I have always believed that leadership is less about what we say in the room and more about what people feel from us before we even open our mouths.
You know this yourself.
You have walked into a meeting and immediately sensed tension.
You have sat with someone who says they are fine, yet every part of their body is telling you they are anything but fine.
You have probably been in a room where the leader arrives rushed, distracted and mentally still in the last meeting, and suddenly the whole energy of the team shifts.
That is why I wanted to bring Kelly Corbett onto Impactful Teamwork, because Kelly talks about mindfulness through the lens of neuroscience, which means we are not floating around in vague “be more present” territory.
We are talking about what happens in the brain and body when we are stressed, scattered, disconnected or genuinely present.
And for leaders, this matters.
Because whether we like it or not, our state is contagious.
Mindfulness is not about becoming soft, it is about becoming more aware
I know mindfulness can make some business leaders roll their eyes, especially when it has been packaged as a nice wellbeing initiative that sits somewhere between yoga mats and herbal tea.
But this conversation with Kelly reminded me that mindfulness is not about opting out of commercial reality.
It is about seeing reality more clearly.
And, frankly, that is a leadership superpower.
Kelly talked about the Zen idea of beginner’s mind, which is the ability to come into a situation without assuming you already know everything about it.
That does not mean abandoning your expertise, experience or commercial judgement.
It means not allowing those things to become blinkers.
Because how often do leaders walk into conversations already carrying a story?
“This person is difficult.”
“This idea won’t work.”
“We tried that before.”
“That team always resists change.”
The danger is that once we carry that story into the room, we stop listening properly. We start looking for proof that we are right, rather than staying curious about what might actually be happening.
And that is where teams get stuck.
Not because people are stupid or lazy or resistant, but because the leader’s mind has already closed before the conversation has even begun.
The most powerful leaders create space between trigger and response
One of the biggest gifts of mindfulness is that it creates a pause.
And I know that sounds ridiculously simple, but that pause can change everything.
It is the space between someone saying something that irritates you and you reacting defensively.
It is the space between a problem landing on your desk and you immediately taking it back from the team.
It is the space between thinking, “Here we go again,” and asking, “What else might be true here?”
That pause is where leadership lives.
Without it, we are not really leading, we are just running old patterns in a more senior role.
Kelly explained how mindfulness supports the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain often described as the brain’s CEO, because it helps with attention, decision-making and emotional regulation.
And let’s be honest, most leaders need more of all three.
When we are stressed, rushed or overwhelmed, we are far more likely to react from habit rather than choose our response. We jump in, rescue, control, assume, judge or push harder, and then wonder why the team does not step up.
This is why the inner game of leadership is not separate from business performance.
It shapes it every single day.
Your breath might be the most under-used leadership tool you have
One of the simplest things Kelly shared in the episode was a breathing technique called the cyclic sigh.
It is beautifully uncomplicated.
You take a deep breath in through your nose, then take a second smaller sip of air at the top, before exhaling slowly and fully through your mouth.
Repeat that three times and you begin to send a signal to your body that it is safe.
Now, I know breathing can sound too basic to be useful, especially when you are running a business, leading a team and dealing with a hundred things coming at you all at once.
But that is exactly why it matters.
Most leaders are not breathing properly through the day.
They are shallow breathing their way through back-to-back meetings, difficult conversations, client demands, decisions, deadlines and team tensions.
Then they wonder why they feel wired, irritable, foggy or exhausted.
Your breath changes your state.
Your state changes your behaviour.
Your behaviour changes the room.
That is not fluffy.
That is practical leadership.
You do not have to sit still to be mindful
One of the things I appreciated about Kelly’s approach was that she did not make mindfulness feel like another impossible discipline you have to master before breakfast.
Because, honestly, some of us do not find sitting still very easy.
My mind can behave like a herd of ponies that have just spotted a gap in the fence, charging off in all directions before I have even finished closing my eyes.
So I loved that we talked about walking meditation and using nature as a way back to presence.
