How Unhealed Wounds Shape the Way We Lead

Because the boardroom and the pulpit have more in common than we think.

Let me ask you something honest: have you ever reacted to a situation in leadership and thought afterwards, where did that come from?

Maybe it was a sharp response to a team member who questioned your decision. Maybe it was the inability to delegate because deep down, trusting others feels unsafe. Maybe it was saying yes to every single request because the thought of someone being unhappy with you sends your whole nervous system into overdrive.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand, both through my own journey and through walking with hundreds of people in the Take Up Your Space process: much of how we lead is shaped by what we’ve lived through. And when our lived

experiences include trauma, whether from childhood, difficult relationships, toxic environments, or painful seasons in ministry, those wounds don’t just disappear when we step into a leadership role. They come with us. They sit at the table. And if we’re not aware of them, they start making decisions on our behalf.

What Do We Mean by Trauma?

Before we go further, let’s clear something up. When I say trauma, I’m not only talking about the big, obvious events, although those certainly count. I’m also talking about the quieter, more subtle kinds: growing up in a home where emotions weren’t welcome, being consistently criticised or overlooked, navigating environments where love was conditional, or carrying the weight of responsibility from far too young an age.

Trauma is not just what happened to you; it’s the effect it left on you. It’s the wound that didn’t fully heal. And it shows up in how we relate to people, how we handle conflict, how we respond to pressure, and ultimately, how we lead.

What Neuroscience Tells Us

This is where it gets really interesting. Neuroscience has shown us that when someone is triggered and a survival response kicks in, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for judgment, reasoning, self-awareness, and putting feelings into words) essentially goes offline. What takes over instead is the limbic system, the brain’s alarm centre, which operates on instinct rather than intention.

You’ve probably heard of the fight, flight, and freeze responses. But there’s a fourth one that’s very relevant in leadership: the fawn response. This is when a person’s survival strategy becomes people-pleasing, over-accommodating, and avoiding conflict at all costs. It often develops in people who grew up in environments where keeping the peace was the safest option.

Now, imagine each of these responses sitting in a leadership seat:

1. Fight looks like controlling leadership, micromanaging, reacting with anger or intimidation, needing to be right, and bulldozing over the input of others.

   
   

2. Flight looks like avoidant leadership, constantly busy but emotionally absent, jumping from project to project, and refusing to sit with hard conversations.

   
   

3. Freeze looks like passive leadership, inability to make decisions, shutting down under pressure, and becoming emotionally unavailable when the team needs direction.

   
   

4. Fawn looks like leadership without boundaries, saying yes to everything, unable to hold people accountable, and building an identity around being needed rather than being effective.

Any of these sound familiar? I know they do for me.

When Trauma Leads in the Church

The church is not immune to this. In fact, in many ways, church culture can unintentionally reinforce trauma-driven leadership. We celebrate sacrifice without asking if the person giving everything has anything left. We honour servanthood without checking whether someone’s inability to say no is actually rooted in a fawn response. We mistake intensity for anointing, control for spiritual authority, and busyness for fruitfulness.

A pastor operating from a fight response might run a tight ship, but the congregation lives in fear of making mistakes. A worship leader in flight mode might pour themselves into music and creativity while avoiding the deep relational work their team needs. A ministry leader stuck in freeze might be so overwhelmed by the weight of people’s needs that they simply shut down, and the people they serve feel the distance without understanding why.

And then there’s the fawn response in church leadership, which I think is far more common than we realise. This is the leader who cannot bear to disappoint anyone, who absorbs everyone’s emotions, who never confronts unhealthy behaviour because they’re terrified of rejection. On the outside, they look like the most loving, selfless leader in the room. On the inside, they’re drowning.

Research is increasingly showing what we already have seen, that a significant number of believers carry their own trauma into the church space. If leaders aren’t aware of their own wounds, they risk re-traumatising the very people they’re called to shepherd.

When Trauma Leads in the Marketplace

The corporate world and marketplace are no different, just dressed in different language. The leader who operates from a fight response might be labelled “assertive” or “driven,” when in reality their need for control stems from a deep fear of vulnerability. The flight-response leader might be the one who’s always chasing the next deal, the next opportunity, the next achievement, never pausing long enough to ask why rest feels so threatening.

Toxic workplace cultures don’t emerge out of nowhere. More often than not, they are the fruit of unhealed leaders creating environments that mirror their own internal chaos. When leaders haven’t done the work of understanding their own trauma responses, they build teams and systems that reflect those patterns: workplaces where people walk on eggshells, where burnout is normalised, where emotional safety is an afterthought, and where trust is always conditional.

Studies consistently show that employees are most likely to leave their jobs because of their direct supervisors. When we hear that, we often think of “bad bosses.” But what if those bosses aren’t bad people at all? What if they’re wounded people, leading from survival mode rather than from a place of wholeness?

Spirit, Soul, and Body: The Whole Picture

This is why I am so passionate about a holistic approach to healing and leadership development. We cannot separate the spiritual from the emotional from the physical. Trauma lives in the body. It rewires the brain. It shapes the soul. And it impacts the spirit. When we only address one dimension, we’re putting a plaster on a wound that needs surgery.

A leader can have the right theology and still be triggered into a survival response during a board meeting. A CEO can have excellent business acumen and still struggle to build trust because their nervous system was wired for hypervigilance in childhood. A parent can love their children deeply and still find themselves repeating patterns they swore they’d never repeat.

Healing isn’t about labelling yourself as broken. It’s about becoming aware of how your past has shaped your present, and making an intentional choice to lead differently. It’s about understanding that your brain can be rewired, your nervous system can be regulated, and your identity in Christ is not defined by what happened to you.

So What Do We Do About It?

The first step is always awareness. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. Start by asking yourself some honest questions: What is my default response under pressure? Do I tend to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn? Where did I learn that response? Is the way I lead creating safety for the people around me, or am I unconsciously recreating the environments that wounded me?

The second step is to pursue healing, not just knowledge. Reading about trauma is a great start, but information alone doesn’t transform us. We need spaces where we can process, where we can be honest, and where we can allow the Holy Spirit to bring truth to the places we’ve protected for years.

The third step is to commit to leading from wholeness rather than from woundedness. This doesn’t mean you have to be fully healed before you can lead. It means you’re on the journey. It means you’re self-aware. It means you’re willing to say, “I’m growing, and I’m going to lead in a way that reflects that growth.”

A Final Thought

Whether you’re leading a church, running a business, managing a team, or raising a family, your healing matters. Not just for you, but for every person who is impacted by your leadership. When we lead from healed places, we create environments where others can heal too. We build churches where people feel safe. We build workplaces where people can thrive. We build homes where our children learn that emotions are not enemies and vulnerability is not weakness.

The world doesn’t need more leaders who have it all together. It needs leaders who are brave enough to do the inner work, so that what flows out of them brings life instead of perpetuating pain.

You were made for more than survival mode. It’s time to take up your space.

Be blessed today in the might name of Yeshua!

Empowering Kingdom Purpose