Handwritten name "Elizabeth Vahey Smith"

Building Resilient Teams: Trauma-Informed Leadership and Soft Skills Coach

I’ve learned the importance of establishing psychological safety firsthand. It ignited a fire in me to help others build thriving teams where everyone can flourish. I believe that starts with teaching complex skills with clarity and simplicity.

Elizabeth Vahey Smith

“So what do you do?”

I help people analyze the challenges they’re facing to provide them with practical actionable steps to implement solutions.

Many of the issues leaders face with their personnel is rooted in that person’s trauma-history getting brought into the workplace. Leadership isn’t about trauma-healing, but understanding any perceived threats to safety can empower leaders to create the psychological safety required for thriving workplaces.

I help leaders unpack what might be happening on their teams to strategize how to create safety in their workplace structure.

While this often comes up in leadership coaching, I also provide this service for people who don’t consider themselves leaders but who still want to work on their soft skills development.

I take soft skills and break them down into discernable parts. A huge part of my work is creating paradigm shifts that invite people to think about these skills in a new framework that helps unlock the concept for them.

I lead presentations or interactive trainings on topics that help bring teams into greater cohesion and optimal performance.

I help teams recognize how behaviors might be linked to their trauma-history. We talk about how this knowledge can be utilized to level up their professional development by building new patterns of behavior optimized for the workplace.

In group trainings, I help teams recognize their shared and unique strengths and communication styles to cultivate mutual respect. We also analyze work responsibilities to ensure that the team is playing to each other’s strengths to optimize performance. This training brings pivotal conversations to the table that helps each member of your team thrive so that the whole team thrives.

When your team has a shared need for soft skills development, then providing a group training is a fantastic way to bolster the skills of the entire group. From communication to time management, from reliability to initiative, my soft skills training removes barriers and empowers your team to share common skills.

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Elizabeth has a knack for making complicated things seem simple and feel actionable.
Elizabeth Vahey Smith

“How’d you even learn to do this?”

My expertise is cultivated from a myriad of formal study, independent study, and lived experience. This conglomeration provides me a unique perspective with rich insight.

The study of language has taught me how common miscommunication is. By destigmatizing miscommunication, we can better focus on team dynamics. My background in linguistics empowers me to tease apart intricate concepts and simply systematically explain their composition. I do this for topics include miscommunication, trauma in the workplace, and soft skills in general.

I also value comprehensible input, where – instead of a deluge of information – we start with where you are, and we build from there, never leaving you feeling lost along the way.

I’ve been leading teams my whole life, from grade school through college and into the workplace. In a more professional capacity, I’ve lead cross-cultural teams and inter-generational teams.

I wasn’t always a trauma-informed leader, though, so I have firsthand experience on how the trauma-informed leadership approach is a game changer.

I’m a Trauma-Informed Care Practitioner through the TIC Training Center. I’ve co-authored two white papers on the impact of trauma in Third Culture Kids population. This is in addition to the depths of independent study that I’ve done.

I’m also launching a survey on workplace trauma to do independent research on rates of common workplace traumas and triggers.

My family has been on a global adventure for a while now. My first-born had his first birthday in Papua New Guinea and my daughter was born in Australia. Nearly nine years later, we’ve visited 20+ countries and counting.

The most important lesson that I’ve learned in traveling the world is that under all the trappings of how and what – all people are doing the best they can to seek safety, beauty, and connection. It looks different and sounds different for different people in different places. But this fundamental human motivation empowers leaders to start on common ground with anyone they’re trying to lead. And move from there.

Worldschooling adventure

“Wait, you travel full-time?”

As much of my work is done remotely, we homeschool our kids with the world as our classroom. While traveling for the sheer enjoyment of exploring the world, I also get the opportunity to speak, lead trainings, and have coaching sessions across the globe.

  • Leading a conference in Ecuador
  • Keynoting in Thailand
  • Facilitating trainings in South Africa

Where should I speak next?

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Elizabeth presenting content on Trauma-Informed Leadership.