Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute™

The institute that studies how organizations harm people and trains the professionals who stop it.

Behind every toxic workplace is a person whose career, health, and sense of reality has been damaged by behavior that was allowed to continue unchecked. Not because it was undetectable, but because no one had a framework precise enough to classify it, name it, and stop it. The Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute exists to change that.

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The Institute

The research has always been there. The tools to act on it haven't. Until now.

For decades, the field has had research on toxic leadership, abusive supervision, and organizational dysfunction. What it has lacked is a unified, mechanism-based framework that practitioners can deploy across the full spectrum of organizational harm, from direct aggression to institutional complicity. That gap is where targets stay unprotected and perpetrators stay unaccountable.

The Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute was built to close it. We produce the science, build the diagnostic tools, and credential the practitioners who carry that work into organizations. The Sansberry Organizational Harm Taxonomy classifies sixteen behavioral mechanisms of harm across five clusters, documenting how each one operates, what distinguishes it from adjacent behaviors, and how it manifests when delivered through AI systems.

The work is both academic and applied by design. Every definition in the taxonomy meets standards of scholarly precision. Every element of the COHA certification is immediately deployable in active field settings. Those two requirements are not in tension. They are the point.

Mission
The Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute equips practitioners with the diagnostic frameworks, credentialing, and applied methodology they need to identify organizational harm with precision and intervene with authority.
Vision
Practitioners who work inside harmful organizations deserve tools as rigorous as the problems they face. The Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute exists until that is the standard, not the exception.
16
Behavioral mechanisms of organizational harm classified and defined
5
Mechanistically distinct harm clusters, from direct aggression to structural entrenchment
1
Forensic framework that classifies all of them, including their AI-enabled manifestations

No existing framework does this. Practitioners who complete the COHA™ certification leave with the diagnostic language, the assessment methodology, and the commercial license to apply it in practice. It is not a credential that supplements what you already do. It is the framework that makes what you already see actionable.

The Framework

Sansberry Organizational
Harm Taxonomy™

Five clusters. Sixteen behavioral mechanisms. Each behavior is mechanistically distinct, forensically defined, and documented with its AI-enabled manifestation. Click any element to explore its clinical definition and mechanism of control.

SOHT™ Version 1.0 · © 2026 Dr. Kevin Sansberry II · All Rights Reserved

Free Assessment · It Wasn't You
Experiencing something you can't quite name?
The SOHT™ assessment maps your experience to the behavior or behaviors behind it, in plain language, for free. A product of the Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute™.
Take the Assessment
The Frontier

Every other framework stops at the human perpetrator. This one doesn't.

Every behavior in the Sansberry Organizational Harm Taxonomy has a documented AI-enabled manifestation: a formal description of how that behavior operates when delivered through, or protected by, algorithmic systems. No existing organizational harm framework does this. The SOHT is the first.

The mechanism of harm does not change when it moves into an AI system. Retaliation is still retaliation when it is laundered through a performance score. Gaslighting is still gaslighting when the distortion is produced by an opaque algorithm rather than a hostile manager. What changes is the scale, the plausible deniability, and the institutional distance between the decision and the decision-maker.

That distance is what makes AI-enabled harm so difficult to address without a forensic framework built specifically to name it. Practitioners who cannot identify the AI-enabled form of a behavior will consistently misclassify what they are seeing, intervene at the wrong level, and build evidence trails that do not hold up under institutional or legal scrutiny.

16
Formally documented AI-enabled manifestations, one for every behavior in the taxonomy
0
Other organizational harm frameworks that document AI-enabled behavior at this level of specificity
1
COHA™ certification program that trains practitioners to identify, classify, and intervene in AI-enabled organizational harm
Selected AI-Enabled Manifestations · SOHT™
Cluster 1 · Aggressive Domination
AI-Laundered Retaliation
Retaliation
Cluster 2 · Cognitive Manipulation
AI Gaslighting
Reality Distortion
Cluster 2 · Cognitive Manipulation
Weaponized AI Anxiety
Emotional Exploitation
Cluster 2 · Cognitive Manipulation
Data-Built Incompetence
Undermining Others
Cluster 3 · Systemic Deprivation
Algorithmic Gatekeeping
Access Control
Cluster 4 · Social Suppression
Algorithmic Discrimination
Identity-Based Targeting
Cluster 5 · Structural Entrenchment
Algorithmic Abdication
Dysfunctional Authority
Cluster 5 · Structural Entrenchment
Self-Executing Complicity
Structural Protection
"AI does not commit harm. Organizations that deploy it negligently, or by design, do."
Sansberry Organizational
Harm Taxonomy™ · SOHT™
Certification

Certified Organizational
Harm Analyst™

The COHA™ program trains HR consultants, mediators, workplace investigators, executive coaches, and organizational development practitioners to identify, assess, document, and intervene in organizational harm using the Sansberry Organizational Harm Taxonomy™.

