Regulated Leadership

The Compliment That Was a Warning

September 23, 2026 • 6 min • Julia LeFevre
Founder, Brave Restoration
The Compliment That Was a Warning

This weekend, a leader said something to me that I haven’t been able to shake.

“I would always show up and produce, no matter what. In fact, my boss told me I was a machine. It was meant as a compliment. I realize now it was a warning.”

I felt that one in my chest. Maybe you do too.

So many of us were praised for exactly this. For being the one who never drops the ball. Who answers the late email. Who holds it together when everyone else is falling apart. We learned that our value lived in our output, and we got very good at producing.

But a machine doesn’t have needs. People do. And when we lead like machines, we stop noticing our needs until the body sends the bill.

The Bill Is Coming Due

Right now, the bill is landing on a lot of desks.

Microsoft studied how people actually work and found that the average employee is interrupted by a meeting, email, or notification every two minutes. Meetings after 8 p.m. rose 16% in a single year. More than half of leaders say their work feels chaotic and fragmented. The workday no longer ends. It just fades into the evening and picks back up before sunrise.

Leaders are feeling it most. In DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast, 71% of leaders said their stress has surged since stepping into their role, and 40% have considered leaving leadership altogether. Gallup’s latest global workplace report found that 4 in 10 employees felt substantial stress on the previous day, and more than 1 in 5 felt lonely.

And the body keeps score in ways we can’t ignore. A joint study from the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization found that working 55 or more hours a week is linked to a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared to a standard work week. In one year alone, long hours were tied to 745,000 deaths.

I’m not sharing those numbers to scare you. I’m sharing them because they put words to what your body may already know. “Machine mode” isn’t strength. It’s survival physiology running on a loop.

Notice something else in that research. We aren’t just working more. We’re working more–alone. And the usual fix makes it worse: another productivity system, another book, another promise to “take better care of myself.” Those are information. But a nervous system that is predicting a threat doesn’t change because of information. It changes because of experience.

I got to feel that firsthand this weekend.

What Happened in My Body

At the beginning of a conference, I had an interaction that triggered me. It was a moment where I was reminded I didn’t matter.

My body reacted before my thinking could catch up. I turned hot. My stomach knotted up. A deep pain settled into my back. I wanted to yell and cry at the same time. I was that angry.

Fortunately, there was a process group meeting from 1 to 4 that afternoon. I asked to join.

At first, I was scared. I was sure the others would judge me. But the emotions were too strong to hold back, so I let them fly.

The room responded with grace. They leaned in instead of pulling away. They let their eyes connect with mine. They nodded, as if they had felt something similar at some point in their own lives.

That lack of judgment was exactly what I needed. I felt my body physically give way. My shoulders rested again. I took in a cleansing breath and let it go with peace.

Throughout the weekend, I kept bumping into reminders of that first interaction. Instead of getting swept up in the emotion again, I quickly connected with a safe person and re-dosed with connection and acceptance.

Here’s what surprised me. The emotional response got smaller each time. Eventually, I realized I didn’t feel anything at all.

My circumstances didn’t change. I did, on the inside. I grew my capacity by finding safe relational connections that could anchor me when my inner self was predicting relational discord.

Why Connection Works When Willpower Doesn’t

There’s real science under what happened in that room.

In a well known study, psychologist James Coan measured brain activity in women who were told they might receive a mild electric shock. When they held their husband’s hand, the threat response in their brains quieted significantly. Even holding a stranger’s hand helped. Coan’s broader work, called Social Baseline Theory, suggests the brain expects to face challenges alongside other people. When we’re alone, it has to carry the full load itself, and it treats every threat as bigger and more costly.

The stakes go beyond comfort. A review of 148 studies by Julianne Holt-Lunstad found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over time. That’s an effect comparable to quitting smoking.

So when I walked into that process group, my brain was running an old prediction: if I show them this, they’ll pull away. The room gave my nervous system new data. They leaned in. And every time a safe person met me with acceptance over the weekend, that new data got stronger than the old prediction.

That’s the difference between information and experience. I already knew I was acceptable. My body needed to feel it, again and again, until it believed it.

A machine runs until it breaks. A person can be restored. Machines need fuel. People need connection.

What to Practice This Week: The Re-Dose

Build your re-dose plan. It takes about ten minutes, and it could change how your hardest moments go.

  1. Name two or three safe people. Not the most impressive people you know. The ones who lean in instead of pulling away. The ones you don’t have to perform for.

  2. Find your earliest body signal. Heat in your face. A knot in your stomach. Tightness in your jaw, chest, or back. Your body announces a threat before your mind admits it.

  3. When the signal shows up, reach out small and fast. A two minute call. A text that says, “Rough moment. Can I tell you about it?” You’re not asking them to fix anything. You’re letting your nervous system borrow some steadiness.

  4. Notice what happens afterward. Did the intensity drop? When the next reminder comes, is it a little smaller? Pay attention to that. It’s your capacity growing.

If you read step one and come up empty, you’re not alone, and you’re not behind. Many high performing leaders have spent years being everyone else’s safe person without having one of their own. That’s exactly why I built my cohorts. They give you a room of leaders who lean in, so you can practice the Re-Dose with people who get it.

And if you lead a team, flip it around. When someone brings you something hard this week, lean in. Let your eyes stay with theirs. Nod. You may be the new data their nervous system has been waiting for.

Your Next Step

My next cohort begins October 14. For six weeks, you’ll practice with a small group of leaders who understand the pressure you carry, and you’ll build the capacity to stay regulated, connected, and clear when it counts.

If “machine” sounds a little too familiar, you don’t have to find the way back alone. That’s the whole point.

Reserve your spot at braverestoration.org, or reply to this email and I’ll personally send you the details. Not sure yet? Reach out anyway at julia@braverestoration.org. Consider it your first Re-Dose.

You were never meant to be a machine. You were meant to be connected.

Sources

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