By Valeria Torres, Corporate Psychologist
Power, Control, Resilience.
Three words that define corporate life, often pursued as trophies, but rarely understood as living processes.
When I was first diagnosed with PTSD, I feared it would make me less capable, less composed, less in control. But what I eventually learned is that trauma doesn’t strip power away, it redefines it. It reveals the space between strength and surrender, between control and trust.
The Illusion of Control
In high-stakes business environments, control often feels synonymous with safety. We manage timelines, people, outcomes, believing that precision can protect us from uncertainty. But PTSD dismantled that illusion for me. It showed me what happens when the nervous system stops obeying logic, when focus fractures, when control slips.
And yet, in losing that external control, I found something far more enduring: self-regulation.
True control isn’t about tightening your grip, it’s about knowing when to release it. It’s the quiet discipline of noticing your own physiology, redirecting attention, and staying grounded when the mind races. What once felt like fragility became the foundation for resilient awareness.
Power, Redefined
Before PTSD, I equated power with presence, commanding the room, never flinching, always appearing composed. After PTSD, I realized real power isn’t about performance, it’s about stability amid internal chaos.
Leaders who’ve faced trauma often develop:
Heightened situational awareness, reading dynamics before they escalate
Calm amid crisis, because they’ve already navigated internal storms
Deep empathy, understanding how fragility and strength coexist
Trauma doesn’t disqualify you from leadership, it can deepen it. It invites authenticity over perfection and teaches that power sustained by empathy is far more enduring than authority sustained by fear.
The Discipline of Resilience
Resilience has become one of those buzzwords in business, often mistaken for endurance. But resilience isn’t about pushing harder, it’s about integrating smarter. It’s learning how to recover fully, not just function efficiently.
A 2023 Deloitte study revealed that leaders who consistently practice mindfulness and self-reflection report 31% higher decision clarity and emotional stamina compared to peers who don’t. Neuroscience echoes this: recovery isn’t a break from performance, it’s part of it.
As a corporate psychologist, I’ve seen this repeatedly. The leaders who last aren’t the ones who never burn out, they’re the ones who recognize the early signs, recalibrate, and rebuild.
From Surviving to Leading
PTSD taught me that leadership isn’t about the absence of fear, it’s about what you do with it. It’s how you lead when certainty disappears. It’s how you pause without collapsing. It’s how you hold power gently enough to adapt, but firmly enough to stay anchored in purpose.
When executives tell me they feel “too emotional” or “too affected” to lead, I remind them: those emotions are data. They’re part of your internal intelligence system. Learning to interpret them, not suppress them, is the mark of true leadership maturity.
PTSD reframed my understanding of power. It taught me that control isn’t the goal, awareness is. That resilience isn’t about bouncing back, it’s about expanding capacity. And that leadership is less about managing others, more about mastering your own nervous system.
Because the strongest leaders aren’t unbreakable, they’re self-aware enough to rebuild, again and again, without losing compassion along the way.
If this reflection resonated with you, I invite you to read The Executive Echo Chamber: How Isolation at the Top Impacts Mental Performance, where I explore how leadership isolation shapes emotional resilience, and why connection might be the most underrated executive strategy of all.