While organizational culture and leadership play crucial roles in workplace well-being, true transformation begins with personal accountability and intentional self-work.
Accountability to Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the inner compass you need at work to guide your decision-making. It starts with acknowledging your own trauma history and understanding what triggers your stress responses. These triggers might include challenging client interactions, tight deadlines, or difficult conversations with colleagues. When you notice yourself becoming defensive, irritable, or withdrawn, pause to consider what circumstances activated your response.
What role am I playing?
Many of us unconsciously participate in the Trauma Triangle by playing victim, perpetrator, or rescuer roles. You might find yourself in the victim role when feeling overwhelmed by your workload, playing the rescuer when constantly taking on others' responsibilities, or becoming the perpetrator when criticizing colleagues' work styles. Playing these roles keeps us stuck. Learn to recognize when you replay these well-worn dynamics that aren’t serving you or your team.
What strategies build self-awareness?
Seeing yourself and others from another angle, without emotional attachment, is an executive frontal lobe function that happens outside of fight-flight mode. Mindfulness activities help get us into the space where we can notice without (over)reacting.
Luckily, mindfulness at work doesn't require meditation cushions or hour-long sessions. Simple practices include:
Taking three conscious breaths before responding to challenging emails
Setting hourly reminders to check in with your body and emotions
Using transitional moments (elevator rides, walking to meetings) for brief centering exercises
Practicing mindful listening during meetings without planning your response
Creating a mindful morning routine to set your day's intention
Taking mindful breaks between tasks to reset and refocus
What do I notice about myself and others?
Cultivating curiosity about your inner world and the people around you is transformative. Instead of quick judgments, pause to ask questions. See yourself as a scientist, studying your thoughts, behaviors, and the behaviors of others.
Develop a learner's mindset by:
Journaling about workplace interactions and your responses
Seeking feedback from trusted colleagues
Slowing down to pause between stimulus and your response
Identifying your emotional habits during stress
Give Yourself What You Want from Others
Want to transform your workplace relationships? Start by focusing on giving all the good things to yourself first.
Safety
If you're craving psychological safety, become a safe harbor – someone who doesn't engage in judgment or office gossip. This means actively redirecting conversations when they turn toward criticism of absent colleagues and modeling constructive feedback approaches.
Read HERE about why safety is important.
Collaboration
If you value collaboration, initiate collaborative approaches in your own work. Share your projects early, invite input from diverse perspectives, and acknowledge others' contributions generously. When challenges arise, focus on
Compassion
Self-compassion at work isn't self-indulgence – it's the foundation for extending genuine compassion to others. Practice self-compassion by acknowledging when you're struggling, offering yourself the same kindness you'd give a friend, and recognizing that challenges are part of the human experience.
Trust
Similarly, trustworthiness begins with honoring commitments to yourself. Workplace well-being and mistrust are mutually exclusive – you can’t have both. A trusting environment leads to well-being; when trust is missing, well-being at work just isn’t achievable.
To foster trust at work, start with yourself. Do you trust your ability to speak up, perform well, and do what is best for YOU? Can you rely on yourself? Next, if you want to promote a culture of trust, be trustworthy. Do what you said you would do, keep confidences, ask questions about things you don’t understand, and communicate openly.
For a deep-dive into trust, read BRAVING: The 7 Elements of Trust-Building at Work for a deep-dive into trust.
Accountability
When it comes to performance, maintain high personal standards. Believe in your capability. You have what it takes to perform the job you were hired to do with excellence. And, you’re not perfect! You have and will continue to make mistakes or flounder at work. When that happens, promptly take ownership of where you fell short. Identify any lessons learned and put a system in place to prevent similar issues in the future. Sharing insights with colleagues models accountability and creates safety for others to do the same, promoting overall growth as a team. Keeping yourself accountable creates a culture of mutual accountability that will increase the quality of your work as a whole.
Accountability to Self-Care
Especially in human service work, the mission often feels bigger than ourselves. However, sustainable service requires sustainable self-care practices. Think of self-care as professional development. It’s an essential investment in your capacity to serve others effectively because you simply cannot give what you don’t have (read: listening energy, positive regard, or openness to others).
Creating and enforcing boundaries involves:
Defining clear work hours and communication expectations
Learning to say "no" to prevent overcommitment
Recognizing when work relationships blur into inappropriate territory
Creating transition rituals between work and home life
Here are 11 Trauma-Informed Boundary Phrases you can start using at work today.
And remember: Your workplace isn't your family. While caring about colleagues builds familiarity and understanding, maintaining professional boundaries protects everyone's well-being.
It’s Not Only Your Responsibility
Who creates a trauma-informed workplace? YOU do! So, commit to doing your own work to make it happen. Personal accountability is essential to building trauma-informed workplaces and experiencing well-being at work. This is inside-out work, and how you show up has a tremendous impact on your workplace culture.
At the same time, recognize that lasting organizational change requires collective effort. Teams and leaders must also step up to create supportive structures and cultures. It's not a them thing. And, it’s not just a you thing. It’s an us thing.
Accountability to Workplace Well-Being
Your individual efforts create ripples that influence your team. As you model healthy boundaries, self-awareness, and professional accountability, you contribute to a workplace environment where others feel empowered to do the same.
Stay tuned for upcoming posts about team accountability and leadership's role in workplace well-being!
Download our Self-Care Menu or Self-Self-Care Planning Kit today to focus on keeping yourself accountable for building workplace well-being.
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