Have you ever witnessed a situation at work that went against your values and beliefs? Did the experience leave you feeling shocked, upset and angry? Did the behaviour continue for an extended period? You may have experienced moral injury.
A moral injury is the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass in response to witnessing behaviours or preventing acts that go against an individual’s values, moral beliefs and ethical code of conduct. It is a cognitive and emotional response that can occur following events that violate a person’s moral or ethical code. For example, healthcare staff working during the COVID-19 pandemic might experience moral injury because they perceive that they received inadequate protective equipment, or when their workload is such that they deliver care of a standard that falls well below what they would usually consider to be good enough. Staff experiencing moral injury might feel more isolated or detached from their role, so company leaders need to be aware of this issue and equipped with the tools to manage it in the workplace.
The latest research with Softer Success, Affinity Health at Work and Sheffield University on the ‘Links between burnout and moral injury’ demonstrated that moral injury can contribute to burnout. This is new research that has not been done before in a business setting and is helping us understand and solve the burnout problem in hybrid work environments.
This course serves to demonstrate how moral injury can contribute to burnout. What might start as moral stress could linger and if left unaddressed can turn to moral injury, and this can affect you and your teams at large. As a business and leader, how can you prevent moral injury and burnout? This course helps you and your teams build moral resilience.
Over a series of video-based lectures, you will learn how to develop teams that are aware of their values and moral systems. We’ll empower you to encourage a culture where leaders take responsibility for their actions, are able to acknowledge mistakes and show vulnerability. If you are a manager, you will learn to balance the urge to protect your team with the need to protect yourself. We will delve into what can be controlled and what can’t. Storytelling as a core leadership competency: experience the power of sharing and listening to other’s stories. Through the experience, notice how stories act as a cultural diagnostic tool. Set leaders up to use stories systematically in their role (e.g. for sharing a vision, for diagnosing operational problems, for building stronger teams). how to strengthen teams through building relational superpowers. The ‘Art of Mattering’: what leaders can do to help their teams connect to each other and the work. Help others feel their voices are heard and they matter.
By the end of the course, you will have the tools to prevent moral stress and injury You will be equipped with strategies to strengthen and empower your team and employees to be morally resilient You will feel able to overcome anything that is thrown your way!
So, are you ready to learn about the concept of moral injury, understand what to do when something goes against your values and beliefs and transform your life and your team to create a better future? Then enrol now to learn more!
About The Expert
Cara de Lange is a specialist in the science of burnout. A visionary author, wellbeing and transformation consultant, she founded Softer Success to provide evidence-backed solutions for businesses to transform the way they work. Having experienced burnout herself, working in fast-paced, multinational companies such as Google and Reckitt Benckiser, Cara is committed to helping people restore their overstimulated nervous systems and rewire their neural pathways to live a more balanced life.
Cara is a sought-after keynote speaker and is regularly invited to speak at organisations such as Google, Philips and the United Nations. Her book, Softer Success: Prevent Burnout, Find Balance and Re-Define Your Success, was published in 2019. Cara is an associate of the International Stress Management Association (ISMA) and is a member of the organising committee for International Stress Awareness Week. She founded the ‘Work Reset Revolution’ movement and podcast, in which she speaks to respected doctors, scholars and business leaders about the need to radically change our working habits.
