MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How to Come Back Stronger From Organizational Trauma

Traumatic events are destabilizing. In their aftermath, leaders can help individuals and teams recover and grow.

It is a sobering reality of life today that many organizations across sectors and industries will face trauma. My institution, the Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), became one of them on Dec. 6, 2023, when a shooting on campus profoundly changed our community.

Trauma is extraordinary, uncontrollable, and overwhelming to those who experience it.1 Its impact is devastating, and it leaves survivors with ongoing pain and loss that cannot be overstated. When we experience trauma, it shatters our belief that the world makes sense, and we consequently feel less safe, less in control, and more vulnerable.2 However, psychology research has also found that as they recover from trauma, individual survivors can experience post-traumatic growth (PTG).3 This process doesn’t minimize the suffering or psychological challenges that survivors encounter but rather taps the “rich and remarkable resources, creativity, and success of the human spirit to adapt, cope, and survive,” in the words of psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman.

About the Author

Payal Sharma is an assistant professor of management at Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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