Andrew Beaulieu is well-known for his unique leadership development programs. He is the founder of Bold Moves Coaching & Consulting Inc, an ICF-certified coach, and a public speaker.
Have you ever woken up feeling anxious and not really sure why? So your brain starts to create a list of justifications to convince you that what you're feeling is totally reasonable. And you buy into the story it tells you. The reasoning your brain comes up with becomes your reality, and so you start to take action against it. But guess what? The brain is predictive in nature and was only guessing, coming up with justifications for the symptom. It was not treating the root cause because it didn't have access to the right information.
Many organizations we work for do the exact same thing. The leaders, who have the absolute best intentions, come up with remedies for the symptoms showing within their teams and take action on the wrong thing.
In this article, we're going to break it down and show you how neuroscience and the way we approach anxiety can help guide leaders to make better, more informed decisions and ultimately take better action.
Why leaders keep fixing the wrong problem
When something feels off, whether in our bodies or our organizations, our first instinct is to think our way through it.
Personal anxiety: Your brain tries to rationalize your anxiety. It blames your workload, lack of sleep, or a tough conversation you had yesterday. But in reality? The cause is likely deeper, buried in your nervous system, shaped by past experiences.
Corporate anxiety: Leaders follow the same pattern. They see rising burnout and blame workload. They see disengagement and blame a lack of incentives. They see turnover and assume they just need better hiring practices. But what if the real issue is cultural misalignment, broken trust, or unresolved workplace trauma?
Leaders, like brains, misread signals all the time, and this leads to misguided solutions.
A 2025 study from the University of Minnesota Medical School revealed that anxiety and apathy lead to fundamentally different patterns in decision-making, underscoring the complexity of addressing such issues without proper understanding. This suggests that leaders who make decisions from a reactive, fear-based standpoint are more likely to reinforce dysfunctional behaviors within their organizations rather than address systemic issues.
According to this 2025 study from the University of Minnesota Medical School, anxiety and apathy produce distinctly different brain responses, affecting leadership decision-making and team perception.
Executive takeaway: Diagnose from within. Organizations are emotional ecosystems. Leaders must ask not just "what are we seeing?" but "why are we seeing it now?" Reaction without introspection is a leadership blind spot.
Creating psychological safety within teams ensures that employees can express underlying concerns before they manifest as disengagement or burnout.
From assumption-based leadership to awareness-based leadership
To stop misdiagnosing your organization’s problems, you need to shift from a neck-up approach (purely cognitive leadership) to a neck-down approach (awareness-based leadership). Here’s how:
The body budget principle: A neuroscientific parallel
In neuroscience, your "body budget" refers to how your brain manages the physiological resources, energy, rest, hydration, and nutrition needed for optimal performance. According to Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, when our body budget is depleted, the brain becomes less capable of rational thinking and emotional regulation.
Her research on body budgeting explains how our brains track internal resources and how this directly shapes emotional and leadership behaviors, emotional regulation, and decision-making.
The organization parallel: Leaders must view their teams like a body budget. When employee resources (time, energy, emotional bandwidth) are constantly drained without replenishment, the team, like the brain, begins to falter. Creativity, collaboration, and clarity suffer.
Managing inputs, not just outputs: Organizations focused solely on performance metrics (outputs) without managing energy inputs create unsustainable systems.
Executive takeaway: Optimize your team’s body budget. Prioritize restorative rhythms, ensure reasonable workloads, and design workflows that respect cognitive and emotional bandwidth. When teams are well-resourced, the corporate “brain”, the leadership, can function at its highest potential.
Stop trying to think your way out of the problem
Overanalyzing anxiety doesn’t cure it; awareness does. The same goes for leadership.
Instead of jumping to solutions, start with observing the workplace.
Instead of relying only on metrics, focus on energy and engagement levels in the room.
Instead of assuming the problem is external (market shifts, competitors), ask whether it’s internal (disconnection, lack of safety).
Research in neuroscience has identified specific cell types in the amygdala linked to anxiety, highlighting the importance of understanding underlying neural mechanisms before addressing symptoms. Just as individuals experiencing chronic anxiety benefit from body-based approaches (breathwork, mindfulness), organizations must address cultural and systemic issues rather than surface-level incentives.
Executive takeaway: Leaders should observe before acting. Regularly immersing themselves in the team environment allows them to feel the pulse of the organization rather than relying solely on reports and KPIs.
Identify ‘where it hurts’ in the organization’s nervous system
In the body, anxiety manifests physically, tight chest, shallow breath, tension. In organizations, dysfunction manifests behaviorally. Look for these signals:
Low engagement: Do people seem checked out, even in important meetings?
Tension in communication: Are emails more passive-aggressive? Are people avoiding hard conversations?
Emotional exhaustion: Are employees constantly drained, even after vacations?
In 2023, 65% of employees reported experiencing burnout, impacting both productivity and engagement. Gallup’s global workplace report highlights the staggering impact of burnout and disengagement on employee performance worldwide. This widespread disengagement isn’t a personal failing of employees but a symptom of a misaligned work environment.
As highlighted in the article "Breaking the Myth – Burnout Is an Organizational Responsibility, Not a Personal Problem," burnout often arises from chronic stress, long hours, and toxic work environments, underscoring the need for organizational change.
Executive takeaway: Instead of treating burnout as an individual problem (offering resilience training or wellness perks), leaders should reevaluate workloads, expectations, and workplace culture to ensure they aren’t the root cause.
Regulate the system instead of masking symptoms
With anxiety, we regulate our nervous system through breathwork, movement, and awareness. With organizations, we regulate the system through psychological safety, clear communication, and trust-building.
Instead of adding perks to “fix” burnout, look at whether your workplace is actually sustainable.
Instead of rolling out more engagement initiatives, ask if your employees feel heard, seen, and valued.
Instead of offering leadership training, ensure your leaders actually embody the culture you want to create.
Only 34% of employees are thriving in their overall well-being, indicating a significant area for improvement in workplace environments. If employees do not feel valued, engaged, or psychologically safe, no amount of perks or incentives will fix deeper cultural misalignment.
Executive takeaway: Regulation starts with modeling behaviors from the top. If leaders want employees to prioritize well-being, they must do the same. Encourage breaks, mindful transitions between meetings, and open dialogue about work-life balance.
What if leaders themselves don’t feel psychologically safe?
We often focus on employees’ psychological safety, but what if the leaders themselves don’t feel safe? Many leaders operate in environments where they fear disrupting the status quo, facing backlash, or appearing incompetent.
The pleaser leader dilemma: Some leaders, particularly those with people-pleasing tendencies, may avoid hard conversations to maintain harmony. Ironically, this avoidance often creates more dysfunction, as unresolved tensions fester beneath the surface.
Fear of disturbing the system: Leaders who don’t feel psychologically safe may hesitate to make necessary cultural shifts, opting instead to go along with existing norms, even if those norms are damaging.
The impact on culture: When leaders model avoidance, employees follow suit. If leaders don’t address challenges head-on, neither will their teams, leading to disengagement, lack of accountability, and a stagnant culture.
Executive takeaway: True leadership means embracing discomfort. Leaders must assess their own psychological safety and recognize how their actions (or inactions) influence workplace culture. Investing in executive coaching, peer advisory groups, or leadership development programs can provide the support leaders need to step into courageous conversations with confidence.
Are you leading from assumptions or awareness?
If you’ve ever experienced anxiety, you know that pushing through isn’t the answer; awareness is. The same applies to leadership.
So, here are the questions I find myself asking:
What have we been ignoring? What are we scared to find out?
What patterns have we been overlooking this whole time?
What’s actually happening here?
What would we learn if we led from the inside out, instead of the top down?
What if your next big strategic win isn’t about doing more, but feeling more? Awareness is the next frontier of leadership performance. Are you ready to lead from the inside out?
Read more from Andrew Beaulieu
Andrew Beaulieu, Leadership Development Coach
Andrew Beaulieu is on a mission to transform the leadership landscape. Leveraging 16 years of experience in leadership, business management, and coaching, Andrew has designed impactful programs that dramatically enhance leadership skills. Driven by a strong belief in empathetic, human-centric leadership, Andrew helps develop authentic leaders and cohesive teams for a better tomorrow.
