The Leader Nobody Prepared You to Be

One executive's journey home: from final warning to peaceful presence.

Picture this: A senior executive, Marcus, receives a final written warning. Multiple complaints. Zero specifics. "Fear of reprisal," they said. Meanwhile, his father's dead. His marriage recently ended. A close friend lost to suicide. And he's supposed to perform flawlessly in high-stakes meetings without missing a beat.

This is what conscious leadership actually looks like. The messy before. The breakdown that precedes the breakthrough.

And if you think this story is rare, think again.

The Crisis Nobody's Talking About

Executive mental health is at an all-time low.

A 2024 Harvard Business Review study found that 76% of C-suite executives reported experiencing burnout in the past year. This is up from 48% just five years ago. Nearly half reported symptoms consistent with clinical depression or anxiety.

The Deloitte Executive Wellbeing Survey revealed that 70% of senior leaders have seriously considered leaving their roles due to mental health concerns. And worst of all: 83% said they wouldn't seek help for fear of it damaging their career.

In Australia, Beyond Blue's (2024/2025) research shows that executives and senior managers have higher rates of psychological distress than any other occupational group, even higher than emergency responders, and healthcare workers during the pandemic.

We've somehow created a leadership culture where crisis is normalized, where being "slammed" is a badge of honour, where admitting you're struggling is career suicide.

Until that struggle becomes a performance problem. Then suddenly it's your issue to fix. Quietly. Quickly. Without anyone knowing you were struggling in the first place.

This is the context Marcus was operating in when everything fell apart.

When High Performance Meets Unprocessed Grief

Marcus was the kind of executive earmarked for the C-suite. Exceptional track record. twenty-year career trajectory that looked flawless from the outside.

Then his his marriage collapsed, his father died suddenly and a close mate took his own life.

Did he process any of it? No. Because this is what we do. We bury grief under productivity.

Until we can't.

A critical meeting arrived. He was distracted as he had been up all night dealing with divorce lawyers. He was short with someone in the meeting. Made a comment that "shut down the discussion." Didn't "read the room." Someone complained.

Three weeks later: final written warning. No specifics. No prior feedback. No chance to respond.

Suddenly, Marcus, who had survived the unsurvivable without faltering at work couldn't sleep. Couldn't focus. Couldn't shake the feeling that everything was about to collapse.

The last straw was when his teenage son asked one Sunday morning: "Dad, are you okay? You seem... different."

Marcus had just become another statistic in the executive mental health crisis.

What Traditional Leadership Development Misses

Here's what nobody tells you about leadership programs. They assume you have a regulated nervous system.

They teach communication frameworks, stakeholder management, emotional intelligence models. All useful. All important.

And all completely useless if you're running on a dysregulated nervous system powered by years of unprocessed grief.

A 2023 Stanford neuroscience study found that executives operating under chronic stress show measurably impaired decision-making capacity—equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05%. They're literally making decisions while cognitively impaired.

When Marcus was "short with someone" and "didn't read the room"? That wasn't a character flaw. That was neurobiology. His brain, flooded with cortisol from months of unprocessed grief, literally couldn't access the parts that normally help navigate complex social dynamics.

Traditional leadership development has no answer for this.

Because it assumes you're starting from wellbeing, just needing skill enhancement.

But that's not where many executives are. Many are highly functional on the outside, barely holding it together on the inside.

One crisis away from complete dysregulation.

They need something else entirely to get them back on track.

The Method

When I first saw Marcus his jaw was clenched so tight, he looked tense, grey, and exhausted. He was so anxious I could almost see him shaking. He wasn't sleeping well, and woke up everyday with extreme anxiety for the first time in his life.

Fortunately, he was honest with me about how he was feeling, and I shared with him all my best and quickest techniques for calming his nervous system in seconds, not weeks or months.

Here's what I knew that he didn't: anxiety doesn't exist in the present moment. It only exists when we're projecting into the future or ruminating on the past.

Right here, right now, there is no anxiety.

This became his anchor.

But knowing this intellectually and accessing it in your body are two different things.

