Trauma-Informed and Systems Aware Approach

The article: Trauma-Informed Integral Leadership: Leading School Communities with a Systems-Aware Approach (Greig, Bailey, Abbot, & Brunzell, 2021).

Keywords: Trauma-informed leadership, school leadership, whole school change, systems-aware leadership, integral theory, school community


Trauma-Informed and Systems Aware Approach

Trauma-informed Leadership provides a framework for leaders to understand how their roles might support a community in a time of trauma. A systems-aware approach positions leaders within the systems to recognize how systems influence experience. In other words, trauma-informed leadership directs immediate attention towards immediate needs and a systems-aware approach directs attention towards sources of support through existing structural relationships. Greig, Bailey, Abbot, & Brunzell (2021) examined how the tenets of Trauma-informed leadership and Systems-theory leadership inform how leaders support individuals within the system during a time of crisis, or trauma, as it is currently understood within the literature. Four themes emerged: (1) View of Leadership; (2) Support and Safety; (3) Organizational Learning; (4) School Culture. These themes and their relationship suggest that the dynamic and unique nature of trauma and how it is or is not experienced invites an approach that is not an either-or by the leader but by an and: approaching a trauma-informed context as a set of existing and important polarities.

These polarities are situated within Yunkaporta's (2019) kinship-mind. A kinship-mind presents a worldview within Aboriginal knowledge systems where "relationships are paramount in knowledge transmission... Those things that are connected are less important than the forces of connection between them." The authors elaborate by describing how this diagram "helps the reader to envision the tension and balance between each polarity, arising from within the four themes. while also highlighting their interdependence in a network of pairs" (p. 78). The authors then sought to test the validity of such a claim by "unifying them into an integrated practice framework for school leadership using the four-quadrant in Wilbers (2001) Integral Theory" (p. 79). The significance of using of Integral Theory to validate a kinship-model is that the "things" of interest are not viewed as having greater or less value against other things, only described as they are existing and as they might be necessary, allowing the "polarities to be integrated, each serving a distinct purpose within the quadrant they inhabit while maintaining a complementary role from the vantage of the whole practice framework" (p. 80). They then name this framework, Trauma-Informed Integral Leadership (TIIL).


Notes:

p. 66

Systems research arises from a variety of streams of lineage and practice including systems think gin (Meadows, 2008; Senge, 2006), ecological and living systems theory (Capra & Luisi, 2018; Wheatley, 2011), and awareness-based systems change (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2014).         


p. 70

Themes from the literature

  1. Views of Leadership- Host and create conditions
  2. Support and Safety- Building trust and shared responsibility, ‘shift the context together’
  3. Organizational Learning- Knowledge creation , sense making and collective inquiry, ‘wisdom of the room’
  4. School Culture- Culture as process


P. 71-72

Theme 1: View of Leadership

Theme 2: Support and Safety

Theme 3: Organizational Learning

Theme 4: School Culture


Wheatley, 2011: Leader as ‘host’ Systems-aware leadership qualities are described as creating the conditions to address school climate by  forming networks to distribute leadership across a school community (Kershner & McQuillan, 2016; Sebastian et al., 2017). Harris (2011) describes a conceptual shift aware from traditional hierarch where leadership is a position to viewing leadership as interaction. The research consistently points to the complexity, ambiguity and adaptiveness of challenges that impact school climate. Leadership capacities to facilitate trusting relations and shared decision - making were supported across the literature (Jones et al., 2013; Ainscow, 2012). This is reflective of living systems research, which draws lessons from the natural world to make meaning of complex social systems (Barlow & Stone, 2011). Viewing schools-as-a-whole, constituted of interconnected and interdependent relationships, places attention on the leadership potential of the collective. A collective leadership approach can respond to greater complexity across a school system (Ainscow, 2012; Harris, 2011); Shaken & Schechter, 2013). In contrast, schools operating with a hierarchical and centralized point of authority create the illusion of control while causing a raft of unintended consequences, ranging from divisiveness to dysfunctional school climate (Ainscow & Sandill, 2010; Shaken & Schechter, 2013).

Kershner and McQiilllan (2026) provide a comparative example of two principals using systems-aware approaches (e.g., complexity theory) as a framework for whole-school change, one that created change and one that did not. The key finding from their study was that school outcomes cannot be attributed to individual leadership capacities or behaviors, rather they must co-evolve with the values, beliefs, visions and educational needs of their community.



Greig, J., Bailey, B., Abbott, L., & Brunzell, T. (2021). Trauma-Informed Integral Leadership: Leading School Communities With a Systems-Aware Approach. International Journal of Whole Schooling, 17(1).

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