Breathe: A Rejuvenating Approach to Leading Change

Written by: Thomas E. Anderson, II and Julie Jenkins

Sofia leads a mid-sized team in her organization. For the past 12 years, she has enjoyed the role, but recently she has started to question how to better support herself and lead her team in what feels like an intensely VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment. She wants to protect her team members, provide a stable, grounding space in the chaos and complexity, and be as authentic as possible. Yet her uncertainty has surfaced ways of leading that seem incongruent with her beliefs. Instead of projecting possibility and hope, she finds herself reciting platitudes and tropes that feel meaningless and empty. She is increasingly unsure of herself and has begun to rehearse answers before meetings, avoid the hard questions, and say things that she doesn’t even believe. Sofia notices the negative impact on her team and is concerned that her attempts to be steady are presenting as hesitation and, at times, withholding. What Sofia wants more than anything is to show up authentically and in a place that feels spacious, genuine, and real.

So, imagine her surprise when she received an email from her vice president stating:

Given the recent results from our engagement survey, effective this week, all leaders are required to meet with their teams for 60 minutes every week. This is a well-being initiative focused on ensuring communications and transparency during our major changes.

Upon reading this email, Sofia felt blindsided, disconnected, and downright betrayed. She felt suspended between the need to comply with a direct order and the consequences that would demoralize the team and her very approach to leading them. Suddenly, a whirlwind of questions pointed to feelings of invisibility as Sofia thought, “What about me and my needs? Doesn’t my VP know I already hold very effective weekly team meetings? What about the support I will need with prioritization, resourcing relief, and better boundaries for my own workload?”

That’s when she realized the VP’s mandate signaled something deeper and more challenging than the demand itself. She was left alone to figure out how to lead in a complex, change-saturated environment filled with directives and platitudes that would never solve the deeper challenges. Sofia is well-known for her attention to detail, but in working through her response to the email’s demand, one personal detail escaped her notice: from the moment she started reading her VP’s message, Sofia had been holding her breath.

Why Relentless Change Feels So Exhausting

Summer was designed to be a season of breath with longer days, slower rhythms, and the permission to pause. And yet for many leaders, summer arrives and the breathlessness doesn't stop. Unfortunately, Sofia’s experience is not unique. Leaders across industries and sectors are navigating similar circumstances. In fact, many leaders and teams are holding their breath, waiting for direction and clarity that may never come. In Strong Ground, Brené Brown points to the reason: humans are not neurobiologically wired for relentless change. Yet, we are surrounded by it. Hardwired or not, we show up and do our jobs even when collectively holding our breath.

Humans are not neurobiologically wired for relentless change.

Breath-holding is a fear-based response to change. Fear can drive leaders to feel paralyzed while navigating sudden twists and turns in the business environment. Some leaders believe doing nothing will lead to a better outcome or a moment in the future when things will go back to “what they once were.” Others become dizzy from breath-holding as they navigate the intersection of moving organizational mandates, metrics, and strategies forward, while authentically showing up for their teams. A few leaders will project confidence they may not possess and indirectly delegate their fear-based response with the command-and-control approach. But could there be a more restorative, rejuvenating, and redemptive initial approach to leading change?

Breathing Fresh Life into Change Leadership

The pace of work, competing priorities, and pressure to deliver can rob leaders of the ability to consciously move into curiosity. On the other hand, small shifts, or micro behaviors, will reveal new ways of being and doing. They expand our individual leadership capacity and radiate to our team members. This article frames those micro behaviors in two ways: curiosity of self and curiosity of others.

Curiosity of Self. Becoming curious is not about ignoring, forgetting, or dismissing distressing emotions or default states. Self-curiosity empowers leaders to explore the present moment and turn challenges into opportunities. The most impactful initial shift a leader can make is to ask themselves:

• What am I noticing?

• What am I feeling?

• What just happened in this meeting?

• What story am I telling myself?

Self-awareness is the gateway to empathy. Self-curiosity expands the capacity to hold space and support team members on their individual journey through change.

Curiosity of Others. Self-curiosity asks, “What’s happening within me?” but the curiosity of others wonders, “What is happening around me?” This question prompts you to look at team members’ situations and genuinely draw them out by asking:

• What's happening for you right now?

• What’s getting in the way, and how is that obstacle impacting you?

• What questions are you afraid to ask?

Open questions invite real conversations that help others feel seen and heard. This expression of curiosity creates the space to continue growing, learning, and performing.           

Moving into other-centered curiosity allows leaders to create the spaciousness that individuals and teams need to navigate change fatigue. Leaders who show genuine curiosity create and foster psychological safety, trust, and team effectiveness. They shift out of hero mode to actively listen to others’ struggles without overreacting, micromanaging, or dismissing them as unimportant.

Four Micro Behaviors to Increase Curiosity

Shifting from breath-holding to curiosity doesn’t require new strategies, approaches, or wholesale changes to your leadership style. Here are four behaviors you can adopt, track, and tweak for better results.

1. Ask questions that you don’t know the answer to. Managers often feel the need to have all the answers to avoid undermining their perceived credibility or competence. During times of change and complexity, leaders often amplify this feeling, thinking, “If I don’t have all the answers, I’ll look like I don't know what I’m doing!” Asking open questions builds rapport, credibility, and collective intelligence during times of uncertainty. Inviting others to share their thoughts and perspectives demonstrates vulnerability and authenticity, which in turn builds trust.

2. Explicitly name what feels uncertain, uncomfortable, or hard. Calling out uncertainties and discomfort keeps the rational prefrontal cortex online, rather than getting swept away in familiar habits or emotional overwhelm. This skill operates like naming personal emotions in the moment. The ability to pinpoint such dynamics signals that you care about the struggle and what’s impacting the day-to-day work experience, which leads to greater relational cohesion and trust.

3. Shift meeting times to 45 minutes instead of a full hour. Typical work cultures book meetings on the full and half-hours, which leaves very little time for decompression and recalibration before roaring off to the next thing. Intentionally shifting by fifteen minutes allows you to pause and reflect on the meeting and how you showed up. Where did you lean in? Where did you notice resistance in yourself? What didn’t you say? Spending even five minutes in reflection gives you a chance to get curious and create awareness about how you’re showing up. This pause allows you to move from default to awareness and gives others a choice to do the same.

4. Experiment with your assumptions. The groundbreaking research of Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey has demonstrated that our immunity to change is often upheld by assumptions that are largely unknown to us, meant to keep us safe, and unfounded or altogether untrue. How you lead through change is often anchored in your assumptions about what leading looks like -- assumptions like “I must have all the information” or “sharing my feelings makes me look weak”. Instead of jumping into the operations of your next team meeting, pose an opening question and spend fifteen minutes connecting. Try listening to everyone else before sharing your opinion. Detaching from those assumptions happens through tiny actions and experiments that gather more information about their validity.

Sofia eventually responded to her VP -- not with compliance or resistance, but with curiosity. She scheduled a conversation, asked questions she didn't have the answers to, and named what felt hard. She exhaled. And her team noticed.

In the spirit of self-curiosity, ask yourself the same question Sofia did: “What would change if I became more curious instead of holding my breath, waiting for clarity that may never come?” You may find that curiosity opens more doors than clarity ever could.

Reader Reflection: "What would you change in your leadership -- and for your team -- if you chose curiosity over breath-holding, starting this week?"

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© ChristianCoachingMag.com. This article was reposted with the permission of CCMag.

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For more change leadership insights, check out our conversation with Belem Leaders CEO, Dr. Kelly Whelan on the CONVERSATIONS podcast here.