There is increasing interest in the human services field in transformational leadership (Fisher, 2009; Gellis, 2001; Mary, 2005) and the association between this style of leadership and employee engagement, thus impacting the quality of services delivered (Everett & Sitterding, 2011; Mary, 2005). The Sanctuary Model®, a trauma-informed organizational intervention, promotes many elements of the transformational style of leadership, especially the elements of inspiration, optimism, encouragement, honesty, motivation, respect, team-orientation, effective communications, empowerment, reliability, trustworthiness, and empathy (Bloom, 2005, 2011; Smith, 2011). This exploratory, qualitative study examines how social service agency leaders have used a transformational leadership approach to implement the model in two different organizations.
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