Welcome back, Conscious Leaders!

Welcome to our monthly newsletter, For the Love of Leadership, where we share practical tools to support your leadership journey.

On Today's Menu:

• 🌀 Note from Our Founder: Sharon on leadership freeze—why so many good leaders feel paralyzed, and how to get moving again.

• 📚 Fresh Blog Bites: The invisible forces shaping how your team actually functions, and why strategy alone will never be enough.

• 🧠 On the Nightstand: The way we facilitate transformation is the transformation—and amb on why that changes everything.

• 🌱 On the Horizon: You can still join Trauma-Informed Leadership in a World in Flux. A  7-week experience available on-demand.

But First, A Note From Our Founder.

We are living in a moment defined by trauma.

Leaders want to do something meaningful, but struggle to find their footing.

That paralysis isn’t cowardice. It’s biology. When our nervous systems are flooded with threat signals, we freeze. And when leaders freeze, systems stall. And the people  already carrying the heaviest loads pay the price for our hesitation.

I call this leadership freeze. The desire to act is present. The capacity disappears.

The antidote isn’t pushing harder. It’s building capacity.

Trauma-informed leadership builds the capacity to stay present under pressure. 

It helps us recognize when we’ve hit our physiological limit, and gives us tools to regulate before we react. It’s how we move from performative care to embodied accountability, from good intentions to grounded action.

I'm watching this shift happen in real time with our current cohort. Leaders are discovering they've been holding their breath for months—maybe years. They're naming what it costs to "perform stability.” They're realizing they can't think their way to better leadership; it's grounded in being. And they're learning that leadership begins in the nervous system, not the strategic plan.

Together, we're building the capacity to stay present with what's hard: the hyper-arousal that masquerades as productivity, the hypo-arousal that feels like defeat, the exhaustion of carrying unresolved pain while trying to lead others through uncertainty.

That’s the work we’re doing through our Trauma-Informed Leadership in a World in Flux cohort, our 7-week experience for leaders ready to move from awareness to impact without burning out in the process. 

If the question“What is mine to do? How do I move forward?” keeps echoing for you, this is your invitation to explore it with depth, structure, and support.

Join us.

Leadership isn't about having all the answers. Not in a time like this. It's about having the capacity to stay present with ourselves, each other, and the questions that currently have no answers..

With courage and clarity,
Sharon

Alright, Change-Makers, Let's Get to the Juicy Stuff

Hot Off the Digital Press.

🌊 Why Trauma-Informed Leadership Matters: A New Standard for Leadership

Most leadership models assume stable conditions and rational actors. We're living in neither. Here's what actually works when people are struggling.

🧭 Introducing the TIL System: 6 Pillars of Conscious Leadership

Burnout. Turnover. Disengagement. Nothing you've tried has worked because you can't refine a broken operating system into excellence. Time to upgrade.

🛡️ Protection Patterns: Why Your Best Leaders Protect Instead of Connect

Your top performers are micromanaging, freezing, or avoiding conflict. It's not a skill gap—it's a nervous system response. What if you're trying to fix the wrong problem?

🌊 The Regulation Ripple Effect

Your team knows you're stressed before you open your mouth. Your dysregulation is contagious—and so is your calm. The question is: which one are you spreading? 

On Sharon’s Nightstand:

The work isn't just what we teach—it's how we hold space for transformation. Here's what's shaping Sharon's thinking this month:

📖 Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by adrienne maree brown

"How we facilitate the TIL program matters as much as what we're teaching in it. adrienne maree brown reminds us that transformation isn't something we do to people—it's something we practice together, in real time, with all the messiness that comes with being human.

Her work asks: Are we embodying the change we're trying to create? Are we facilitating spaces where people can actually metabolize what they're learning, or are we just transmitting information? This book is my compass for holding space with intention, care, and integrity." – Sharon Podobnik Peterson

_{Please note that as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.}

On the Horizon.

🌀 Trauma-Informed Leadership in a World in Flux

7-Week Virtual Experience | Live or On-Demand | Pay What Feels Right

If you want to build the capacity to stay present under pressure—to lead with clarity, regulation, and care while meeting the moment without burning out—this is the work.

Learn to lead consciously through complexity and change, while taking care of yourself and your people.

💌 Before You Go…

We've been thinking about what there is to be grateful for when the ground keeps shifting.

Not the performative kind of gratitude, the kind that demands we smile through the hard parts. The real kind. The kind that acknowledges: we're here. We're still asking the questions. We're still showing up for each other when nothing else makes sense.

Thank you for being part of this community of conscious leaders. You remind us that we don't build capacity alone. We do it together.

Thank you for being part of this community of conscious leaders. You remind us that we can’t do any of this alone.

Stay grounded, stay awake, and keep asking: What is mine to do?

With love and leadership,