Guest Blog: Why Smart, Capable Leaders Are Tired—And What to Do Instead

ROAR | 27 May, 2025 | 10 minute read | Blog, Guest

By: Andrea Edmondson 

 Consultant, Coach & Founder of NeuroSmart Learning

Sophie is a Director of Marketing at a successful B2B tech firm, reflecting a growing trend in the industry where senior marketers are expected to be both strategic leaders and operational workhorses. She’s smart, experienced, and respected. She knows how to deliver. She’s built cross-functional teams, led rebrands aligned to shifting buyer behaviour, and rolled out digital strategies that have moved the needle.

From the outside, she looks like a high-functioning, high-achieving success story.

But here’s the part no one sees: Sophie is exhausted and doubts herself.

Not in a one-bad-week kind of way. In a deep, biological way. She’s always on. Always trying to keep up, keep calm, and keep it all together—despite the constant tension pulling in opposite directions.

Her nervous system is sending messages her brain doesn’t know how to read. And if you don’t know how to read them, you’ll keep pushing until something breaks—your focus, your health, your relationships.

Caption: On the surface, ducks appear to glide smoothly. Beneath it, they are paddling furiously keep afloat. What may seem effortless is often effortful. We don’t always see how hard someone is paddling and the internal cost of this, until it’s too late. Image Credit: Research Doodles by M. Shandell.

The Pressure Behind the Performance

Sophie’s story is one I hear all the time.

She has clear professional goals:

• Raise brand awareness
• Drive high-quality leads
• Elevate the company’s visibility and credibility in a crowded market

But the context she’s working in is complex. Her team is lean. Budgets are tight. And she’s managing multiple channels while also trying to influence a leadership team that still favours legacy marketing tactics.

She’s navigating change—but doing it in a system that’s fearful and resists change.

It’s not just strategy work. It’s political, emotional, and personal.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one carrying the vision,” she told me. “And at the same time, I’m scared I’ll be seen as pushy, or too much. So, I keep it all together. But inside? I’m fried.”

The Internal Strain: The Fight Behind the Performance 

What Sophie was feeling—the tension, the exhaustion, the mental noise—wasn’t just chronic stress. It was a signal that parts of her internal psychological system were in conflict.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic approach that’s increasingly used in leadership coaching, we talk about ‘parts’—distinct aspects of ourselves that take on different roles to help us cope and succeed. You don’t have to know the model to recognise the experience: it’s that inner tug-of-war between one voice that says, “You’ve got this—push harder,” and another that whispers, “I can’t keep going like this.”

For Sophie—and for many purpose-driven leaders—there were two main types of parts that drive behaviour:

The Manager Parts

These are the parts that like to stay in control. They plan, perfect, strategize, and overachieve. They’re often high-functioning and responsible—but anxious underneath. Their job is to prevent things from going wrong by keeping everything in order.

Sophie’s Manager parts sounded like:

• “You need to prove your value.”
• “Don’t slow down, you’ll fall behind.”
• “You have to hold it all together.”

They helped her succeed—but at a cost. They kept her in constant motion, with very little room to pause, reflect, or feel.

The Firefighter Parts

These parts jump in when the pressure gets too high and the ‘Managers’ start to lose control. They don’t care about goals—they care about relief. They want the pain to stop. Fast. Now.

For Sophie, this looked like:

• Numbing out in the evenings with wine and social media
• Avoiding feedback conversations that felt emotionally loaded
• Becoming overly reactive when one more thing landed on her already full plate

Firefighters aren’t bad. They’re just desperate. They’re trying to protect the system from emotional overwhelm. But when they take over too often, leaders feel unsteady, out of sync, or ashamed of how they’re coping.

Image Caption: This NeuroSmart Learning visual brings the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to life—showing how Managers try to prevent pain, Firefighters react to it in the moment, and Exiles carry the wounds we avoid. At the centre is Self—the calm, curious, and connected core we can lead from when our internal system is aligned.

Why This Matters

This inner push-pull—between the perfectionist managers and the overwhelmed firefighters—takes a toll.

It’s not just tiring. It’s disorienting.

One part of you wants to be calm and visionary. Another part is yelling “Just get through today.”

When these parts are fighting for control, your nervous system stays on high alert. You might look like you’re performing well—but underneath, you’re fraying.

That’s why traditional performance tools or mindset shifts don’t always stick.

Because the issue isn’t just in your thinking. It’s in your nervous system—a system that’s trying to keep you safe but isn’t working in sync.

What Changes When You Listen Inside

When Sophie learned how to recognise her nervous system state and her internal parts—and not to judge or suppress them but listen to them—everything changed.

• Her ‘Managers’ relaxed once they knew there was a wiser part of her in the lead
• Her ‘Firefighter’s stopped hijacking her evenings, because she no longer ignored her need for rest
• Her whole system began to settle, and with that came more creativity, more clarity, and more connection—with her team, her family, and herself

And as Sophie found internal balance, the ripple effects became clear:

• Her team reported feeling more psychologically safe, creative, and aligned
• Collaboration across departments improved as Sophie led with more calmness and curiosity
• Her ability to influence senior leaders increased, because she could advocate for digital strategies with grounded conviction instead of reactive urgency
• Her business outcomes improved, not just in metrics, but in momentum and morale

“That’s Me.”

