Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish

by Nicholas Rowe, Sheila Wise Rowe

Overview

Countless books are designed to help leaders to become better leaders. But most resources neglect the underlying emotional struggles of both emerging and established leaders, who are often isolated and suffering in silence. Leadership professor Nicholas Rowe and counselor Sheila Wise Rowe offer their expertise in helping leaders process painful and traumatic experiences. Trauma contributes to how we lead others in either empowering or dysfunctional ways. Understanding how these experiences formed us is the beginning of the path to healing.

Woven throughout each chapter are five themes—invitation, attachment, remembrance, healing, and reconnection. Healing Leadership Trauma lays out the emotional challenges of leadership and offers encouragement, prayer, and therapeutic tools to help leaders face their pain and begin to heal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781514010419
Publisher:	InterVarsity Press
Publication date:	11/19/2024
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.54(d)

About the Author

Nicholas Rowe (PhD, Boston College) is a historian and the Hansen Associate Professor of Leadership at Gordon—Conwell Theological Seminary. He has over thirty years' experience in senior leadership roles in higher education and nonprofit organizations and is a consultant in cross—ethnic reconciliation and conflict resolution in the United States and South Africa. Nicholas also provides spiritual direction for individuals and reconciling communities. He and his wife, Sheila Wise Rowe, live in Boston and have a daughter, son, daughter—in—law, and grandchild.

Sheila Wise Rowe (MEd, Cambridge College) has over thirty years of experience offering counseling and spiritual direction to individuals, couples, leaders, and trauma survivors. Sheila also spent a decade ministering to unhoused and abused women, children, and youth in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was a lay pastor and taught Christian counseling and trauma—related courses. Sheila is a speaker, trainer, and writer, authoring the award—winning Healing Racial Trauma and Young, Gifted, and Black. She and her husband, Nicholas Rowe, live in Boston, Massachusetts, and coauthored Healing Leadership Trauma.

Sheila Wise Rowe (MEd, Cambridge College) has over thirty years of experience offering counseling and spiritual direction to individuals, couples, leaders, and trauma survivors. Sheila also spent a decade ministering to unhoused and abused women, children, and youth in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was a lay pastor and taught Christian counseling and trauma—related courses. Sheila is a speaker, trainer, and writer, authoring the award—winning Healing Racial Trauma and Young, Gifted, and Black. She and her husband, Nicholas Rowe, live in Boston, Massachusetts, and coauthored Healing Leadership Trauma.

Sheila Wise Rowe (MEd, Cambridge College) has over thirty years of experience offering counseling and spiritual direction to individuals, couples, leaders, and trauma survivors. Sheila also spent a decade ministering to unhoused and abused women, children, and youth in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was a lay pastor and taught Christian counseling and trauma—related courses. Sheila is a speaker, trainer, and writer, authoring the award—winning Healing Racial Trauma and Young, Gifted, and Black. She and her husband, Nicholas Rowe, live in Boston, Massachusetts, and coauthored Healing Leadership Trauma.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Heart of the Matter
2. Our Relational God
3. The Roots of Detachment
4. The Pull of Temptation
5. The Myth of Self—Sufficiency
6. Healing the Harmed Heart
7. Gender Trauma
8. Racial and Ethnic Trauma
9. The Path of Forgiveness
10. The Heart of Restored Relationships
11. The Necessity of Rest
12. Finding Purpose Again

Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Prayer of Surrender and Salvation
Appendix 2: My Family Tree
Appendix 3: My Transformation Plan
Group Discussion Guide
Glossary
Notes

Editorial Reviews

"There's a dirty little secret in our world: leaders are in triage. The complexities of our ever—connected, often—critical, less—forgiving world is that we are seeing unprecedented resignations in leaders. We're in a leadership emergency. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, with the compassion, skill, and wisdom of first responders, offer this thoughtful and practical volume as a salve to heal the wounds and a defibrillator to revive the heart. Pick this first—aid kit up if you want to heal and be revived in your leadership."

Rasool Berry

"This unique book is like a master class on how to become healthy, whole leaders. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe show us how to name and heal from our wounds so that we can continue to serve others for the long haul. Healing Leadership Trauma is both brilliant and practical."

