🧠 From Dysregulation to Delegation: How Managers Can Co-Regulate Their Teams

You know what no one tells you when you become a manager?

You’re no longer just managing work.
You’re managing the people who manage the work.
And that’s a completely different job — one many leaders never get trained for.

In workforce, nonprofit, and human services spaces, most managers are promoted because they were great doers.

But no one sat them down and taught them how to:

• understand emotional reactivity,
• respond to trauma-rooted behaviors,
• or create conditions for psychological safety, learning, and performance.

This gap isn’t just a “soft skill” problem.
It’s a systems issue — one that impacts staff retention, morale, and client outcomes every single day.

⚠️ Dysregulation Looks Like...

You've seen it on your team:

• A high performer suddenly ghosting meetings.
• Emotional blowups over minor feedback.
• Chronic “underperformance” without clear cause.
• Avoidance, shutdown, or passive-aggressive resistance.

And if we’re honest, you've probably seen it in yourself too.

Here’s the truth: dysregulation is contagious.
When managers are dysregulated, their teams feel it — and mirror it.

When managers are grounded, curious, and consistent, their teams rise to meet them.

This is the co-regulatory power of leadership.

💡 Your Staff Isn’t Broken. They’re Responding to the System.

Let’s get clear:
We are not saying “no accountability.”
We are saying: "Accountability without attunement isn’t leadership — it’s authority."

Many of the behaviors we label as “difficult,” “lazy,” or “not a good fit” are nervous system responses rooted in chronic stress or trauma.

We cannot ignore that many people in our workforce — especially those closest to the communities we serve — are carrying:

• generational trauma,
• racialized stress,
• caregiving burdens,
• or lived experiences that shaped how they show up in professional settings.

You cannot train trauma out of people.
But you can create environments where healing is possible — and growth is expected.

🧠 The Manager’s Role in Regulating the System

Your job is not to fix or diagnose.
Your job is to regulate the room.
To provide the kind of presence, clarity, and structure that helps the nervous system settle enough to stay present and stay accountable.

That’s how you move from dysregulation to delegation.

✅ 7 Practices for Co-Regulating Your Team

These are not “extras.” These are the core leadership skills no trauma-informed manager can afford to ignore:

1. Own your nervous system first.

• You can’t co-regulate if you’re reactive, defensive, or scattered. Practice pause before feedback. Regulate before you delegate.

2. Create psychological safety through structure.

• Clear expectations, routine 1:1s, consistent agendas — structure builds security.

3. Normalize naming emotions.

• Ask, “How are you arriving today?” Let emotional check-ins become as standard as project updates.

4. Use attuned accountability.

• Call in, not just call out. Try: “I noticed you missed two deadlines. Can we explore what’s behind that?”

5. Offer regulation strategies, not just performance plans.

• Instead of only giving timelines, offer tools: breathing techniques, workflow adjustments, time-blocking, wellness support.

6. Hold boundaries with compassion.

• You can be warm and direct. Trauma-informed leadership doesn’t mean being a pushover. It means being human-centered.

7. Reward growth, not just output.

• Celebrate nervous system wins — not just metrics. “You stayed present through hard feedback — that matters here.”
   

✨ Leaders Set the Emotional Tone

Your presence is the climate.

If your team is walking on eggshells, burning out, or breaking down —
don’t just ask, “What’s wrong with them?”

Ask,
“What conditions have I created — or allowed — that might be contributing to this?”

That question will separate the managers who maintain power
from the leaders who cultivate transformation.

👣 Coming Next Week…

“What Does a Trauma-Informed Workplace Actually Look Like?”
— The final article in the Brain & Behavior series

Don’t miss it.