Introduction

I’ve just finished reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and I haven’t been able to look at workplace behaviour the same way since. So much of what we label as “performance issues” the colleague who shuts down in meetings, the leader who snaps under pressure, the team member who avoids conflict might actually be the body remembering what the mind has learned to hide.
It made me think about how easily workplaces confuse behaviour with intent, and how rarely we pause to ask: what might this reaction be protecting? If our bodies keep score, then our organisations are part of that ledger too, sometimes as healers, sometimes as triggers.

The Science

Van der Kolk’s work shows that trauma isn’t only the result of catastrophic events. It can also come from chronic emotional stress exclusion, humiliation, lack of control, or prolonged uncertainty. These experiences leave imprints in the nervous system.

When the body perceives threat, even subtly, it activates the fight, flight, or freeze response. Heart rate rises, breathing shortens, and the brain’s amygdala floods with signals of danger. In these moments, the prefrontal cortex responsible for empathy, creativity, and rational decision-making temporarily goes offline. The body moves into survival mode.

Neuroscientist Stephen Porges refers to this as the polyvagal response, the body’s attempt to maintain safety through either connection or protection. When cues of safety are absent, the vagus nerve triggers defensive states that shift energy away from social engagement toward survival. Over time, repeated activation can “rewire” the brain’s pathways for vigilance, making trust physically harder to sustain.

In workplaces, this can look like disengagement, defensiveness, or perfectionism. The person isn’t being “difficult”; their nervous system simply doesn’t feel safe enough to think, connect, or trust.
Neuroscience and organisational psychology converge here: environments that foster predictability, respect, and belonging calm the body’s threat system and reopen access to learning, reasoning, and collaboration. Safety, quite literally, switches the brain back on. Studies in post-traumatic growth show that recovery of safety reactivates the brain’s default mode and executive networks, enabling greater empathy, insight, and innovation. Psychological safety is, therefore, not just emotional, it is neurocognitive infrastructure for learning.

Key Findings

1. Micro-traumas accumulate.
   It’s not always the big events that break trust. Repeated exposure to dismissal, ambiguity, or subtle bias can create the same physiological imprint as overt harm. Over time, these small shocks accumulate in the body as chronic stress.
2. High vigilance erodes capacity.
   People who constantly scan for threat; the critical boss, the next restructure, the unspoken tone in an email burn through cognitive resources. Innovation, humour, and generosity don’t survive long in hyper-vigilance.
3. Safety is relational and embodied.
   Psychological safety isn’t a slogan; it’s a felt experience. The body must believe it’s safe before the mind can engage. Leaders who speak calmly, maintain consistency, and model openness send powerful physiological cues of safety to their teams.
4. Repair matters.
   Mistakes and missteps are inevitable. What matters is repair. Acknowledgment, apology, and empathy are not “soft skills” they are the nervous system’s reset button. Without repair, trust calcifies into caution.
5. Not everything is a performance issue.
   When someone withdraws, overreacts, or resists feedback, we often go straight to performance management. But sometimes, what looks like resistance is protection. Understanding the body’s role helps leaders respond with curiosity rather than judgement.
6. Organisational memory mirrors human memory.
   Just as bodies remember threat, organisations hold imprints of past crises - restructures, failed change programmes, or cultures of fear. Organisational structures themselves can reinforce trauma or support healing. Without deliberate “repair” at a systemic level (rituals of closure, acknowledgment, transparent practices, or cultural reset), these patterns persist as collective hyper-vigilance.

 
What This Means

This approach aligns with the growing field of trauma-informed leadership, which recognises that past and chronic stress can shape how people engage, decide, and relate at work. Trauma-informed leaders respond not by diagnosing trauma but by designing systems of safety, trust, and empowerment into every layer of workplace life. Their work is grounded in five dimensions of safety: physical, psychological, social, moral, and cultural, which together create the conditions where people can think clearly, relate openly, and recover from stress.

If the body keeps the score, then leadership must become a practice of co-regulation helping others find calm by being calm ourselves. This doesn’t mean turning managers into therapists; it means recognising that how we lead affects how others’ nervous systems respond. When leaders ground themselves - slowing their breath, maintaining tone, and acknowledging emotion, they stabilise not only their own nervous systems but also those of their teams. Calm presence is, neurologically, contagious.

In practice, this might look like:

• Grounding before reacting. Taking a breath before responding to tension or challenge. Before your next feedback conversation, how might you anchor both your breath and your language?
• Creating predictability. Clear agendas, follow-through on promises, and visible fairness all quiet the body’s threat response.
• Listening for signals, not just words. Withdrawal, agitation, or fatigue may be signs of overwhelm, not disengagement.
• Repairing after rupture. A short check-in after conflict (“I sensed that meeting was tough how are you doing?”) can reset safety.
• Embedding rest and recovery. Micro-breaks, transitions between meetings, and permission to pause are not indulgences; they are maintenance for cognitive clarity.

When we treat every tension as a performance gap, we risk pathologizing protection. When we see behaviour as information data about safety, stress, and story we lead from a place of humanity and intelligence.

A Quote to Reflect On
“Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”  - Bessel van der Kolk

A Question to Reflect On
What hidden patterns in your team might be not “bad behaviour” but the body remembering and what would change if you led with curiosity instead of correction?

​Further Reading

• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.
• Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organization.
• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence.
• Siegel, D. (2012). The Developing Mind.
• Harvard Business Review (2022). Trauma-Informed Leadership Is Essential to Building Trust at Work.
• Regent University. (2024). Trauma-Informed Leadership: Integrating Research-Based Models of Safety, Trust, and Empowerment.
• Porges, S. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation.

(Black History Month: Standing Firm in Power and Pride - beyond October)

Introduction

October came and went, and I didn’t post for Black History Month. I’ve sat with that. This piece is my way of extending the month’s theme, Standing Firm in Power and Pride, into everyday practice.
Standing firm, for me, also means standing firm in how we know: recognising that much of organisational psychology is built on Western assumptions, and widening the lens to include African philosophies that place connection, dignity, and collective growth at the heart of human progress. Doing so matters because the way we define knowledge shapes the way we define fairness, leadership, and success in our workplaces.

The UK Black History Month 2025 theme invites exactly that stance, to “stand firm in power and pride” not only as cultural celebration but as intellectual grounding, carrying this awareness forward beyond October.

The science

Equity theory (Adams, 1963) explains motivation through perceptions of fairness. People compare their inputs such as effort, skill, and time, and outcomes such as pay and recognition, to others. When they sense imbalance, they feel distress and seek to restore equilibrium. This logic of balance remains foundational in HR thinking about reward and justice, but it primarily treats fairness as an individual calculation.

Organisational justice research (Colquitt, 2001) later broadened this to include four dimensions of fairness: distributive (who gets what), procedural (how decisions are made), interpersonal (how people are treated), and informational (how decisions are explained). Together, these predict satisfaction, commitment, and retention. Yet even this expanded model assumes that fairness is experienced and restored at the individual level.

African philosophies of personhood, particularly Ubuntu (“a person is a person through other persons”), extend these scientific foundations by locating fairness not within individuals but within relationships. Fairness becomes something that is co-created and collectively maintained, not simply perceived. Where equity theory asks, “Am I being treated fairly?”, Ubuntu asks, “Are we treating each other justly, and is the community whole?”

From this perspective, inequity is not merely an imbalance of outcomes but a disturbance in social harmony that requires repair. This expands the scope of justice beyond transactional equality toward relational restoration. In governance and social life, this principle underpins practices of reconciliation and repair rather than retribution or compensation.

Professor Vuyisile Msila (2025) translates these ideas into five organisational principles drawn from Ubuntu:

1. People-centredness – seeing employees as human beings before functions.
2. Permeable walls – promoting open collaboration across boundaries.
3. Partisanship – working for a shared purpose, not competing silos.
4. Progeny – nurturing future leaders and safeguarding legacy.
5. Production through mutual respect – valuing process as much as output.

Together, these principles demonstrate how Ubuntu complements and enriches Western theories of motivation and justice. Where Western models focus on fairness as balance, Ubuntu reframes it as belonging. Where psychology emphasises equity as a motivator, Ubuntu views mutual care and interdependence as the conditions under which motivation naturally thrives.

Without thoughtful integration, however, Western incentive and feedback systems can easily undermine the very community Ubuntu seeks to build. They can foster competition over cooperation, prioritise short-term wins over legacy, and risk tokenistic gestures instead of deep organisational change.

Key findings

1. Fairness as relationship, not just ratio
Equity theory frames fairness as proportional exchange. Ubuntu and related African philosophies extend this by defining fairness as the quality of relationships, whether respect, empathy, and acknowledgement are present. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa exemplifies this restorative logic, showing how reconciliation, not retribution, can re-establish a sense of fairness. In workplaces, this might look like addressing conflict through facilitated dialogue and collaborative repair.

2. Justice requires voice, respect, and explanation
Colquitt’s dimensions of justice align strongly with Ubuntu’s emphasis on communal dignity. When processes silence voices or obscure reasoning, employees perceive injustice even when the outcomes appear equitable. Ubuntu invites leaders to see fairness not as compliance but as conversation and justice as something continually negotiated through respect and transparency.

3. Beyond the WEIRD lens
WEIRD findings are insightful but partial. Cultural norms shape how people define fairness, accountability, and contribution. Ubuntu’s emphasis on interdependence provides a corrective to individualist assumptions in organisational psychology, showing that motivation and trust are deeply social. In diverse teams, this matters: what counts as “initiative” or “ownership” varies across cultural contexts.

4. Power as shared capacity
Ubuntu reframes power as the capacity to create conditions where others thrive. Rather than diminishing authority, it strengthens it by rooting influence in empathy and reciprocity. This shared-power mindset supports psychological safety, belonging, and collaboration - all drivers of innovation and retention.

5. Pride as stewardship
“Standing firm in power and pride” can also mean taking pride in the quality of our relationships. Ubuntu reminds us that legacy is not individual achievement but collective flourishing. Pride becomes stewardship, a commitment to leave the community stronger than we found it.

What this means for HR and leadership

Translating this expanded understanding of fairness into practice requires new habits of dialogue, recognition, and repair. Here are practical ways to move from ratio-based equity to relationship-centred fairness at work.
​

• Rethink reward through relational fairness checks
  Beyond pay benchmarking, ask yourself:
  • Who has enabled team outcomes but gone unrecognised?
  • After key decisions, who follows up with affected individuals to restore trust or answer questions?
  • When and how is collective success celebrated?
    These questions keep the focus on contribution, not comparison.

• Adopt restorative pathways for conflict and harm
  In South Africa, Ubuntu-informed restorative conferencing brings together all parties affected by workplace conflict to share impacts and co-create repair. Similarly, family-owned enterprises in Kenya often embed collective mentoring and consensus, blending distributive and relational justice.
  Even outside Africa, elements of Ubuntu can be seen in worker cooperatives and social enterprises where shared ownership and mutual support drive success. These examples show that communal values can be adapted across borders to foster resilience, inclusion, and sustainable growth.

• Design performance systems for community, not just stars
  Balance individual OKRs with team and cross-functional goals. Explicitly reward enabling work such as mentoring and collaboration, the invisible glue of performance.

• Broaden your evidence base
  When selecting surveys or psychometrics, ask: Whose norms? Combine quantitative tools with qualitative, context-sensitive insights.

• Integrate Ubuntu thoughtfully
  Importing relational philosophies superficially risks co-option. Ubuntu is a lived ethic, not a slogan. Integration demands reflection, humility, and cultural dialogue. Otherwise “people-centredness” becomes branding, not belief.
  Ubuntu itself is not monolithic. Its practice varies across African regions and can come into tension with organisational demands for speed, competition, or hierarchy. Effective integration means balancing Ubuntu’s ideals with local realities, ongoing dialogue, and a willingness to adapt as context shifts.

• Recode power in leadership programmes
  Train managers to see power as the capacity to create conditions where others thrive. Build feedback rituals grounded in dignity, curiosity, and shared context, not just scorekeeping.

• Make BHM a year-round practice
  Treat Black History Month as an annual renewal of practice commitments, not a campaign. Share not only what you celebrated, but what you changed.

A quote to reflect on
“A person is a person through other people … My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.” – Desmond Tutu, on Ubuntu

A question to reflect on
If fairness were measured not by ratios but by relationships restored, what would you redesign first in your organisation, and who would you bring into that redesign?
​
Further readings

• Adams, J. S. (1963/1965). Inequity in Social Exchange. Academic Press.
• Colquitt, J. A. (2001). Justice at the Millennium: A Meta-Analytic Review of 25 Years of Organizational Justice Research. Journal of Applied Psychology.
• Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The Weirdest People in the World? Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
• Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation. Psychological Review.
• Msila, V. (2025). Ubuntu: Shaping the Current Workplace with (African) Wisdom. University of South Africa Press.
• Nkomo, S., & Kriek, D. (2019). Leading through Ubuntu: Leadership Lessons from South Africa. Africa Journal of Management, 5(1).
• Bangura, A. K. (2012). Ubuntugogy: An African Educational Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century. Africa World Press.
• Restorative justice in African traditions and institutional practice (TRC and beyond). University of New Mexico Digital Repository.
• UK Black History Month 2025 Theme – Standing Firm in Power and Pride. blackhistorymonth.org.uk