If you’ve been nodding along, wondering, “How do I keep going like this?”, I want you to know something important:

You don’t need fixing.

You need regulating and resourcing.

That’s what Sophie began to discover as she explored the NeuroSmart Framework—a neuroscience-based, compassionate process for helping successful, purpose-driven leaders move from survival mode to sustainable performance.

It starts from the inside out.

The Shift: From Pushing to Presence

With guidance, Sophie began to slow down enough to notice what was really going on inside her.

• She learned to recognise when her nervous system was shifting into fight-or-flight—those moments when her heart raced in meetings, or her brain spiralled at 3 a.m.
• She used simple tools to regulate her state in real time, so she could come back to clarity and connection
• She got to know the different parts of her inner world, including the Hyper-Achiever, the People Pleaser, and the Exhausted Protector
• Most importantly, she created space for the part of her that was wise, grounded, and ready to lead in a new way

This wasn’t necessarily about working less. It was about working differently—with more intention, more presence, and more support from within and a more trusting relationship with others.

What Changed

As Sophie learned to lead from the inside out, the external shifts came naturally.

• She stopped over-explaining and started trusting her voice
• She invited her team into honest conversations about capacity and priorities
• She led meetings with more presence and clarity—even when the stakes were high
• And outside of work, she had energy again. For her kids. For her partner. For herself

Not because the pressure vanished, but because she wasn’t fighting herself anymore.

“I believed I had to work harder,” she said. “But what I really needed was to listen inside, and lead from there.”

A Better Way Is Possible

We are living through a rupture between our biology and environment, in how we relate to work, and to one another at work.

As Esther Perel says,

“Underneath the performance reviews and productivity tools, what we’re really talking about are relationships… Do I feel seen? Do I matter here?”

And I’d add:

Do I feel seen by myself?

Because the relationship between you and your own nervous system shapes everything else.

When leaders learn to regulate, reflect, and realign from the inside out, they lead differently.

They become more spacious. More discerning. More connected.

They move from performance under pressure to leadership with presence.

When You’re Ready

If this feels like your story—if you’ve been carrying too much for too long—I want you to know:

There is a way through that doesn’t involve burnout, numbing out, or walking away from work you care about.

It starts by coming home to yourself.

That’s where the real work begins.

And that’s where your next level of leadership lives—not in another sprint or survival cycle, but in a deeper, more integrated approach.

You don’t have to figure it out alone.

Leaders like Sophie don’t just need another tool—they need a turning point. When you build internal clarity and resilience, you unlock better leadership, stronger teams, and clearer outcomes.

That’s why I support successful and purpose-driven leaders through:

• One-to-one coaching that’s focused, confidential, and tailored to your inner system and outer world
• Small group coaching for those who want the added richness of learning and growing in a trusted peer space

Both options blend neuroscience, nervous system regulation, and parts-based coaching to help you reconnect, realign, and lead from your strongest, most grounded self.

If you’re reflecting on how this applies to your own leadership experience, you’re not alone. I’d love to hear what resonates—or where you’re still feeling stuck. Let’s keep the conversation going.

If it’s helpful, I also have a free neuroscience-based guide: “3 Surprising Reasons You Feel Stuck—and How to Change That Today.” You can download it from my website www.neurosmartlearning.com  or you book a call and to find out more.

Andrea Edmondson | Consultant, Coach & Founder of NeuroSmart Learning

Andrea Edmondson is a consultant, coach, and educator with over 30 years’ experience helping successful leaders and teams optimise wellbeing, energy, and performance by applying neuroscience in practical, actionable ways.

Her career began in London and has since spanned New York, Brussels, Washington DC, and Houston—before returning to the UK where she is now based in North Yorkshire. Six international moves with four children, combined with senior-level consulting experience, taught Andrea first-hand the hidden costs of chronic stress and the critical importance of understanding the nervous system.

After personally navigating burnout, Andrea became relentless in her search for evidence-based, easy-to-use solutions that support sustainable performance. Since 2015, she has specialised in applying a Polyvagal-informed, neuroscience-backed approach that helps leaders not just survive—but thrive.

Andrea founded NeuroSmart Learning to equip forward-thinking, purpose-driven leaders with the tools to become active operators of their nervous systems and brains. Her mission is to transform workplaces into environments of psychological safety, connection, and collaboration—where people perform at their best and feel their best.

She works across sectors including technology, education, healthcare, law, construction, and energy, partnering with CEOs, founders, and their teams. Her approach is grounded in science, enriched by global experience, and delivered with warmth and clarity.

In addition to her executive work, Andrea is passionate about social impact. Through affordable workshops and training, she extends NeuroSmart’s reach into schools, colleges, and charities—empowering the next generation with life-changing knowledge about how their brains and bodies really work.