So I taught him techniques on how to regulate his nervous system, even in the midst of a high stake meeting, or any time he felt he was in his head, and the anxiety was taking over. I also encouraged him to start doing the things he loved most, as much as possible, and to focus on being present during those times.

Harvard psychologist Matthew Killingsworth's study of 15,000 people found that mind-wandering accounts for nearly half our waking hours, and is a better predictor of unhappiness than our actual activities.

This is what I specialize in. Not teaching you to "manage stress." Teaching you to connect to yourself through a number of research based techniques, and tools that work quickly.

Under Two Weeks to Results

Week One:

Marcus left feeling better with homework. He implemented everything straight away and the results were immediate.

For the first time in years, he stopped running from his grief and actually felt it. He got support.

Week Two:

The second time I saw Marcus he walked in different. He was smiling ear to ear. He looked ten years younger, relaxed, settled.

I observed that he looked so well, and he said, "I feel so much better. I did everything you said and I feel myself again."

The anxiety about the final warning? Still there, but different. "I can see it more clearly now. It's there, it's real, but it's not consuming every moment of my life."

Then he said: "My son asked me yesterday if I wanted to go for a surf. Usually I'd say I'm too busy. Yesterday I said yes. And I was just... there. Not thinking about anything else. Just waves and salt water and my kid."

"Afterward his son said, 'We should do this more often, Dad.' And I realized—he's been waiting for me to be present for years."

Two weeks ago, Marcus was catastrophizing about losing his job and disappointing his kids.

Now he was strategizing about how to be the father they need, not just the provider.

This is what happens when you stop managing your crisis and start metabolizing it.

Why This Works

My client's call what I do, "the Cridland Method," as it integrates what traditional approaches separate. I first get elite executives back into their bodies, and from this place we strategize how to solve any external challenge. There is no crisis too big to solve from this place, when the executive connects back to their body, themselves.

You simply cannot solve leadership challenges when locked in a trauma response. You can't just do therapy if they're about to lose your job. You can't just coach behaviours if their nervous system is dysregulated.

You need all of it. Simultaneously.

This is why two weeks or less produces transformation. Not because my strategies, or I, am magic, but because the solution is so comprehensive it has to work. It addresses the root cause of the issues. Not the symptoms that everyone else sees, and focuses on.

The Choice

If you're reading this, you're likely in your own version of Marcus's story. I am here for you.

Remember you're not alone.

Executive mental health is at an all-time low:

76% of C-suite executives are burnt out.

70% are considering leaving their roles.

You have a choice.

Keep managing. Keep performing. Keep white-knuckling your way through. And stay in the 83% of executives who suffer in silence, fearing that seeking help will damage their career, or get help and transform your pain and suffering into your biggest breakthrough yet!

Research shows what happens when executives don't seek help:

68% experience worsening symptoms over time.

42% experience a serious performance issue within two years.

27% leave their roles entirely.

Or do something radically different.

Stop managing the crisis and start using it. Stop running from grief and start feeling it.

Stop pretending you're invincible, and start building genuine unwavering presence.

When you show up regulated, grounded, present, wise, transformed by the fire instead of consumed by it, you become the leader your organization and family needs.

Not despite the crisis. Because of it.

One session. That's how long it took Marcus to go from "I can't sleep, I'm going to lose everything" to "I feel more present, I can see a way through this."

Not because the external situation changed. The final warning is still there. But Marcus changed.

He stopped running. He started feeling. He came home to himself.

And from that place everything else becomes possible.

Your peaceful office. Your restored relationships. Your conscious leadership. Your kids learning resilience by watching you practice it.

Your career not just saved, but transformed.

Your life not just managed, but joyously lived.

Are you willing to take action and be in the 17% who seek support, rather than the 83% who suffer in silence?

I hope so because life is so much more fulfilling on the other side!

About the Author

Caryn Cridland is a business psychologist, lawyer, and mediator who transforms Fortune 500 executives' career-defining crises into conscious leadership breakthroughs through her proprietary Executive Evolution System.™ With two decades specializing in high-stakes workplace conflicts and leadership development, four degrees in psychology and law, she helps "brilliant exceeders" evolve from intellectual dominance to conscious leadership.

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