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Over the past two years, I’ve been recalibrating something I didn’t initially associate with leadership at all, my own nervous system.
What I have learned is this: We cannot build regenerative systems from dysregulated nervous systems.
And yet, much of the last century of leadership development culture trains exactly that - leaders whose bodies are constantly braced for urgency, pressure, and control.
Over the past two decades working alongside leaders in climate and social change systems, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern: Conventional leadership often claims to value creativity and innovation, yet the structures we operate within frequently suppress both.
Hierarchies designed for control, rigid linear thinking, and performance-based identities ask us to contort ourselves into predefined roles. Over time, this leaves our minds overthinking, our bodies under stress, and our instincts increasingly quiet.
We pass this way of being on to one another in the name of getting the job done. Yet in doing so, we often reinforce the very systems we are trying to change; systems rooted in extraction, separation, and short-term thinking.
For the past two years, I’ve been exploring a different leadership paradigm: regenerative leadership.
The concept immediately resonated with something I had long sensed, that a more life-giving way of leading ourselves and our organizations must be possible.
Regenerative leadership offers a whole-systems approach to leadership. At its core, it asks a simple but profound question:
Are we contributing more to life than we take?
I am currently in the early stages of a year-long study of regenerative leadership with one of its co-founders, and I look forward to sharing what I learn along the way.
There are many aspects of regenerative leadership that draw me in, but one stands out in particular.
It offers a path away from leadership cultures built almost entirely on urgency, productivity, and performance. Instead, it makes space for rhythms that are relational, intuitive, restorative, and life-giving.
Looking back, I can see how deeply conditioned I had become by the dominant leadership culture around me.
For much of my career, I believed I needed to prove myself constantly - managing perception, anticipating expectations, and reinforcing the very systems I was beginning to question. Even within organizations dedicated to climate and social change, the culture often trained our nervous systems to stay in a constant state of alert.
For me, this chronic bracing eventually led to burnout.
It looked something like this:
Both of my phones were always within arm’s reach.
I checked emails and messages first thing in the morning, right before bed, and in nearly every spare moment in between. I didn’t turn work’s urgency off.
I over-prepared agendas and talking points. I scanned constantly for gaps, anticipating what might go wrong or what others might need before they asked.
I was leading large teams and new programs, so it felt like this vigilance was simply part of the job.
But in hindsight, I can see that I had developed tunnel vision, always scanning for problems, managing perceptions, and attempting to control uncertainty. I was leading in the way I had been taught. In the way society rewards.
And by many external measures, I was successful.
But eventually a new awareness began to emerge.
I realized that I was perpetuating the very cycle I was hoping to change - reinforcing patterns of urgency, control, and certainty that ultimately produce brittle systems. Within myself, and within the organizations I helped lead.
As I began speaking with more women leaders in my work as a Leadership Advisor and Facilitator, I discovered my experience was far from unique.
Women leaders, in particular, are often trained into a heightened state of vigilance.
We learn to monitor how our words are received, how we present ourselves, and whether we appear credible enough but not too assertive. We learn to question our instincts, seek additional validation, and sometimes defer to external expertise even when we already sense the right path forward.
Over time, this kind of chronic bracing takes a toll. And our organizations often mirror the physiology of the leaders within them.
When leaders are bracing, operating from urgency, control, or constant vigilance, those same patterns ripple through teams and institutions. Cultures become reactive. Decision-making tightens. Trust erodes.
Often this happens subtly, and usually in the name of the mission.
Around this time, I noticed something curious in my own body. My heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the variation between heartbeats and an indicator of nervous system health, was chronically low.
At first, I assumed it was simply the result of the intense stress I had experienced in my previous role. But a year after starting my own business, I was surprised to see that my HRV had barely changed.
My nervous system didn’t automatically recalibrate when the job ended.
This realization shifted something for me.
Where I had once assumed the problem was external, I began to see how deeply the patterns of leadership I had practiced had shaped my own physiology. As I braced mentally, managing expectations, suppressing instincts, pushing through pressure, my body had braced as well.
Where I had been so focused on leading externally, my internal leadership had quietly withered.
My nervous system was frayed.
And even though I had left the role that created so much pressure, my body was still operating as if the threat remained.
This realization led me to a deeper question:
If our nervous systems shape how we lead, what does it mean to cultivate leadership from a regulated, grounded state?
When we lead from a chronically activated nervous system, our decision-making shifts. We begin making choices not from our authentic selves, but from conditioned patterns of fear, performance, and perception.
Our ambition narrows.
Rather than asking what we truly want to build or contribute, we begin pursuing what feels safe, or what we believe others expect of us.
Under stress, our field of vision contracts. This is true biologically, and it is true in leadership.
Regeneration requires something different.
It requires a downshifting of the threat response so that creativity, intuition, and long-term thinking can re-emerge.
Through both personal experience and my work with other women leaders, I’ve come to see that regenerative leadership begins internally.
Leadership transformation is not only structural. It is physiological.
When our bodies have been living in a state of chronic stress or bracing, cognitive reframes and mindset shifts are rarely enough. We cannot simply think our way into a new way of leading.
Instead, we must recalibrate.
This begins with reconnecting to our purpose, our instincts, and the deeper motivations guiding our work. It involves examining the fears and conditioned patterns that shape our leadership.
And it asks us to cultivate new rhythms of decision-making, reflection, and action that allow our nervous systems and our leadership to expand.
Regenerative leadership, in this sense, is not simply a philosophy.
It is a physiological shift.
A way of bringing new energy, awareness, and relational presence into how we lead.
Only then can those qualities begin to shape the systems we build.
I am still very much on this journey myself.
My intention is to embody regenerative leadership in how I build my business, how I guide others, and how I continue evolving as a leader.
Our systems and organizations mirror the physiology of the leaders within them.
When bodies soften, leadership expands.
And when leadership expands, systems become more adaptive, relational, and whole.
When we begin to regulate and recalibrate our own leadership, we influence the systems around us - our teams, our organizations, and the broader ecosystems we are part of. The ripple effects extend far beyond any one individual.
Regulation is not a soft way of leading. It is a strategic capacity.
And in an increasingly complex and uncertain world, it may be one of the most important leadership capacities we can cultivate.