Leader: Are you caring? (for yourself)

Leadership comes from people, not machines. It’s a truth that’s easy to understand but often hard to live by.

We’ve created systems—KPIs, production goals, hierarchies, and processes—designed to run like a well-oiled machine. While these systems have their place, they also put pressure on something far more valuable: your human judgment.

Your lived experience.

Too often, we doubt ourselves. We question whether our own experiences are valid in leadership.

We hesitate to lean into what we know and feel deep down. It’s not easy to take your own experiences seriously, is it? You might overlook them, push them aside, or convince yourself they don’t matter.

But here’s the truth: leadership isn’t just about intellect or emotion. It’s about those subtle, often overlooked sensations—the ones that exist before thoughts, before words. The affective level.

These sensations pulse through you—sometimes they flow, sometimes they’re blocked. Maybe you don’t have the language to describe them, or maybe you’ve dismissed them for too long.

When was the last time you truly listened to your body? Felt the tension in your stomach, the tightness around your eyes, without labeling it as “good” or “bad”?

These sensations are there for a reason. They’re signals from your body, telling you whether you are truly listening to yourself, whether you trust yourself—or whether you’re brushing your own needs aside.

These signals don’t just affect you—they influence your relationships. Can your team sense that you’re connected and genuinely there for them? Do your clients feel your presence and and trust you? Does your loved one?

Taking care of yourself is not just self-care—it’s the cornerstone of authentic leadership that creates trust.

It means taking the time to listen to those subtle cues within you, honoring them, and trusting that they have something important to tell you.

So, let us ask you: Are you truly taking care of yourself? Are you listening deeply, trusting your own signals, and leading from that place of inner knowing?