Most of us never connect the dots between the trauma of our childhood and the way we engage the world as adults. “There’s no use crying over spilled milk,” and “Worse things have happened,” right?

These are common ways of thinking for those who have experienced abuse. As a therapist who works with sexual abuse survivors, it is not surprising to me that many of these survivors are change-agents and are dynamic leaders in their community. Leadership and trauma tend to find themselves in the same wheelhouse. Those drawn into leadership are often people who have experienced difficult childhoods, developing a resiliency and a desire to do things differently.

We always say that those who have experienced the most dysfunction are capable of changing the world, either for good or for bad. Take Adolf Hitler and Oprah Winfrey, for example. Both leaders had traumatic upbringings; they each chose their very own distinct path, though, in making their mark. Leaders who have not processed their childhood trauma have the potential to do the greatest amount of harm. The people surrounding this type of leader feel angst to run and continually prove themselves, as if they have never been good enough. Janice Fraaser, a dynamic entrepreneur startup advisor, recently shared an interview where she said that most of the leaders she works with have dysfunctional pasts. It’s a pretty common phenomenon. She said that the difference between those who succeed and those who are swallowed up by their failures is simply this: knowing when to get help and then actually getting the help.

However, when one grows up in a dysfunctional home, he learns quickly how to ignore his own needs because they will not likely be attended to. This very maladaptive functioning is cheered on in the leadership culture, but it leads to a slow death. Janice reported that getting counseling, having good friends, maintaining a strong marriage, and knowing when it’s time to take a break from the fast pace and intensity of leadership are vital to maintaining one’s greater success in life.

Leaders are notorious for “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.” This survival technique, often learned in unsafe environments, can be the very thing to defeat a leader in the end. It’s like a soldier needing to be on alert at every moment during war, but upon returning home, cannot turn off his hyper-vigilance. A person can only keep going, keep pushing and keep striving so long before they crumble.

There is hope for leaders who recognize their need for help and find confidence in safe places. Healthy leaders who are not afraid to go anywhere, even the dark corners of their own stories, are needed in a world of people longing for true courage. Otherwise, the things we learned in order to survive an unsafe childhood, are the very things that will create our demise at the top. Be a different kind of leader; one who can say he has faced his story and is learning how to meet his human needs. We cannot give away what we have yet to receive.