The Weight of Being Relied On

In this post, Astrid Korin discusses how conscious leadership begins with noticing the inner scripts behind our daily decisions.

Most leaders I work with carry a quiet kind of burden.

They’re the ones people turn to — for answers, steadiness, direction, or reassurance. The ones who absorb uncertainty on behalf of others, who hold the emotional tone of a team, and who are expected to stay composed no matter what’s happening around them.

It’s an honour to be trusted in that way. But it’s also exhausting.

Because leadership isn’t one big decision made at the top. It’s hundreds of tiny ones — every day, with different people, in shifting contexts and under competing pressures.

The invisible labour of daily decisions

Should I step in or step back?
Coach or direct?
Challenge or support?
Prioritise the person, the team, or the organisation’s immediate goals?

Each moment requires judgement — not just about what needs to be done, but how.

Take Emma (not a real person), a senior leader in a global health organisation. She describes spending her days walking a constant tightrope:

“I’m always deciding — do I protect my team from the pressure coming down from above, or expose them to some of it so they understand the reality? Do I give them space to learn through trial and error, or do I intervene because the stakes are too high?”

None of these decisions are simple. And they rarely come with the luxury of time.

So, we lean on instinct. Intuition. Past experience. Scripts that once worked well and now run silently in the background.

The autopilot of leadership

Under pressure, the brain loves efficiency. It takes shortcuts, drawing on heuristics, habits, and stories we’ve internalised over years of professional conditioning.

For example:

• “If someone is struggling, I have to step in – that’s what good leaders do.”
• “If I don’t have the answer, I’ll lose credibility.”
• “If I push too hard, people will think I’m unkind.”
• “If I don’t control the outcome, I’ll be blamed if it fails.”

These aren’t random thoughts: they’re deeply wired scripts. Some come from our upbringing, others from corporate culture or earlier mentors. Over time, they harden into identity: this is who I am as a leader.

But autopilot, while efficient, isn’t always wise.

When we act from unexamined scripts, we stop seeing the full picture. We might step in too quickly and unintentionally disempower others. Or we might over-delegate to prove trust, leaving people feeling unsupported.

The irony is that many of the leaders I coach are celebrated precisely for their reliability — their ability to handle it all. Yet that very reliability can trap them in patterns of over-responsibility and emotional fatigue.

From autopilot to awareness

So, what’s the alternative?

Not to abandon intuition — it’s valuable, and often right. But to balance it with awareness.

To pause long enough to ask:

• What’s actually needed here — for this person, this moment, this system?
• Which part of me is deciding right now — my calm, adult self or my anxious inner protector?
• What am I trying to avoid or control? And what outcome am I really serving – safety, speed, learning, or growth?

This is where the ‘inside out’ work begins.

It’s the shift from reflexive leadership to intentional leadership. From reacting to responding.

Meeting our scripts with curiosity

When leaders can name their own inner scripts — “I must have the answer,” “I can’t let people fail,” “I need to keep everyone happy” — they gain choice.

Choice to pause. To experiment. To lead differently.

As one client put it:

“Once I realised that my need to be the calm, dependable one was actually driven by a fear of being seen as emotional, I could relax. I could allow myself to be human — and strangely, that made my team more confident, not less.”

Curiosity softens control. It opens space for wiser action.

Leading from Intention

Let’s be honest: it’s not realistic (or even healthy) to be mindfully aware every moment of every day.

Trying to monitor every thought, feeling, and reaction would send the brain into overdrive. It’s simply too much to hold.

But there is a simpler way to stay connected to presence without burning out on self-observation — and that’s coming back to your deepest intention.

Intentions aren’t goals or KPIs. They’re not about outcomes or performance metrics. They’re about how you want to show up: the quality of presence you bring to the people and situations around you.

Maybe your intention is to lead with curiosity. Or to stay open, even when you feel defensive. Or to hold others accountable with compassion rather than control.

When you reconnect to that inner compass, you create solid ground, even amid uncertainty.

From that place, you don’t need to catch every micro-reaction or analyse every decision. You simply return, again and again, to your chosen way of being.

And that, more than constant awareness, is what allows leaders to lead with clarity, calm, and humanity.