Leadership Wellbeing: Leading Without Losing Yourself. How I learned to lead from presence instead of pressure

Most high achievers don’t see it coming. We’re too busy performing, too committed to the mission, too driven to slow down. Burnout arrives not as a single event, but as the final whisper of a body that’s been speaking for far too long.

True leadership isn't about doing more. It's about being more present while you do what matters most.

When My Body Said “Enough”

At the height of my career in a fast-paced multinational environment, I had everything I believed I wanted: success, recognition, momentum. Yet beneath the surface, I was exhausted, disconnected, performing, producing and slowly unravelling. When a persisting toxic work situation pushed me past my capacity to cope, my body shut down.

I lost the ability to read. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t feel joy. My nervous system was in full collapse, and I mistook that collapse for failure. But it was, in truth, my body’s honest signal that something had to change.

Listening Differently

In the early months, very little seemed to work. Meditation made me restless. Yoga classes brought up anxiety. Traditional therapy helped my mind make sense of things, but my body still felt unsafe. My daily home yoga practice was the one ritual that helped me connect to myself, my body and start to to feel the held tension and emotions.

So with the little energy I had, I started searching for ways to help myself.  I felt instinctively that the more I could connect with my body, the more the raging tide in my mind would calm... I deepened my understanding of why yoga was so repairing for me... the philosophy and practices.... and after some time I held a certification in my hands telling me I was a yoga & meditation teacher... 

"The thing is, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know."

I continued studying neuroscience and the effects of trauma on the brain, everything I learned helped me hold more compassion for myself, all I experienced growing up and everything I faced going into adulthood, becoming a mother and my drive to pursue a competitive career. The latest medical studies prove what eastern wisdom has offered for millennia:  the path to calming the mind and existing in a peaceful, authentic state  starts with connecting to our bodies, letting go of pre-conceived ideas of what ‘success’ looks like, cultivating acceptance for our personal context and current reality without dissociating from it, being truthful to ourselves and others about how we got into our current situation, and what kind of support we need to move out of it.

Body-based, trauma-informed therapy approaches, recognise how stress and trauma live in the body: they help us understand what our system is trying to tell us. We start to notice how breath mirrors the state of the nervous system, how tension gathers in the shoulders before difficult conversations, and how exhaustion isn’t weakness, but a message.

Learning to listen, rather than override, was the beginning of everything for me.

The Long Road to Integration

Recovery didn’t unfold in tidy stages. There was no “Phase 1, 2, or 3.” It was hundreds of small steps and actions repeated over time: moments of awareness, tiny boundaries, short pauses, courageous no’s.

Each time, I softened:  by allowing myself to rest, to ask for help and receive it, to stop carrying everything alone. 

And each time, I strengthened: by protecting my energy, choosing presence over performance, and rebuilding discipline around what could sustain me.

It definitely wasn’t a linear approach; it was alive. A steady rhythm of contraction and expansion that slowly rewired how I related to work, to others, and to myself.

From Burnout to Leadership

What I eventually realised for myself is that burnout wasn’t only a personal crisis, it was a leadership lesson. Leading from pressure had made me efficient, but not effective. I could achieve results, but at the cost of presence.

Now, I lead differently. I lead with awareness of my own limits and nervous system. I build environments-  for myself and others- where calm, clarity, and curiosity take precedence over constant urgency.

"True leadership, I’ve learned, isn’t about doing more. It’s about being more present while you do what matters most."

Presence sits at the heart of leadership. It’s is the magic that allows you to connect with yourself, so that you can connect with others with intention, in a way that respects both their context, and the context of the shared objective.

The Work I Do Now

At SETUKA, this understanding shapes everything I offer. As a certified somatic therapist,  I help individuals and organisations move beyond surface-level wellness to build sustainable wellbeing grounded in nervous-system awareness, emotional literacy, and embodied resilience.

It’s not about escaping the mission; it’s about staying resourced within it.

As I learned, when we learn to lead from presence instead of pressure, we don’t just protect ourselves from exhaustion and burnout, we model a healthier way forward for everyone around us.

If this post resonated with you, feel free to share it with someone who might benefit too. And if you’d like to keep exploring themes like emotional wellbeing, transitions, and conscious self-leadership, I invite you to subscribe to the blog and join the SETUKA newsletter. You’ll receive occasional updates on upcoming workshops, fresh insights, and practical tools to support you, both personally and professionally, on your journey of growth and self-care.

Thank you for being part of the SETUKA community. Let’s stay in touch, and until then, take gentle care.

Heidi Kempeneer,

Therapist and Founder of SETUKA , a platform for body-based therapies and well-being services for individuals and organisations.

Find out more about me and what I do.