Healing Leadership Trauma - by Nicholas Rowe & Sheila Wise Rowe (Paperback)

About the Book

There are countless leadership resources, but most neglect the underlying emotional struggles of leaders who are often isolated and suffering in silence. This book lays out the emotional challenges of leadership and offers encouragement, prayer, and therapeutic tools to help leaders begin to face their pain and heal.

Book Synopsis

There are countless leadership resources, but most neglect the underlying emotional struggles of leaders who are often isolated and suffering in silence. This book lays out the emotional challenges of leadership and offers encouragement, prayer, and therapeutic tools to help leaders begin to face their pain and heal.

Review Quotes

"Every leader should take a moment to pause and acknowledge what is motivating how they lead. Being aware of our own motivations can help reduce the places we lack awareness so we can serve others out of our own growth and healing. This fantastic book by Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe allows us all the space and guided direction to do just that."

"In Healing Leadership Trauma, Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe fearlessly tackle the often-overlooked topic with profound empathy and insight. This book offers a healing roadmap for leaders who have been wounded in the line of duty. I wholeheartedly endorse this transformative resource for leaders at every level seeking to lead authentically and reclaim their passion and purpose."

"Leaders are shaped by various intersections of trauma that are rarely spoken of together in one place. The insight Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer given their expertise and experiences is a gift to leaders who want to stay healthy while leading in hard places. This book helps us name what we encounter as leaders and accompanies us in our path toward healing."

"Leaders carry deep hurts both from their own lives and from the rigors of ministry. Ignoring these hurts is not an option: a church with hurting leaders is a hurting church. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe's book is a lifeline to help hurting leaders heal, sharing professional expertise and biblical wisdom to point us toward the God who can meet our deepest, unspoken needs and map out a pathway to hope."

"Leadership is often a lonely endeavor, but no one needs to lead alone. Leadership is often a burdensome responsibility, but that burden can be shared. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer themselves as guides to leaders who are navigating the weight of leadership. They offer practical insights and practices that you can participate in as you navigate your past, present, and future as a leader-and more importantly, as a human being made for relationship in God's image."

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe have delved into the core of leadership trauma leaving no stones unturned. With an intentional weaving together from a pastoral, psychological, and personal perspective, they guide the reader-leader to areas easily skimmed over or bypassed altogether. Their thoroughness in explaining the science grants the reader a deep sense of understanding that can disarm and dispel the adverse effects of lifelong emotional baggage. Undergirded and guided by Scripture, prayer, and practical exercises, leaders will experience a spiritual, relational, emotional, and physical refreshening with every turn of the page."

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe know that leaders struggle hard and honestly to flourish in our roles. Even so, too often leaders take a step forward only to have high stress or trauma knock us back a step or two. We need help beyond coaching or mentoring. Thankfully, Healing Leadership Trauma centers healing of leadership trauma as the path for effective and ethical leadership. It is a deep source of wisdom."

"The church needs this book. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer a timely, insightful, and practical cross-discipline resource for Christian leaders. This learned and Spirit-filled pair name the elephant in the sanctuary. Our leaders are often deeply wounded while seeking to serve others. Without shame, but with necessary accountability, Rowe and Wise Rowe help Christian leaders to better understand themselves and their wounds so that they might heal and serve from a place of health and wholeness."

"There's a dirty little secret in our world: leaders are in triage. The complexities of our ever-connected, often-critical, less-forgiving world is that we are seeing unprecedented resignations in leaders. We're in a leadership emergency. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, with the compassion, skill, and wisdom of first responders, offer this thoughtful and practical volume as a salve to heal the wounds and a defibrillator to revive the heart. Pick this first-aid kit up if you want to heal and be revived in your leadership."

"This unique book is like a master class on how to become healthy, whole leaders. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe show us how to name and heal from our wounds so that we can continue to serve others for the long haul. Healing Leadership Trauma is both brilliant and practical."

"Every leader should take a moment to pause and acknowledge what is motivating how they lead. Being aware of our own motivations can help reduce the places we lack awareness so we can serve others out of our own growth and healing. This fantastic book by Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe allows us all the space and guided direction to do just that."

--Heather Thompson Day, associate professor of communication at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, and author of It's Not Your Turn and I'll See You Tomorrow

"In Healing Leadership Trauma, Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe fearlessly tackle the often-overlooked topic with profound empathy and insight. This book offers a healing roadmap for leaders who have been wounded in the line of duty. I wholeheartedly endorse this transformative resource for leaders at every level seeking to lead authentically and reclaim their passion and purpose."

