Greenleaf enables clients with highly demanding workplace environments to protect and foster organizational and employee wellbeing. Based on each client’s unique situation, we tailor solutions that mitigate the causes and effects of workplace stress and trauma. Our proven team offers deep experience in change management consulting, leadership development, institutional support, and much more.

Protecting the wellbeing of your people and mission

All organizations with missions tied to helping others are exposed to the negative impacts of cumulative stress and vicarious trauma. Fatigued bodies and brains, scrambled cognition and attention spans, execution errors and absenteeism, low engagement and productivity. The symptoms are many. Yet, because every culture and problem set is unique, the root causes and fixes for workplace stress and trauma are varied. Whether it’s for a single department or the full enterprise, we use a range of assessment techniques to uncover systemic risks to wellbeing.

For some, the challenges are fairly isolated. For others, it may be a combination of intersecting issues related to policies and processes, cultural dynamics and expectations, leadership behaviors and shortfalls in staff care activities. Greenleaf combines assessment insights with scientific and organizational expertise to deliver a holistic roadmap tailored to your wellbeing objectives and unique environment. From ongoing programming and change management consulting to rapid interventions, we help you expertly implement a strategic wellbeing plan in relevant operations. Feeling empowered instead of overwhelmed should be, and can be, the norm for you and your people. Reach out to learn more about our Organizational Wellbeing services, including:

Resilient cultures start with resilient leaders

Leaders operating in demanding, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments experience cumulative stress and, frequently, unseen burnout. Under intense pressures to be high achievers, many leaders struggle to maintain their wellbeing while ensuring the effectiveness of their work. To compound things further, most are unsure of how best to develop the resilience of their staff. These dynamics make it challenging for leaders to thrive and reach their full potential -- much less be a model for the behaviors that help protect others from workplace stress and trauma.

Greenleaf can support the personal development and growth of your organization’s leaders. We use proven tools and techniques to assess each individual leader in numerous areas that impact resilience. Based on the resulting data and our science-based insights, we implement tailored programs of leadership development. We also create and implement strategic frameworks for spreading resilience-building processes and behaviors across teams, departments, and enterprises. The positive resiliency outcomes include significant improvements in emotional intelligence, situational awareness, morale, communications, collaboration, and productivity. Let us help your organization develop more resilient leaders and teams. Contact us to discreetly describe your challenges and learn more about our holistic leadership development expertise.

Design “doing no harm” in a world soaked in trauma

No one wants to re-traumatize or trigger trauma in others. But it happens all too frequently when people and programs are blind to the ways that humans are altered by trauma. Neuroscience shows that a stunning range of traumatic life experiences can change people’s brains, personalities, and behaviors. Fear and losses caused by wars, natural disasters, pandemics, and more. Exposure to bullying, child abuse, homelessness, war, poverty, violence, assault, social disruption, discrimination, accidents, illnesses. The prevalence of “little” and “big” traumas is significant. Many who suffer these experiences don’t realize their behavioral states are actually echoes of traumatic experiences in their lives.

Organizations that serve or encounter traumatized populations, such as healthcare, social services, and humanitarian aid providers, are fueled by urgency and high ideals. However, they may lack the tools or lenses to detect the way trauma affects everything they do…everybody they touch. When this is the case, individuals and communities who are actively suffering traumatic symptoms are less able to enjoy the benefits of programs intended to serve them. In these fields of work, trauma is a cross-cutting theme that, if ignored, causes negative or poor outcomes. Today, academics and service providers, including Greenleaf practitioners, have advanced “Trauma-Informed” principles for which organizations can learn competencies. The U.S. Government promotes these principles through campaigns by SAMHSA, particularly for organizations that deliver care. In truth, these are essentially “do no harm” principles that apply to many domains of life that are, in part, a result of unresolved traumas: conflict, stigma, implicit (or unconscious) bias, and dysfunctional workplace dynamics.

Therefore, Greenleaf applies trauma-informed design (TID) widely across our assessments, leader and staff development programs, change management consulting, and numerous other services. Because a diverse range of organizations need and want to incorporate trauma-informed principles, Greenleaf offers customization for very specific missions and operations. For example, unless a smart TID approach is taken from the start, many diversity, equity, inclusion, and access programs and communications can actually be detrimental rather than beneficial to certain populations depending on the subject. We provide TID services to mitigate those implicit biases and unintentional microaggressions. From processes and systems to staff knowledge, behaviors, and emotional resilience, Greenleaf will help your organization design and culturally embed a trauma-informed way of being. Contact us to learn more about our TID services, which include:

Elevate performance with institutional support

As agencies work diligently to serve and protect citizens, many struggle to meet their missions within highly demanding, and often dangerous, work environments. Leaders and staff – especially those in government agencies – are stressed as they face rapidly changing demands and threats with under-prepared staff and sub-optimal processes. More than ever, these organizations require prepared and supported operators that can deliver critical value. Greenleaf helps agencies meet many of their dynamic human resources challenges with our exceptional Institutional Support services.

We provide staff who have proven performance in training customization, optimization, and administration; and we provide designers/trainers who integrate and deliver special coursework. Federal agencies also rely on our recruitment, contracting, and onboarding capabilities for talent management. As Greenleaf delivers Institutional Support services, we apply our expertise in the qualities and practices of resilient organizations and people. This unique combination of capabilities enables agencies to elevate performance while positively impacting their cultures with more qualified, knowledgeable, and resilient talent. We invite Federal agencies to contact us to learn more about our Institutional Support services, including: