When Leadership Success Disconnects You from Yourself
I recently reconnected with a client after almost a decade.
He needed help getting his health and routine back on track. A few months earlier, he'd been promoted to Director of Operations in an organisation he'd worked in for more than twenty years.
When we met, something immediately struck me.
The person sitting in front of me wasn't quite the one I remembered.
Years earlier, he was someone who made space to stay connected to himself. He exercised regularly, meditated, paid attention to what he ate, and had a natural optimism about life.
Now he seemed… less grounded, preoccupied, and less like himself.
As we talked, he explained that, one by one, the habits and practices that had sustained him back then had quietly vanished after the promotion.
His morning meditation stopped.
The gym was replaced by late nights at the office.
Healthy meals turned into convenience food eaten in front of his computer.
What was interesting was that, although he knows I am a leadership coach, he wasn't asking for help with managing his new team or making better decisions in his new role.
He wanted to find his way back to baseline. To feel like himself again.
I've seen this many times, especially in leaders stepping into senior roles.
The pressure to perform.
The responsibility of leading a bigger team.
The weight of carrying more than ever before.
One by one, these new responsibilities take over the habits that once helped us stay grounded and resilient.
You might relate to this if you have been recently promoted or have simply taken on more responsibility and let go of some of your healthy habits.
The problem is, because this happens gradually, many leaders don't notice what they've lost until, like my client, they no longer feel like themselves.
The signs of disconnection
Once we restarted our coaching, my client described some of the challenges he had been facing since he started his new role.
As he spoke, I noticed something.
Although he seemed engaged, his shoulders looked tense, his breath seemed more agitated, and he kept leaning forward.
He wasn’t leaning forward in an engaged way; he was leaning unconsciously, as if he was bracing for impact.
I interrupted him and asked what he was noticing in his body.
Because we had done this work before, he took a breath and closed his eyes to check in. After a few moments, he replied:
"I'm tense. Like I'm always bracing."
I acknowledged his awareness and invited him to stay with his experience.
"When you're tense and leaning forward, what do you notice?"
He replied that he felt a strong sensation in his chest. A pressure building up and taking over, which made him lean forward.
I asked him to notice the sensations without judgment and describe them as objectively as possible.
After a few moments, he said:
"The sensation is like a red sphere in my chest."
I asked: what happens with the sphere when you lean forward?
"It gets bigger, and I start feeling overwhelmed."
Then I invited him to try something very simple.
"Take a deep breath and lean back slightly in your chair."
As he settled back, his shoulders softened. His breathing deepened.
"What do you notice now?"
It took him a few breaths in silence before he replied:
"The sphere is getting smaller."
By bringing awareness to his inner state and making a simple change in his posture, he was able to interrupt a pattern of ongoing activation he'd been living in for the last few months.
At the end of our session, I asked what his practices would be, in other words, what he would do differently over the next few days.
Two things, he said:
Asking myself: "Where is my sphere right now?"
And following that: "What do I need?"
The Power of Self-Awareness
Two weeks later, we had our second session, and the difference in his state was evident.
I asked him how his practice had gone.
He said he had been using the sphere as his internal compass.
Whenever he noticed it growing, during a difficult meeting, before a challenging conversation or when perfectionism began taking over, he would pause, notice it and lean back slightly in his seat.
"Sometimes just by bringing my attention to the sphere, it would begin to reduce. My practice became to look after the sphere more than anything else."
Then he made a connection that very few leaders are aware of:
"As I went back to managing my own state," he said, "I started getting better at delegating work to my new team."
His insight surprised me.
We hadn't talked about delegation in the last session, and he had come back to coaching looking for more structure around his habits. But the simple act of finding his way back to baseline had allowed him to start letting go of the work he thought he had to keep for himself.
Self-Care Is Not a Luxury. It's a Leadership Essential.
Most leaders think of self-awareness as a “soft skill”. A nice-to-have addition to their leadership.
But as my client discovered, self-awareness isn’t separate from leadership. It was the foundation.
Leaders who can't regulate their own inner state can't lead effectively.
They react instead of responding.
They hold on to work instead of delegating.
They manage from fear instead of from trust.
My client realised that the point of restarting our work wasn’t structure to go back to the gym or accountability to restart his morning practice.
The point was to come back to himself as the foundation needed for him to operate in his new leadership role.
That's not a soft skill, or a nice-to-have. That’s the self-leadership that sits at the core of external leadership.
From Holding On to Letting Go
Watching him come back to himself after just one session reminded me of something I see again and again in leaders who've recently stepped into bigger roles.
The bracing.
That constant state of forward lean:
Shoulders tight.
Shallow breath.
Nervous system quietly running on high alert.
Not because they're incapable. But because the weight of new responsibility activates something primal in us:
The need to hold on, to control. To keep everything in our hands because letting go feels unsafe.
But here's what the body also knows how to do:
Release.
As he practised coming back to baseline, noticing the sphere, breathing, leaning back, the grip began to loosen. Not through willpower. But because his nervous system finally felt safe enough to trust.
My client didn't decide to delegate. He didn't make a plan or set a goal around it.
The letting go happened almost automatically, as a natural consequence of trusting himself.
First himself. Then others.
That's the sequence nobody talks about in leadership. Not delegation as a strategy. But delegation as the natural expression of self-trust.
And self-trust begins in the body.
Which is exactly what I invite you to practice.
Practice for the Week - From Bracing to Trusting
Take five minutes today.
Sit somewhere quiet and bring to mind something that's been weighing on you.
Notice where you feel it in your body. Does it have a shape? A colour? A texture?
Then notice your posture. Are you bracing, contracting, or leaning in a certain way? Or are you allowing yourself to soften?
Notice the sensations in your body as if you were a scientist. No judgment, just curiosity.
Experiment. Lean forward. Then lean back. Notice what changes.
Then ask yourself two questions:
Where is my “sphere” right now? (In whichever way that shows up for you)
What do I need?
You might be surprised by how much your body already knows.
If you want to go deeper into embodiment practices for processing emotions, here are two articles that can help:
Heal Emotions from the Body Up
How to Feel and Process Emotions
As always, I would love to hear how these practices land with you. Comment below and let me know what tools you use to bring you back to baseline.
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