Kelly also spoke about forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, the Japanese practice of being intentionally present in nature, not just marching through the woods while mentally replying to emails, but actually noticing the trees, the air, the sounds, the ground beneath your feet.
This resonated so deeply with me because nature has always been one of my greatest teachers.
Nature understands rhythm.
Nature understands recovery.
Nature understands when to act and when to conserve energy.
Horses understand this too. They respond quickly when they need to, but they do not stay permanently in panic mode once the threat has passed.
Humans, especially leaders, are not always so good at that.
We can stay in threat mode for days, weeks or even years, telling ourselves it is just what leadership requires.
It isn’t.
It is what burns people out.
Connection is not a nice extra, it is the foundation of trust
Another huge theme in this conversation was connection.
And I think this is where many businesses are quietly leaking energy.
They have meetings, but not real conversations.
They have reporting lines, but not genuine connection.
They have teams that look aligned on paper, but underneath there are assumptions, tensions, side conversations and emotional distance.
Kelly talked about loving-kindness meditation, also known as Metta, as one way of building connection, first with ourselves and then with others.
Now, you might hear that and think, “That sounds lovely, but what has it got to do with performance?”
My answer would be, everything.
Because trust does not grow in disconnection.
Candour does not grow in disconnection.
Collective accountability does not grow in disconnection.
When people do not feel connected, they protect themselves. They withhold. They avoid. They nod in the meeting and then quietly disagree afterwards.
And that is expensive.
Not always immediately, but eventually it shows up as slow decisions, duplicated effort, low ownership and the kind of team drama that drains everyone’s energy.
Your team entrains to your energy
One of my favourite parts of the episode was our conversation about entrainment.
You see entrainment everywhere in nature.
Birds moving together across the sky.
Fish turning as one.
Horses sensing the energy of the herd and adjusting instantly.
And you see it in leadership too.
Teams often calibrate to the leader’s energy.
If the leader is scattered, the team can become scattered.
If the leader is defensive, people become guarded.
If the leader is calm, clear and grounded, the team has something steadier to organise around.
This does not mean pretending everything is fine when it is not, and it definitely does not mean becoming some polished, emotionless version of yourself.
It means becoming aware of the wake you leave behind.
Because every leader leaves one.
The question is whether yours creates clarity or chaos.
A few small practices that can shift everything
The beauty of this conversation is that Kelly made mindfulness feel accessible, not intimidating.
You do not need to change your entire life to begin leading with more presence.
You can pause before your next meeting and ask, “How do I want to show up here?”
You can take three cyclic sighs before a difficult conversation.
You can catch yourself labelling someone and ask, “What else might be true?”
You can take a short walk outside when your thinking feels tangled.
You can start your day by noticing three things you are grateful for before your phone starts setting the emotional tone.
None of these practices take long.
But they can change the quality of your leadership.
The real work starts with how you show up
The old leadership model taught us to be faster, tougher and more certain.
The leadership we need now asks us to be more present, more aware and more connected.
Not instead of being commercially focused.
Because we are commercially focused.
But because clarity, trust, creativity and sustainable performance are much harder to create when the leader’s nervous system is running the show from a place of stress.
This episode with Kelly is such a powerful reminder that mindful leadership is not about becoming calm for the sake of it.
It is about becoming conscious of your impact.
It is about noticing the energy you bring into the room.
It is about learning how to pause before you react, breathe before you speak, and listen before you assume.
And in a world where so many teams are overwhelmed, distracted and moving faster than they can properly process, that kind of leadership is no longer optional.
It is essential.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Impactful Teamwork with Kelly Corbett to discover how mindfulness, neuroscience, breath and connection can help you become a more grounded, present and effective leader.
Show Notes
02:53 Beginner Mind Mindfulness
04:30 Mindfulness Boosts Creativity
07:07 Leading With Beginner Mind
09:36 Breathwork For Calm
14:33 Walking Meditation Nature
17:45 Gratitude Daily Anchors
19:39 Loving Kindness Practice
23:07 Connection Entrainment Leadership
26:55 Mindfulness ROI At Work
You can connect with Kelly here.
