Your leaders are exhausted. Presence can change that.

It’s the end of the year, and most leaders I talk to have been running on empty since mid-year. They’ve juggled expectations (including their own very high ones), absorbed organizational pressure, and pushed past their capacity time after time. And while they continue to perform, the cost is clear: declining clarity, reactive decision-making, and disconnection from themselves and their teams.

Organizations need leaders who can show up with a type of grounded presence and a deeper connection to others.

A Real Story of What’s Possible

When I began working with Kelly and Maya, two leaders at a large tech organization, their roles looked very different on paper, while the challenges underneath were strikingly similar.

Kelly led a tight-knit operations team and was known for her reliability and attention to detail. But she felt constantly pulled into crises, unable to step back and lead strategically. Her team depended on her for every decision. She was exhausted because she was pulled into what I described as therapizing instead of managing her team.

Maya, a division director, excelled at big-picture thinking but struggled to communicate in a way her team could metabolize. She often left conversations feeling misunderstood or frustrated that others couldn’t “catch up” to her ideas. Her expectations were HIGH.

Both were strong leaders. Both were burning out. And both were unintentionally creating stress patterns within their teams in the same division, making cross-departmental collaboration more challenging than it needed to be.

In our cohort sessions and 1:1 coaching, they began practicing presence in very different ways:

For Kelly, presence meant…

• Recognizing when her body moved into urgency mode

• Interrupting the cycle of over-responsibility, so she stopped therapizing

• Shifting from crisis-solving to capacity-building and people management

• Delegating with clarity instead of stepping in by default

Her team began to rely on each other instead of funneling everything through her. Meetings became calmer, decisions clearer, and she stopped carrying the emotional labor of the entire department.

For Maya, presence meant…

• Slowing down enough to attune to how others were receiving her

• Pausing before offering solutions so that she could set appropriate expectations for the person and context

• Communicating vision in grounded, resonant ways

• Building trust through relational connection rather than speed

Her team began engaging more openly, asking questions, and taking ownership, rather than shutting down. Conversations became more collaborative, and her initiatives gained traction.

What changed was the way they showed up and how they engaged their teams. This is the kind of transformation Leading With Presence is designed to create within organizations: leaders who can navigate complexity, communicate with intention, and lead without burning out.

If you’re planning leadership development for 2026…

Now is the time to begin scheduling your organizational cohorts. If you want your leaders to:

• Lead without burning out

• Navigate complexity with clarity

• Build trust and relational credibility

• Model resilience and grounded decision-making

• Show up with the presence their roles demand

…I’d love to talk with you about whether Leading With Presence is the right fit.

Click here to schedule a conversation about bringing this program to your organization in 2026.

Let’s build a culture where leaders lead from presence, with impact that resonates.