--Jeanette Salguero, co-lead pastor at The Gathering in Orlando, Florida, and executive vice president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition

"Leaders are shaped by various intersections of trauma that are rarely spoken of together in one place. The insight Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer given their expertise and experiences is a gift to leaders who want to stay healthy while leading in hard places. This book helps us name what we encounter as leaders and accompanies us in our path toward healing."

--Sandra María Van Opstal, pastor and author of The Next Worship

"Leaders carry deep hurts both from their own lives and from the rigors of ministry. Ignoring these hurts is not an option: a church with hurting leaders is a hurting church. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe's book is a lifeline to help hurting leaders heal, sharing professional expertise and biblical wisdom to point us toward the God who can meet our deepest, unspoken needs and map out a pathway to hope."

--Bronwyn Lea, pastor and author of Beyond Awkward Side Hugs

"Leadership is often a lonely endeavor, but no one needs to lead alone. Leadership is often a burdensome responsibility, but that burden can be shared. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer themselves as guides to leaders who are navigating the weight of leadership. They offer practical insights and practices that you can participate in as you navigate your past, present, and future as a leader--and more importantly, as a human being made for relationship in God's image."

--Raymond Chang, president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative and executive director of the TENx10 Collaboration, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe have delved into the core of leadership trauma leaving no stones unturned. With an intentional weaving together from a pastoral, psychological, and personal perspective, they guide the reader-leader to areas easily skimmed over or bypassed altogether. Their thoroughness in explaining the science grants the reader a deep sense of understanding that can disarm and dispel the adverse effects of lifelong emotional baggage. Undergirded and guided by Scripture, prayer, and practical exercises, leaders will experience a spiritual, relational, emotional, and physical refreshening with every turn of the page."

--Monique Gadson, licensed professional counselor and host of And the Church Said podcast

"Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe know that leaders struggle hard and honestly to flourish in our roles. Even so, too often leaders take a step forward only to have high stress or trauma knock us back a step or two. We need help beyond coaching or mentoring. Thankfully, Healing Leadership Trauma centers healing of leadership trauma as the path for effective and ethical leadership. It is a deep source of wisdom."

--Todd Hunter, author of What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion

"The church needs this book. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe offer a timely, insightful, and practical cross-discipline resource for Christian leaders. This learned and Spirit-filled pair name the elephant in the sanctuary. Our leaders are often deeply wounded while seeking to serve others. Without shame, but with necessary accountability, Rowe and Wise Rowe help Christian leaders to better understand themselves and their wounds so that they might heal and serve from a place of health and wholeness."

--Christina Edmondson, practitioner, educator, coauthor of Faithful Antiracism

"There's a dirty little secret in our world: leaders are in triage. The complexities of our ever-connected, often-critical, less-forgiving world is that we are seeing unprecedented resignations in leaders. We're in a leadership emergency. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, with the compassion, skill, and wisdom of first responders, offer this thoughtful and practical volume as a salve to heal the wounds and a defibrillator to revive the heart. Pick this first-aid kit up if you want to heal and be revived in your leadership."

--Rasool Berry, teaching pastor at the Bridge Church, Brooklyn, New York

"This unique book is like a master class on how to become healthy, whole leaders. Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe show us how to name and heal from our wounds so that we can continue to serve others for the long haul. Healing Leadership Trauma is both brilliant and practical."

--Dorothy Littell Greco, author of Marriage in the Middle

About the Author

Sheila Wise Rowe (MEd, Cambridge College) has over thirty years of experience offering counseling and spiritual direction to abuse and trauma survivors and to emerging and established leaders in the United States. Sheila ministered to unhoused and abused women and children in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she taught Christian counseling and trauma-related courses and was also a lay pastor for a decade. Sheila is the author of the award-winning Healing Racial Trauma and Young, Gifted, and Black.

Nicholas Rowe (PhD, Boston College) is a historian and the Hansen Associate Professor of Leadership at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has over thirty years' experience in senior leadership roles in higher education and nonprofit organizations and is a consultant in cross-ethnic reconciliation and conflict resolution in the United States and South Africa. Nicholas also provides spiritual direction for individuals and reconciling communities. He and his wife, Sheila Wise Rowe, live in Boston and have a daughter, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild.