand how past adverse experiences impacts present performance, communication, and team effectiveness—increasing the empathy and compassion of leaders and people managers around the stressors of their team members, and radically increasing the self-awareness of participants about how their “protective patterns” impact others
Unlock the Foundations Of Trusting & Reciprocal Relationships
Understand how to work with difficult emotions and interpersonal habits to move towards more trusting, caring, and reciprocal relationships—in order to cultivate a sense of belonging, supportiveness, and inclusiveness which are all crucial for overcoming the inherent risks of, and anxieties around, innovation and business transformation
Learn Trauma-Informed Leadership Practices
Explore simple yet powerful (and fun!) scientifically proven somatic practices that can support one in nervous system mastery – allowing for adaptability, resilience and emotional regulation
Hold Safe & Brave Spaces For Personal & Team Development
Experience first-hand some of the key ingredients for holding brave & safe spaces for individuals to share challenging experiences in ways that feel supportive for them—and that also remain appropriate for professional workplaces and organizational ambitions
Trauma-Informed Team Effectiveness & Culture Change Pathways
Co-create a concrete roadmap to move towards high-performing yet human-centric teams and conscious leadership cultures—with actionable next steps for team effectiveness, future of work, leadership development, and culture-change initiatives
Lead Facilitator On Trauma-Informed Leadership Development Training
Alison McAulay: Leadership Practioner & Trauma-Informed Therapist
Alison McAulay is a groundbreaking transformational leadership development theorist and practitioner, executive coach, and trauma-based therapist.
A former Team USA elite gymnast, professional dancer, and choreographer in Los Angeles and San Francisco; she has a BA in Performing Arts and advanced training in trauma-informed therapies, including Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, ACT, Attachment Theory, and Kundalini Yoga. With this wealth of knowledge and experience transforming hearts and minds, she has spent many years working with her Switch On Leadership co-founder to unfold the Self-to-System™ leadership curriculum.
Alison’s mission is to re-humanize businesses—and their teams and cultures—by expanding the consciousness, compassion, creativity, and capabilities of senior leaders and the team members they lead. McAulay is the co-founder and Chief Transformation Officer of the leadership consultancy Switch On Leadership.
Customized, Experiential & Transformative Programs
All of our programs are customized to your needs and tailored to the context of your business.
Fully Customized Programs & Sessions For Business Breakthroughs
We customize every program to meet and elevate your specific needs, ambitions, industry, and culture—drawing from our Self-To-System™ curriculum and 200 leadership capabilities map to drive business breakthroughs—and we also tailor each session to fit, and expand upon, the existing capabilities and confidence levels of your cohort
Creative, Emotive & Experiential Design For Profound Transformation
We innovate intensive emotive and experiential learning moments as possible to move your cohort from cognitively ‘knowing’ a topic to fully embodying it in their everyday attitudes and behaviors—aiming to rewire brains and nervous systems so leaders become the change you want to see
State-of-the-Art Brain-Based Tools & Practices For Optimal Results
We provide take-home tools and repeatable practices that have been iterated over decades to drive the highest quality outcomes (e.g. structuring emails, designing pitches for investment, finding authentic voice practices)—which participants learn during the program and master over a lifetime (with a perceptual license included)
“Deep Design” & Transformational Coaching For Maximum Impact
Our program designers and facilitators are not average trainers or project managers but masters of leadership transformation and the specific topics covered—so your program will be designed, evolved and improved, and facilitated by world-class experts that walk the talk, create all the content, and provide high-touch coaching during workshops
Get in touch so we can discuss how we can support your organization.
Customize Around Your Choice Of These Trauma-Informed Leadership Capabilities
Our trauma-informed leadership programs can be customized to build some or all of these specifics capabilities from across our cohesive and coherent Self-to-System™ leadership curriculum:
Developing Emotional & Interoceptive Intelligence & Agility
- Understand the role and dynamics of emotions and somatic sensations in leadership effectiveness
- Explore anxious and destabilizing emotions and somatic sensations rather than repress, suppress, numb, or act out
- Track how anxious and destabilizing emotions and bodily sensations change and translate them into words for sharing
- Regulate emotions and bodily sensations, particularly when feeling upset, overwhelmed, or shut down
- Transform anxious and destabilizing emotions and somatic sensations into energizing and stabilizing emotions and somatic sensation
Leveraging Trauma-Informed Personal Leadership
- Understand the impact of, and the importance of transforming, difficult emotions and memories in leadership effectiveness
- Accept difficult emotions and memories, potentially from traumatic experiences, and seek peer and professional support when appropriate
- Engage with tools and practices that can help to process and release difficult emotions and memories
- Engage with tools and practices that can help to transform and heal difficult emotions and memories to unlock stored-up energy, aliveness, and potency that is blocked by trauma
- Consciously cultivate more self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness to accelerate the journey of grieving, healing, and becoming more whole
Mastering Resilience & Sustained High Performance
- Understand the role and dynamics of physical, psychological, and existential stress and resilience in leadership effectiveness
- Build robustness to bounce back quickly from challenges, crises, disappointments, and frustrations
- Spot early physical and psychological signals of overwhelm and course correct through self-care
- Identify what most impacts personal resilience and utilize recovery practices to reduce overwhelm, exhaustion, and stress
- Proactively build physical, psychological, and existential resilience to unlock sustained high performance
Harnessing Presence, Attunement & Empathy
- Understand the role and dynamics of presence, attunement, and empathy in leadership effectiveness
- Be fully present and available with others without judgment, criticism, cynicism, biases, or projections
- Attune to the states and needs of others in an open-hearted and open-minded ‘neutral’ state
- Have empathy for the feelings, needs, perspectives, and behaviors of others
- Be vulnerable, authentic, and genuine with all, avoiding pretense, power plays, and status games and course correcting when not
Cultivating Team Receptivity, Trust & Reciprocity
- Understand the role and dynamics of receptivity and reciprocity in leadership effectiveness
- Freely invite and receive coaching on sabotaging behaviors, limiting beliefs, blindspots, and biases
- Take on, and look to leverage, both critical and appreciative feedback without taking it personally
- Be receptive to the needs of others yet also assertive to ensure own needs are met
- Seek to make relationships reciprocal, with a fair balance of give and take and send and receive
Fostering Belonging & Psychological Safety
- Understand the dynamics of belonging and psychological safety in leadership effectiveness
- Foster a positive team climate that allows learning even in challenging times, not taking mistakes or poor performance personally
- Cultivate psychological safety so others can contribute their ideas and insights free of aggression, dishonesty, and manipulation
- Share successes with others while protecting them from pressure from above
- Nurture a sense of team belonging without people feeling obligated to act in a certain way
An Article About Trauma-Informed Leadership
Why Businesses Need Trauma-Informed Leadership
Trauma from the past can block positive and creative work environments in the present, reducing an organization’s capacity to survive and thrive in the future. Leaders can help change that dynamic.
“Alison McAulay is like a gentle scalpel: both challenging and nurturing me to transform—and go way beyond what I thought I could do.”
Corporate Exec