The Leader Who Couldn’t Switch Off

He arrived ten minutes early, “out of courtesy,” he said, offering a polite smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. But I’ve done this long enough to recognise that courtesy is only ever half the story. Men like him arrive early to steady themselves. To get the measure of the room. To reclaim a little control before stepping into a space where they might have to let go of it. It was the kind of early that says, I’m anxious, but I don’t have language for that yet, wrapped neatly in good manners.

Let’s call him Adam.

He told me, almost apologetically, that he wasn’t sure he “needed” to be here. That he’d been referred. That the recommendation was good. That he thought he’d “just check it out.” He said it the way someone does when they’re trying not to admit they came looking for something.

As he spoke, I could hear the quieter story beneath his words, the old, familiar belief men in his position carry:

that he shouldn’t need help…

that taking up space is indulgent…

that other people have it worse…

that unless he is on the brink of collapse, his pain doesn’t count.

And as he continued, I noticed something begin to ease in him… a subtle, almost imperceptible shift that happens when a man realises he is not being scrutinised or expected to hold anything together. A small internal exhale. The first hint that he doesn’t need to perform here.

And once that first exhale arrived, the words began to come more freely. He told me how strange it felt to talk like this, how unusual it was to sit in a room where nobody needed him to be decisive or steady or in control. “Everyone looks to me,” he said, not with pride but with a kind of quiet exhaustion. He described the long corridors of responsibility he walks each day - the board that expects certainty, the team that expects reassurance, the clients that expect direction, the family that expects presence - and as he spoke, I could hear the weight of it in every sentence. It is a sound I’ve come to know well: the voice of a man who has become the emotional gravity of every room he enters, but no longer knows where to put his own fear, his own questions, his own limits.

As he talked, the small tells surfaced again. His hand moved instinctively to his forehead when he described the headaches that had been arriving more frequently, the shallow breath returned each time he mentioned work following him home, and a flicker of guilt passed over him when he admitted snapping at his children. His body spoke the truth even when his words softened it, the truth that he was exhausted, that he was overwhelmed, that he didn’t know how to stop without risking everything he had built.

Eventually, in a voice that dipped into something more vulnerable, he said, “I just want to feel good again. I miss that feeling.”

As he spoke, I was already doing the work beneath the surface, the mapping I always do, the structured, attuned way of listening that comes from years of clinical training. This is where good psychological work begins: not with intervention, not with tools, but with understanding. With building a shared formulation, a map that makes sense of how his history, his habits, his nervous system, and his current pressures have all converged into this moment. When done well, formulation doesn’t feel clinical; it feels like recognition. Like the sudden relief of seeing your own life come into focus.

From there, the work becomes purposeful. Not surface-level advice or generic strategies, but a deliberate rebuilding of the internal architecture that had been running in survival mode, the emotional patterns that once protected him but now exhaust him, the belief structures that make rest feel unsafe. Together, we created a way of living that didn’t require him to fight his way through every day.

And slowly, over the weeks, I watched that take shape, in the way that steady internal shifts actually last. He made decisions with less fear. He spoke to his wife with more openness. He walked into work with less armour and more clarity.

This is the part so many leaders never realise:

The strategy that built your success is not always the strategy that sustains it.

And your inner world must be big enough to hold the life you’ve created.

Because when a man stops living in threat mode, everything shifts… how he thinks, how he leads, how he loves, how he sleeps, how he breathes, how he inhabits his own life again.

Joy returns.
Pride returns.
Presence returns.

And the man he always meant to be steps slowly, steadily, back into view.

If any part of this feels close to home, you don’t need to carry it alone.

This is the work I do every week with high-pressure leaders: confidential, strategic, psychologically deep support that helps you think clearly, feel steady, and live with far more ease than you’ve been allowing yourself.

If you’d like someone in your corner - someone who understands both the pressure and the psychology behind it - simply get in touch.

I’d be honoured to be part of your team.

Matt