Dorothy Littell Greco

"Leadership is often a lonely endeavor, but no one needs to lead alone. Leadership is often a burdensome responsibility, but that burden can be shared. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer themselves as guides to leaders who are navigating the weight of leadership. They offer practical insights and practices that you can participate in as you navigate your past, present, and future as a leader—and more importantly, as a human being made for relationship in God's image."

Raymond Chang

"Leaders are shaped by various intersections of trauma that are rarely spoken of together in one place. The insight Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer given their expertise and experiences is a gift to leaders who want to stay healthy while leading in hard places. This book helps us name what we encounter as leaders and accompanies us in our path toward healing."

Sandra María Van Opstal

"In Healing Leadership Trauma, Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe fearlessly tackle the often—overlooked topic with profound empathy and insight. This book offers a healing roadmap for leaders who have been wounded in the line of duty. I wholeheartedly endorse this transformative resource for leaders at every level seeking to lead authentically and reclaim their passion and purpose."

Jeanette Salguero

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe have delved into the core of leadership trauma leaving no stones unturned. With an intentional weaving together from a pastoral, psychological, and personal perspective, they guide the reader—leader to areas easily skimmed over or bypassed altogether. Their thoroughness in explaining the science grants the reader a deep sense of understanding that can disarm and dispel the adverse effects of lifelong emotional baggage. Undergirded and guided by Scripture, prayer, and practical exercises, leaders will experience a spiritual, relational, emotional, and physical refreshening with every turn of the page."

Monique Gadson

"Leaders carry deep hurts both from their own lives and from the rigors of ministry. Ignoring these hurts is not an option: a church with hurting leaders is a hurting church. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe's book is a lifeline to help hurting leaders heal, sharing professional expertise and biblical wisdom to point us toward the God who can meet our deepest, unspoken needs and map out a pathway to hope."

Bronwyn Lea

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe know that leaders struggle hard and honestly to flourish in our roles. Even so, too often leaders take a step forward only to have high stress or trauma knock us back a step or two. We need help beyond coaching or mentoring. Thankfully, Healing Leadership Trauma centers healing of leadership trauma as the path for effective and ethical leadership. It is a deep source of wisdom."

Todd Hunter

"The church needs this book. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer a timely, insightful, and practical cross—discipline resource for Christian leaders. This learned and Spirit—filled pair name the elephant in the sanctuary. Our leaders are often deeply wounded while seeking to serve others. Without shame, but with necessary accountability, Rowe and Wise Rowe help Christian leaders to better understand themselves and their wounds so that they might heal and serve from a place of health and wholeness."

Christina Edmondson

"Every leader should take a moment to pause and acknowledge what is motivating how they lead. Being aware of our own motivations can help reduce the places we lack awareness so we can serve others out of our own growth and healing. This fantastic book by Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe allows us all the space and guided direction to do just that."

Heather Thompson Day

"I have been praying for this book! In my studies and my experiences, leaders suffer substantially from isolation and trauma. And those realities limit their ability to lead others to flourish. Now we have the book we need to enable leaders not only to their own healing but to empower all those they lead. I shall recommend this book widely and often."

Michael O. Emerson

"This book is a gift to all who have endured the hardships and hurts of leadership. It gives voice to pain but doesn't leave us in the mire of deconstruction and despair. It charts a way forward of healing, health, and hope. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe draw wisdom from Scripture, stories (their own and others'), and the psychology of attachment theory to help leaders unlearn facts, beliefs, and practices and to equip us with God's truth that can set us free. Ultimately, they lead us into an embodied relationship with the triune God."

Walter and Toni Kim

"With seemingly constant news about the moral failings of Christian leaders coming to light, it is safe to say that there is a deep need of resources for current and aspiring leaders to find healing and soul care as they seek to lead others in honoring and healthy ways. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe have written an immensely healthy resource that invites leaders on a vulnerable but necessary journey toward healthy Christian leadership. Christian leaders will find that Rowe and Wise Rowe don't shy away from difficult topics including gender and racial trauma and deformative experiences of abuse. This book gives hope for a new path forward for healthy Christian leadership."

Timothy Isaiah Cho

"As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, who will shepherd the shepherds? Leaders navigating the confusion and disorientation of these times will find the wisdom and compassionate guidance of Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe to be exactly what they need to find their footing. Their voices provide the healing, perspective, and renewal essential for this generation of leaders."

Larry Kim