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 leading through shutdown—when systems collapse, but leadership can’t.

• 📚Fresh Blog Bites: From PBC to Polyvagal Theory—four pieces redefining what it means to lead from the inside out.

• 🧠 On the Nightstand: Healing is personal. And collective. What leaders can learn from the science of collective trauma.

• 🌱 On the Horizon: Our 7-week Trauma-Informed Leadership in a World in Flux program—because leadership doesn’t pause when paychecks do.

But First, A Note From Our Founder.

Right now, thousands of public servants—people who've spent years building programs, serving communities, shaping policy—are sitting in enforced stillness. 

Not because their work is done, or because their work stopped mattering, but because people’s livelihoods and careers were reduced to bargaining chips in someone else’s political strategy.

And even if that's not your specific story, the uncertainty probably feels all too familiar—the sense that the ground keeps shifting, making it impossible to plan.

Most people experience this uncertainty as a professional problem, something to troubleshoot, endure, or power through. But this is actually a rupture of the social contract, of trust, and is a true biological threat. The constant vigilance, the midnight scrolling, the way your body won't let you rest…..it’s not simply anxiety to manage away. 

The anxiety you feel in your body is your biology responding accurately to a situation where safety has been withdrawn and no timeline for its return has been offered.

So if you're struggling right now, if you can't sleep or you're oscillating between rage and numbness—that's not you failing to cope. You are responding to something genuinely destabilizing.

Leadership doesn't pause when paychecks do. What happens after periods of incredible stress and uncertainty depends entirely on how we metabolize it. We can let it break us, or let it break us open. We can let it calcify into cynicism, close us down and close us off,, or transform it into post-stress growth.

This is the work we built Trauma-Informed Leadership in a World in Flux to address. This is not leadership as aspiration or theory. This is leadership as an embodied practice; as the capacity to stay present, grounded, and purposeful when every external structure we relied on to provide those things has collapsed.

If you've been furloughed, laid off, or you're leading while barely holding it together—this is for you.

And if this moment hasn't touched you directly, it has touched someone you know. Someone who needs to know there's a way through that doesn't require abandoning their integrity or their nervous system.

Forward this to them. 

Remind them they’re not alone.

With you in it, always

Sharon

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

Hot Off the Digital Press.

PBC: The Three-Second Leadership Practice That Changes Everything

When leadership breaks down, it’s not a strategy problem—it’s a nervous system one. Meet PBC, a trauma-informed micro-practice grounded in Polyvagal Theory that helps leaders stay regulated, even in crisis. Read more.

A Conscious Leader’s Guide to Polyvagal Theory

Explore how Polyvagal Theory explains stress contagion, burnout, and trust, and learn to lead with calm, clarity, and conscious influence. Read more.

How to Support Culture Change: Coaching at Scale FAQ

Culture shifts when leaders do. Learn how scalable coaching—1:1, group, or digital—translates values into behavior, builds safety, and drives lasting transformation across systems. Read more.

You Already Have Great Leaders—Here’s How to Unblock Their Potential

You don’t need new leaders — you need less pressure. Discover how system regulation and structural repair can free the leadership you already have to thrive and sustain. Read more.

On Sharon’s Nightstand.

Healing and resilience are not individual acts; they are collective ones.

Here’s Sharon’s top pick of the month:

Collective Trauma, Collective Healing: Promoting Community Resilience in the Aftermath of Disaster by Jack Saul

“Jack Saul reminds us that healing doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens in relationship. His work on collective trauma speaks to what we see everyday: teams, organizations, and societies struggling. This is more than individual burnout, this is deep, shared overwhelm.

I’m reading this through the lens of leadership: how do we metabolize our individual stress and tend to our collective wounds? Saul offers pathways rooted in belonging, dignity, and collective care.” – 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
November 5 – December 19, 2025

If you’re navigating a furlough, a layoff, or deep uncertainty about what comes next, you have a choice: Let this moment define you, or transform it into post-stress growth.

Before You Go…

Thank you for being part of this bold, brave community of conscious leaders.

If you’re feeling the weight of leading in unstable systems, know this: you don’t have to white-knuckle your way through. Conscious leadership isn’t about control, it’s about capacity and connection.

If your team, or you yourself, are ready to learn how to lead through uncertainty with clarity and calm, hit reply. We’d love to talk about how we can support you.

Stay bold and brave,