Overing is costing your leaders more than you think
Jamie, a director, rushes off one call, jogs down the hallway, and flings open a bathroom door. Then she jogs back to her office and hits Join Now just as she sits down. You hear her breathless apology:
“I’m so sorry I’m late.”
It’s two minutes past the hour. She’s apologizing for having a human body.
This is overing culture perpetuated by an organizational leader. It’s the compulsive yes, the over-explaining, the over-performing, the body-erasing. It’s what happens when leaders push so far beyond capacity that they disassociate from their own needs in order to keep up. Thus signalling to others unwritten and unhealthy expectations.
And across organizational systems, it’s showing up everywhere.
One client calls overing an addiction, fueled by corporate pressure and AI-driven productivity demands. Another wrestles with the lack of dignity in academia when her body needs accommodation after an injury. Another fought for basic changes, like lighting and desk placement, because her “innovative office redesign” led to constant overstimulation and noise.
After more than a decade of this work, I can tell you one thing with absolute clarity:
In organizations, overing and self-sacrifice won’t save anything. But it will cost you and your team: burnout, disconnection, resentment, and the slow erosion of your sense of purpose.
And right now, with new austerity measures and shifting budgets, workloads are climbing across industries. Leaders and staff tell me:
My job stability feels precarious, but I need space and time.
The message is ‘do more with less’. But we’ve been doing that since the pandemic.
Everything feels urgent. Help me prioritize.
And in the face of that pressure? Far too many leaders have been responding by pushing harder, ignoring their bodies, saying yes anyway.
December and the new year are notorious for pulling people back into this frantic cycle.
So the real question becomes: How do you get off the treadmill of overing?
You start by reconnecting to your body because embodied boundaries are the foundation of leadership presence. Instead of apologizing for being human, you reclaim it. And you model that reclamation for your team.
Here are two alternatives to Jamie’s frantic apology:
Beforehand: “Let’s wrap up now so we all get ten minutes to take care of ourselves before the next call.”
or
Once on the call: “Thanks for your patience. I needed a break. Does anyone else need five minutes before we begin?”
These are micro-practices of presence. They rehumanize work. They shift culture. Now imagine if we shifted culture across your organization. Not just one leader but a cohort of leaders! This is the heart of my Leading With Presence program.
In Leading With Presence, leaders learn how to:
Interrupt overing and reactive urgency
Establish embodied boundaries without guilt
Communicate with clarity and grounded authority
Show up fully without burning out or tuning out
Lead teams with steadiness, attunement, and relational trust
Rebuild their sense of agency in environments of high pressure
What makes this work different: You don’t learn it alone.
Each organization receives a private cohort where leaders practice presence together. And each leader receives 1:1 executive coaching to integrate the work into their unique patterns, pressures, and positional realities.
It’s the combination of communal learning with tailored, individualized support that makes this program transformative.
If you are planning leadership development for 2026… Let’s talk!
I’m currently scheduling organizational cohorts for next year.
If your leaders are caught in cycles of overing… If your teams feel stretched, reactive, or overwhelmed… If you want a grounded, relational, human-centered leadership culture…
Let’s bring Leading With Presence into your organization.