Tajhah Kittling

I am Tajhah Kittling, someone who loves learning a little bit about everything and sharing those little bits with everyone. I found myself entranced by people, their stories, their successes, their learned lessons, and their social groups. Non-traditional education led me toward a Masters in Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health and a Graduate Certificate in Translational Research. I wanted to understand others and be better at understanding others. As funky as that sounds, my curiosity made me a better supervisor. I was always adapting plans and structures to best support my staff in their professional growth while honoring their uniqueness and capacity. But the ability to be transformative in the development of professions didn’t protect me from workplace bullying. I am not alone in experiencing workplace bullying and trauma. For years I was subjected to racial discrimination, outright isolation and exclusion, and ostracization where my direct supervisor would refuse to communicate with me. I was a victim of targeted public humiliation, public degradation, and would have my accomplishments stripped from records. At some point I noticed I was withering away, thinking ‘Where did my spark go’ or ‘Why is it so hard to smile’. Right at my low point, I started recalling all the lovely feedback from my staff and how they often shared stories of previous ‘bad bosses’. Then it hit me. I want to be in the business of making this better. I want to develop, design, package, train, and coach supervisors and prevent stories of ‘bad bosses’. I need to create working environments that not only meet organizational requirements but allow their employees to thrive in their respective roles. Beyond that, I want these uniquely designed environments to be inclusive of people, conditions, thought processes, learning, and impact. The idea is to improve employee relations and retention that will correlatively improve company outcomes.

So that’s what I did. I am the Co-founder and CEO of Kittling Jones Consulting, where we provide consulting and curriculum development to organizations in the Behavioral Health industry to address their specific concerns.