Leading with nervous system awareness: Somatic skills for modern managers
Most leadership training lives from the neck up – strategy, models, conversations, frameworks.
But the nervous system has a vote in every decision you make.
If your body is stuck in fight, flight or freeze, it doesn’t matter how good your playbook is – you’ll rush, avoid, defend or shut down. Your team’s bodies will follow your lead.
This article is part of Health and wellbeing in the corporate world: The Human Leader playbook and focuses on one simple idea:
Modern managers need somatic skills – practical, body-based ways to notice and regulate their own nervous system, so they can lead with clarity, steadiness and real care.
A quick invitation before we dive in
If your managers are technically excellent but running on adrenaline, reacting rather than responding, you don’t have to fix that with another slide deck.
In The Human Leader Workshop, we help leaders experience nervous system awareness in their own bodies – through simple breath, movement and awareness practices – and then apply it directly to feedback, hybrid meetings and change.
1. What “nervous system awareness” really means
You don’t need a neuroscience degree to lead with nervous system awareness.
At a practical level, it means being able to:
Notice your state
Am I calm, present and curious?
Or am I tense, rushed, shut down or on edge?
Name what’s happening
“I’m in fix-it mode right now.”
“My shoulders are up around my ears – I’m bracing.”
Nudge yourself back towards balance
Using breath, posture and small movements to come back into a steadier “window of tolerance”.
Research on slow, deliberate breathing shows it can increase heart-rate variability (HRV), lower blood pressure and support reductions in perceived stress and anxiety, by engaging the parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” system. (SpringerLink)
Somatic approaches – which work directly with sensations, movement and breath – are increasingly used to help people regulate stress and recover from trauma by shifting patterns held in the body, not just the mind. (PMC)
For managers, nervous system awareness is therefore not a “soft extra”. It’s a core leadership capacity that supports:
Better listening and decision-making.
More grounded responses to conflict and change.
A calmer emotional climate for the whole team.
We frame this as part of Human Leadership across the cluster, especially in Wellbeing as a business strategy: Embedding health into leadership and Human-centred leadership in the age of AI.
2. Why somatic skills matter more than ever
Today’s managers are holding:
Hybrid complexity.
AI disruption and job-change anxiety.
Rising expectations around wellbeing and inclusion.
Their own life load outside work.
Under that weight, the nervous system often slides into:
Fight – irritability, impatience, pushiness.
Flight – overwork, avoidance, constant busyness.
Freeze – numbness, indecision, “I can’t think straight.”
From the outside, these show up as:
Edgy emails.
Defensive responses to feedback.
Meetings where no one says what they really think.
Somatic skills give managers levers to shift state in the moment, not just afterwards in coaching.
You’ll see these skills woven through other articles in this playbook, including:
Breathe, reset, reconnect: Short breathwork practices for work
Qi Gong in the boardroom: Ancient practice for modern resilience
Psychological safety in meetings: From silent screens to real dialogue
Here, we’ll focus specifically on the manager’s body as a leadership tool.
3. Three core somatic skills for modern managers
You don’t need hours of practice to get started. Three simple skills will take you a long way.
3.1 Grounding: “Where is my weight?”
When you’re stressed or rushing, your body often shifts upwards – shoulders tight, jaw clenched, breath high in the chest.
Grounding brings awareness down:
Feel your feet on the floor.
Notice the weight of your body in the chair.
Let your exhale be a fraction longer than your inhale.
A 30–60 second grounding check before key conversations helps you:
Speak slower and clearer.
Listen without jumping in.
Stay connected to yourself when others are emotional.
You can pair grounding with a simple “4–6 breath” from Breathe, reset, reconnect: Short breathwork practices for work – breathing in for a count of four, out for six – which aligns with evidence that slow, paced breathing can support HRV and reduce stress. (SpringerLink)
3.2 Centering: “Can I gather myself before I respond?”
Centering is about bringing your attention to the middle of your body – rather than living entirely in your head.
Try this before a high-stakes call:
Place one hand on your chest, one on your lower belly.
Inhale gently through your nose, letting the belly move first.
Exhale slowly through your mouth, as if fogging a window.
Repeat 8–10 breaths.
As you breathe, silently say:
“Here I am.”
“I can meet this.”
This simple pattern is common in Qi Gong and other embodied practices we explore in Qi Gong in the boardroom: Ancient practice for modern resilience.
Centering helps you:
Feel yourself as more than just your thoughts.
Soften reactivity and defensiveness.
Make clearer choices under pressure.
3.3 Micro-movement: “Can I let some tension move?”
Stress gets “stuck” in muscles – especially in the neck, shoulders and jaw. Small movements can change your state surprisingly fast.
Borrow these micro-moves from Qi Gong-inspired sequences:
Shoulder roll reset
Inhale, lift shoulders gently towards ears.
