Connecting and felt safety
Examine how trust, predictability, communication, and relationships affect the information people share and their readiness to learn or change. Identify leadership practices that help people feel safe enough to engage.
Original executive learning experience
TBRI for Executives
Relationship changes what becomes possible.
Leaders shape the conditions in which people work, learn, respond to challenge, and meet expectations. TBRI for Executives helps leadership teams examine those conditions through trauma-responsive and relationship-based principles—and turn what they learn into practical organizational decisions.
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An executive-facing program developed by Dr. Charles Pemberton, Ed.D., NCC, LPCC-S, TBRI® Practitioner.
01 / The leadership question
What if the environment is part of the answer?
When someone struggles to meet an expectation, leaders need to respond. They also need enough information to respond well.
What does the behavior or performance tell us? Is the expectation clear? Does the person have the support and capacity to meet it? Are uncertainty, disconnection, or unnecessary threat making success harder? What belongs to the individual, and what belongs to the surrounding system?
This program helps executives ask better questions before choosing an intervention. It connects care for people with clear standards, sound decisions, and organizational responsibility.
02 / Who it is for
Designed for leaders who influence the system
TBRI for Executives is designed for executive teams, senior leaders, directors, leadership-development groups, and organizations whose work depends on relationships, learning, and accountable performance.
It is especially relevant to child- and family-serving organizations, behavioral-health and human-service systems, education, and other settings where leaders must support people through stress and change while maintaining clear expectations.
Participants do not need prior TBRI training. The program can be adapted for groups with different levels of familiarity.
03 / Practical application
Four areas of practical application
Empowering choice and regulation
Consider how stress, capacity, choice, and support affect the ability to meet expectations. Look for practical ways to reduce unnecessary barriers and increase participation without surrendering responsibility.
Correcting through relationship
Practice responding to problems with clarity, dignity, and follow-through. Explore how leaders can address behavior and performance while protecting the relationship needed for learning and improvement.
Organizational application
Apply these questions to policies, supervision, team routines, change efforts, and difficult decisions. Identify one leadership practice and one system condition to improve after the session.
04 / Learning aims
What leaders should be able to do afterward
Presented as learning aims rather than guaranteed organizational outcomes, participants will work toward being able to:
- 01
Ask what behavior or performance may be communicating before deciding how to respond.
- 02
Identify conditions that may increase uncertainty, disconnection, or difficulty meeting expectations.
- 03
Distinguish a responsive approach from permissiveness.
- 04
Maintain clear standards while improving the support and conditions for meeting them.
- 05
Choose practical changes in leadership behavior and organizational systems.
05 / Delivery
Built around the decisions your leaders face
The experience can be shaped as an executive briefing, interactive workshop, leadership retreat, or multi-session development program. In-person and virtual delivery may be available depending on the setting and goals.
A planning conversation identifies the audience, the decisions or challenges in front of them, and what participants should be able to apply afterward.
06 / Practitioner and program distinction
Grounded in practice. Clear about what this program is.
Start with the leadership challenge in front of you
Tell Dr. Pemberton about your leaders, the setting, and what you would like them to understand or do differently.
The experience can be shaped around that goal.
Discuss TBRI for Executives →