Most leaders burn out not due to lack of skill or ambition, but because they stop listening to themselves. They trade intuition for output, self-awareness for speed, and ignore emotional signals. Over time, the mind and body struggle. Performance drops.
Executive coach and author of How to Do the Inner Work, Susanne Madsen, experienced this firsthand, managing high-pressure projects in finance. Her story serves as a warning to leaders and provides a roadmap for maintaining clarity, resilience, and alignment in demanding environments.
The Cost of Powering Through
Madsen drifted away from her own signals as her workload grew. She responded by forcing her way through stress instead of listening to what her body was telling her.
“I felt important. I did not want to let anyone down. I carried a lot of weight on my shoulders,” she told me. She was delivering the bank’s most critical project, and the stress expressed itself everywhere. “My foot was inflamed. I had irritable bowel syndrome. The aches and pains began.”
Like many leaders, she downplayed these signals. “You wear stress as a badge of honor. You say you are so busy. You rationalize it.”
Effort isn’t the problem. Believing sustained effort without self-regulation is normal and necessary is. This belief erodes the very capacity leaders need to make decisions, influence others, and perform effectively.
Listening to Your Internal Data
Madsen’s turning point came when she finally paused long enough to hear herself. She describes a simple but radical act: stopping.
“Many people do not stop. We need to stop in order to get a new perspective.”
Stopping gives leaders access to internal signals. Exhaustion, resentment, tension, regret, or feeling stuck are not annoyances. They’re signals. Ignoring them pushes leaders out of alignment and into a state of reactivity.
A key insight from Madsen’s coaching practice is that people already know where they are out of alignment. When she asks clients if they are living in a way that aligns with their values, they do not require lengthy explanations. The answer is immediate.
“When we are not in alignment, a part of us is screaming,” she said. Leaders often silence that voice by distracting themselves with work, achievement, or people pleasing. The better path is to approach discomfort with curiosity.
Practical Inner Work Leaders Can Use
Madsen’s book, How to Do the Inner Work, emphasizes simple and sustainable practices that help leaders return to clarity. Several themes surfaced in our conversation that translate directly into workplace behavior.
1. Name the Things That Drain You
Overwhelm is rarely mysterious. Most people can identify one task, one relationship, or one routine that drains them more than anything else. Start there.
Madsen asks her clients two questions:
• What drains your energy?
• How can you reduce your exposure to it?
Leaders tolerate draining activities too long. Small adjustments shift their energy. Boundaries are maintenance, not luxuries.
2. Rebuild Energy Through Small, Consistent Inputs
To build internal energy, remove drains and add what replenishes. Most leaders skip replenishment.
The replenishing activities do not need to be complex. “Some people do not know anymore,” Madsen said. “I ask them what they loved as teenagers. Their face lights up.” Music, sports, nature, and reading. Even ten minutes makes a difference because the goal is not volume. The goal is reconnection.
3. Use Breathwork to Regulate Your Nervous System
Breathwork is not just relaxation. It is a physical practice that influences emotional regulation and mental clarity. Madsen suggests coherent breathing daily.
“Inhale for five or six seconds and exhale for five or six seconds,” she said. “It creates internal coherence.”
This approach strengthens communication between heart and mind, calms restless thoughts, and restores the stress response. Practicing for five minutes daily supports healthier patterns at work.
4. Train the Mind Through Meditation
Breathing regulates the body. Meditation trains the mind. Leaders who don’t notice their thoughts are controlled by them.
Madsen uses meditation to help clients notice mental loops, especially after negative feedback. Instead of spiraling into self-doubt, meditation teaches leaders to observe thoughts without becoming entangled in them. This builds emotional maturity and better decision-making.
5. Practice Micro Moments of Gratitude
Gratitude helps counteract the negativity bias that is common at work. For leaders, it recalibrates attention directly.
Madsen encourages noticing “the small miracles” throughout the day. Not milestones. Moments. A positive interaction. A helpful colleague. A quiet morning.
“What you focus on expands,” she said. Gratitude strengthens perspective over time and changes the tone leaders bring into their teams.
6. Find a Place Where You Can Hear Yourself Think
Inner work rarely happens in motion. Leaders need environments that allow stillness. It can be a walking path, a bench in a park, a room in the home, or a place in nature.
The location matters less than finding a place to be alone with your thoughts and not perform for others. This is where clarity appears. Leaders who return to this place consistently lead without losing themselves.
Inner Work Is a Leadership Skill
Some leaders fear that looking inward means losing ambition. In fact, self-awareness makes them more effective and sustainable. Poor boundaries, suppressed emotions, and unmanaged stress weaken decision-making.
Madsen captures the core idea clearly: “When you clear up your inner blockages, you can serve others and you can serve the world in ways that you cannot if you are overwhelmed and stressed.”
Inner work is not indulgence. It builds capacity. It gives leaders the resources modern workplaces demand.
The organizations that thrive in the coming decade will be led by people who do not simply perform; they will be led by those who excel. They understand themselves deeply enough to stay aligned, resilient, and human under pressure. Inner work is how they get there.