No one deserves professional annihilation: Learning from women’s experiences of leadership work-caused trauma

Abstract

The article advances critical perspectives of leadership and leadership learning through a feminist study exploring experiences of leadership work-caused trauma. The study explores why trauma appears for those in leadership and how this is experienced. It illustrates the harm done to those in leadership. Ten women’s experiences are explored through the following four themes: (a) Malicious, Avoidable, Morally Indefensible; (b) Suffering: Completely Shocked, Deeply Distressed, Frightened; (c) Loss; and (d) Feeling Obliterated and Fearing Eradication. The study demonstrates organizational leadership as a dangerous “enough” context for trauma research. Analysis highlights how actions associated with leadership cause psychological and emotional damage and how those in leadership suffer trauma, severely injured and diminished. The article conceptualizes leadership work-caused trauma and theorizes women leaders’ experiences as professional annihilation, where they are fundamentally destroyed. This new knowledge prompts relational dialogic reflexivity, provides opportunities for leadership learning and development, and contributes new avenues for future research.