Hypervigilance in leadership is often mistaken for strategic thinking, dedication, and excellence. But what if the qualities we celebrate most in leaders are actually trauma adaptations in disguise? What if the “always prepared” leader is simply a nervous system that never feels safe?
It’s 3:00 a.m. I’m wide awake with heart palpitations, mind racing, rehearsing a conversation that won’t happen for another 36 hours. My publisher. My latest book. My thoughts cycle through every response, scripting and re-scripting until the words blur.
This was during COVID. I was still recovering from a brain injury that had turned my world into a minefield. The supermarket’s fluorescent lights felt like interrogation lamps. Airports became battlefields where every sound felt like an attack.
So I prepared. Scripts, plans, notes, backup notes. If I could just anticipate everything, maybe I could finally feel safe.
My professional identity—professor, team leader, public speaker—had been shaken. And underneath, my nervous system was doing what it learned long ago: staying hyperalert to survive.
People praised me for it. “You’re so thorough.” “You think of everything.” “You never get caught off guard.” I told myself this was excellence. Leadership. But it was survival. And I was drowning in it.
When Hypervigilance in Leadership Feels Like Your Superpower
Maybe you know this feeling. You’re awake before dawn, running scenarios for a meeting three days away. Your jaw aches by 10 a.m. from clenching. You’ve read that email seven times, apologized twice, then reread it three more times before sending.
You tell yourself you’re just being careful. Professional. Prepared. But your partner said something at breakfast and you snapped—sharp, sudden, surprising even yourself. You can’t remember the last time you slept through the night. Your shoulders live near your ears. And that friend who texted about dinner? You’ll cancel. Again.
This is hypervigilance in leadership. And it doesn’t feel like a problem—it feels like who you are. You anticipate every concern before it’s raised. You read the room. You have a backup plan for the backup plan. Your team relies on you to catch what everyone misses.
But here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier: What if the very thing people praise you for is costing you everything?
The Hidden Cost of Hypervigilance in Leadership
After my brain injury, my need for control intensified—not from ambition, but from terror. My body had become unpredictable. My brain had betrayed me. So I tried to control everything: meetings, communication, outcomes, tone, timing. I wanted nothing to surprise me again.
My associates began to feel my tension—even when I spoke calmly. They sensed my need for everything to go exactly as planned. They stopped bringing bold ideas and started waiting for my approval. They walked carefully around me, though I never raised my voice.
The harder I tried to create safety through control, the more everyone—including me—felt unsafe.
That’s the heartbreak of hypervigilance in leadership: it promises protection but delivers isolation. You notice every shift in tone, every pause, every micro-expression. You decode emails like encrypted messages. You prepare for conversations that might never happen. You stay three steps ahead—but you’re exhausted, and no one knows because you’ve gotten so good at hiding it.
And the worst part? You think this is what makes you good at what you do.
Understanding Hypervigilance: What Your Body Already Knows
Your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between a tough stakeholder meeting and a real threat to your survival. It responds the same way to both.
An unclear email? Danger. A stakeholder’s silence? Rejection. A mistake? Proof you don’t belong.
So you scan. You prepare. You control. Not because you’re strategic—but because your nervous system won’t let you rest.
This is hypervigilance in leadership. It’s not a personality trait. It’s a trauma response so praised, so rewarded, so woven into your professional identity that you can’t see it for what it is.
Maybe you learned young to read adult moods before speaking. To make yourself useful to earn safety. To anticipate needs before they were spoken. To monitor your tone, your volume, your very presence.
Those skills kept you safe once. They got you through. They earned you praise, promotions, recognition. But now? They’re keeping you awake at 3 a.m., jaw clenched, heart racing, rehearsing conversations that haven’t happened yet.
Hypervigilance in Leadership and the Illusion of Control
I used to believe: if I could just prepare enough, anticipate enough, control enough—I’d finally feel safe. But control isn’t safety. In fact, the more I tried to control, the more unsafe I felt.
Because hypervigilance in leadership operates on a lie: that if you see everything coming, nothing bad will happen.
But life doesn’t work that way. Leadership doesn’t work that way. And your body knows this. That’s why you’re so tired. Why your shoulders ache, your jaw hurts, and you snap at people you love over nothing. Why you can’t remember the last time you felt relaxed.
Your nervous system is screaming: Stop scanning for threats that aren’t there. But you can’t hear it over the voice whispering, “Just one more check. Just to be sure. Just in case.”
Moving Beyond Hypervigilance: What Changed Everything
When I began embodiment work—somatic practices, breathwork, nervous system regulation—something shifted. Not overnight. But gradually, I began to feel something I hadn’t in years: safe in my own body.
Safe enough to sit with uncertainty without spiraling into problem-solving. Safe enough to say, “I don’t know—what do you think?” without feeling exposed. Safe enough to delegate without my system screaming that I’ve lost control.
I still get dysregulated sometimes. But now I recognize it—“Oh, there’s the old pattern”—and return to center faster.
I don’t need to anticipate every outcome anymore. I don’t need scripts for every conversation. I don’t need to control everything to feel okay.
And here’s what surprised me most: I didn’t become less effective. I became more human. More present. More genuinely strategic—not because I was scanning for threats, but because I could respond to what was real.
My associates felt the shift before I fully understood it. They brought bolder ideas. Took more initiative. Trusted their own judgment—because I wasn’t holding everything so tightly anymore.
The parts of me I thought I’d lost—the confident professor, the engaged teacher, the leader who could hold complexity—they weren’t gone. They were just buried under vigilance.
Recognizing Hypervigilance in Leadership: The Question That Changes Everything
Now, when I work with leaders struggling with hypervigilance in leadership, I ask one question: “Are you preparing—or protecting?”
Because there’s a difference. And your body knows it.
- Preparing feels grounded. Protecting feels frantic.
- Preparing comes from presence. Protecting comes from panic.
- Preparing allows for uncertainty. Protecting tries to eliminate it.
Hypervigilance in leadership isn’t about being thorough—it’s about a nervous system that once believed staying alert meant staying alive.
But you’re not in that environment anymore. Even if your body hasn’t gotten the message yet.
Healing Hypervigilance in Leadership: What I Want You to Know
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself—if you’re a leader recovering from crisis and still feel that hypervigilance thrumming beneath your composure—I want you to know:
Your hypervigilance in leadership served you once. It kept you safe when safety was scarce. But it doesn’t have to define what comes next.
You don’t need to earn your worth through relentless performance. You’re not weak because you can’t control every outcome.
True leadership requires something more radical than hypervigilance: the courage to be imperfectly present.
Right now, pause. Feel your feet on the ground. Notice what’s actually supporting you. Breathe into the places that ache from holding on too tightly—your jaw, your shoulders, your chest.
Then ask yourself: Is this strategy—or survival?
Because the world doesn’t need more leaders who sacrifice their health trying to anticipate every outcome. It needs leaders who are awake—in body, in heart, in truth.
Leaders who can say “I don’t know” without collapsing. Who can delegate without panic. Who can rest without guilt.
Leaders who understand that presence is more powerful than perfection—and that healing hypervigilance in leadership isn’t a loss of strength. It’s a return to wholeness.
Ready to move beyond hypervigilance in leadership? I work 1:1 with women leaders recovering from crisis, exploring nervous system patterns, and building practices for genuine regulation. Book a coaching session and discover what becomes possible when you lead from presence instead of survival.