The program exists at the intersection of three urgent professional realities: the widespread inadequacy of existing practitioner frameworks for high-conflict, coercive organizational environments; the emergence of AI-enabled harm mechanisms that existing certification programs have not addressed; and the growing legal and organizational pressure on practitioners to operate with greater diagnostic precision and evidentiary rigor.

COHA™ certification is not designed for entry-level practitioners. It is a specialization for experienced professionals who are ready to operate with forensic-level precision in the field's most complex environments. Every module delivers a complete, deployable service offering, not theoretical knowledge detached from practice.

Professional Impact
"AI can flag toxic behavior. Only a trained specialist can intervene in it."
Core Outcome
"Leave with six new billable services your competitors cannot offer."
Why This Specialization Matters
Every skill this program teaches requires human judgment under pressure, with a high-conflict person or resistant institution present. That is the definition of an AI-resistant specialization, and it is the honest differentiator this certification delivers.
Competency Framework
Three domains. Every module develops all three.

All COHA™ learning objectives, skills, and assessment standards are organized within three competency domains. The relative emphasis shifts across modules, but no module teaches one domain in isolation from the others.

Domain 01
Diagnostic Precision
The ability to identify, classify, and distinguish SOHT™ behaviors with forensic accuracy. Practitioners can name what they are looking at with clinical confidence and explain why it is one behavior and not another.
Domain 02
Evidence Craft
The ability to build, document, and present an evidence trail that is specific, corroborated, and legally defensible. Practitioners can take findings into legal, HR, and organizational settings where they will be challenged.
Domain 03
Intervention Strategy
The ability to select, sequence, and execute intervention strategies appropriate to the active harm mechanism. Practitioners can move from assessment to action and explain why they chose a particular strategy over the available alternatives.
Program Architecture
Seven modules. One integrated practitioner.

The curriculum advances from the most externally visible harm to the most institutionally embedded, culminating in a capstone that requires the simultaneous integration of all five clusters across all three competency domains.

00
Practitioner Foundation · Required Prerequisite
Before You Can See Clearly
Establishes the practitioner identity, ethical orientation, and self-management framework that every subsequent module depends on. Introduces the integrated practitioner model: forensic precision and person-centered capacity as two equally foundational orientations, not competing approaches. Includes Transactional Analysis as a self-management tool for navigating the relational dynamics of high-conflict cases.
All Clusters
Foundation
01
Cluster 1 · Aggressive Domination
When the Threat is Visible
Classification and documentation of Aggressive Coercion, Threats as Control, and Retaliation. Primary competency emphasis on Evidence Craft: building a legally defensible trail for harm that is observable but must meet legal standards under adversarial scrutiny, including AI-laundered forms of each behavior.
Workplace Investigation
Threat Assessment
02
Cluster 2 · Cognitive Manipulation
When the Threat is Invisible
Diagnostic framework for Reality Distortion, Deceptive Influence, Emotional Exploitation, and Undermining Others. Primary competency emphasis on Diagnostic Precision: identifying harm that leaves no visible marks and building corroboration when the target's account is the primary available evidence.
Psychological Harm
Assessment
03
Cluster 3 · Systemic Deprivation
When the Harm is in What's Missing
Assessment methodology for Access Control, Voice Suppression, and Inequitable Treatment. Harm is structural and defined by what does not happen; practitioners must construct the comparative benchmark that makes absence visible and legally legible.
Organizational Equity
Audit
04
Cluster 4 · Social Suppression
When the Harm is in the Culture
Classification of Identity-Based Targeting, Cultural Coercion, and Social Isolation. Primary competency emphasis on Intervention Strategy: translating diffuse cultural harm patterns into specific, actionable findings that connect to legal and organizational accountability frameworks.
Culture & Climate
Assessment
05
Cluster 5 · Structural Entrenchment
When the Organization is the Problem
Forensic analysis of Dysfunctional Authority, Deliberate Ambiguity, and Structural Protection. The organization itself is actively resisting accountability; practitioners must build findings that withstand the highest level of institutional and legal adversarial scrutiny.
Policy Forensics
Structural Audit
06
Capstone · All Five Clusters
The Full Assessment
Application of the complete SOHT™ framework to a real or simulated organizational case, with all three competency domains required simultaneously. All mechanisms may be active at once; the practitioner must prioritize, sequence, and present findings that reflect the full complexity of the organizational harm system.
Full SOHT™
Assessment
Who This Is For
Experienced practitioners who are ready to specialize.

The COHA™ program is not designed for entry-level HR professionals or new consultants who do not yet have clients. It is built for practitioners with active practices who are ready for a methodology that transforms what they can see, name, and act on.

Independent HR Consultants
Three or more years of active practice. A proprietary diagnostic methodology that differentiates you from generalist competitors and opens new categories of billable service, including individual-facing diagnostic consultation.
Workplace Investigators & Title IX Coordinators
A behavioral science framework that gives investigative work clinical precision and legal defensibility beyond current practice standards, with explicit attention to AI-enabled harm mechanisms.
Organizational Mediators
A forensic toolkit for the cases where standard mediation fails: coercive, manipulative, or high-conflict environments where the presenting issue is not the actual driver of harm.
Executive Coaches
Diagnostic language and a person-centered consultation methodology for clients who are experiencing organizational harm they cannot name, document, or act on with their current frame of reference.
Internal HR at Director Level+
A structural analysis framework for the moment when internal processes have failed and institutional complicity has become part of the problem you are being asked to solve.
Ombudspersons
Assessment and evidence documentation methodology for the complex, multi-party cases that define ombudsperson work: situations that existing frameworks were not designed to address with adequate precision.
Program Investment
One cohort. One price. Everything included.
$2,000
Per practitioner · COHA™
Payment plans available. Discussed during the inquiry process.
What's included
Full seven-module COHA™ curriculum with Module 0 prerequisite
COHA™ Practitioner Field Guide (proprietary reference manual)
Commercial license to apply the SOHT™ framework in client engagements
COHA™ credential and designation upon successful completion
Direct access to Dr. Kevin Sansberry II throughout the program
Apply for COHA™
Dr. Kevin Sansberry II, Founder of the Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute
Dr. Kevin Sansberry II
Founder, Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute™
Education
DBA, Organizational Behavior · MBA, Leadership & Change · BS, Psychology
Research
Abusive Supervision · CEO Narcissism · Organizational Coercive Control
Practice
Founder, KEVRA: The Culture Company · Advanced Hogan Certification
The Founder

The researcher and practitioner who built the framework.

Dr. Kevin Sansberry II is an organizational behavior scholar and the founder of the Sansberry Organizational Harm Institute. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration in Organizational Behavior and has spent nearly a decade consulting with organizations on the behavioral and structural conditions that produce harm, dysfunction, and coercive control.

His published research addresses abusive supervision and CEO narcissism. His dissertation, The Masks We Wear in the Workplace Masquerade, examined the concealment of identity under abusive supervision, and became the basis for a TEDx talk of the same name. He is the founder of KEVRA: The Culture Company, through which he has led culture transformation, behavioral diagnosis, and organizational system redesign engagements across industries. He is also the host of the Toxic Leadership Podcast.

The Sansberry Organizational Harm Taxonomy is the product of that research and practice combined: a classification system built from direct field exposure to the behaviors it documents, and held to the standards of scholarly precision his academic training demands.

He founded SOHI on a single conviction: that practitioners working inside harmful organizations deserve tools as rigorous as the problems they face.

Applications · COHA™

Currently reviewing inquiries for the next cohort.

Cohort enrollment is limited. The program is designed for a small group of experienced practitioners who will apply the full framework in active field settings from the start. If you work in HR consulting, workplace investigation, organizational mediation, executive coaching, or ombuds practice, and you are ready to operate with forensic-level precision in complex harm environments, we want to hear from you.

Submit an Inquiry Review the Curriculum
Cohort Inquiry · COHA™

Express Interest in COHA™ Certification

This inquiry helps us understand your practice context and ensure the program is the right fit. Completion takes approximately five minutes. We review all submissions and respond to qualified inquiries directly.

✦
Inquiry Received
Thank you for your interest in COHA™ certification. We review all submissions personally and will be in touch if your practice context is a strong fit for the current cohort.
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Practice Context
Fit Assessment
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