Exhale, roll them back and down, as if letting stress slide off.
Repeat 5–6 times.
Hand shake-out
Gently shake your hands and wrists, as if flicking off water.
Let the movement travel up the arms and into a soft bounce in the knees if you’re standing.
Continue for 30–60 seconds.
We unpack these in more detail in Qi Gong in the boardroom: Ancient practice for modern resilience and Breath, movement and focus: A somatic toolkit for corporate wellbeing champions.
These micro-movements:
Reduce muscular tension.
Help your nervous system shift from “braced” to “available”.
Signal to your team that it’s okay to care for the body at work.
Let your managers feel these skills, not just read about them
Somatic skills are like swimming – you can’t learn them from a memo.
In The Human Leader Workshop, managers:
Practise grounding, centering and micro-movement in real-time scenarios.
Pair body tools with psychological safety scripts and hybrid design.
Discover what changes in their tone, listening and decision-making when their nervous system is more settled.
That lived experience makes it far easier to keep using these skills back at the desk.
4. Using somatic skills in real leadership moments
Nervous system awareness becomes powerful when you use it in the moments that matter most.
4.1 Difficult conversations and feedback
Before a tricky 1:1:
Ground: Feel your feet or seat, soften your jaw.
Center: 8–10 belly breaths with a longer exhale.
Clarify: “What’s the kindest, clearest outcome I’m aiming for?”
During the conversation:
Notice if your shoulders creep up or your breath gets shallow.
Use one or two quiet, longer exhales to soften your tone.
Name emotion safely: “This feels like an important conversation; let’s stay with it.”
This approach supports the psychologically safe conversations we explore in Trust as your competitive edge: The science of psychological safety and Psychological safety in meetings: From silent screens to real dialogue.
4.2 Hybrid meetings and “silent screens”
In hybrid settings, it is easy for nervous systems to tip into overload – especially when cameras are off and cues are limited.
You can use somatic skills to reset the room:
Start with a shared breath: “Let’s take three slow breaths together – in for four, out for six – just to arrive.”
Invite a quick body check: “Notice your shoulders, jaw, eyes – is there one place you can soften?”
Pause when tension rises: “Let’s take 30 seconds to breathe and jot our thoughts, then we’ll come back to this.”
This sits alongside the connection practices in Rehumanising the workplace for hybrid teams and rhythm design from Hybrid teams without burnout: Designing sustainable work rhythms.
4.3 Leading through AI-era change
AI brings opportunity and anxiety. People are asking:
“Will my job change or disappear?”
“Can I keep up?”
“Do I still matter here?”
If you’re in fight or flight, conversations about AI will be driven by fear or denial.
Somatic skills let you:
Feel your own fear without being ruled by it.
Stay open to difficult questions.
Respond with honesty and steadiness, rather than rushed reassurance.
This is a core theme in Human-centred leadership in the age of AI – using technology wisely, while staying deeply connected to human bodies and nervous systems.
5. Building somatic awareness into your leadership culture
Nervous system awareness becomes part of culture when HR, L&D and senior leaders all take it seriously.
You can support this by:
Including somatic skills in leadership programmes
Pair models of psychological safety and inclusion with practical body-based tools.
Use resources like Breath, movement and focus: A somatic toolkit for corporate wellbeing champions to equip internal champions.
Building micro-practices into team rhythms
A two-minute breath reset at the start of certain meetings.
Short Qi Gong-inspired movements in longer workshops, drawing on Qi Gong in the boardroom: Ancient practice for modern resilience.
Connection rituals from Micro rituals for human connection: Daily practices for hybrid teams.
Measuring what shifts
Track changes in stress, burnout and psychological safety alongside somatic practice pilots, using ideas from Measuring what matters: Proving the ROI of wellbeing programmes.
This is exactly the kind of integrated approach we outline in HR and L&D as human leaders: Equipping culture shapers for the future of work.
FAQs: Somatic skills for modern managers
1. Is this just therapy-by-stealth for our managers?
No. While somatic tools are used in therapeutic settings, here they are introduced as everyday regulation skills – ways to manage stress, stay present and communicate more clearly. Managers are not being turned into therapists; they’re being given simple tools to look after themselves and their teams.
2. Do we need to talk about trauma for somatic skills to be useful?
Not necessarily. You can talk about nervous system states, stress and capacity without using clinical language. If trauma does come up, HR and wellbeing teams can signpost to appropriate support. The everyday skills in this article are safe and helpful for most people when offered gently and with choice.
3. What if some leaders find this “too soft” or uncomfortable?
Start with performance language: focus, decision quality, presence under pressure. Invite leaders to try a short experiment – for example, using a breath reset before three tough meetings – and notice what changes. Once they feel the impact, resistance usually softens.
4. How much time do these practices take?
Most of the skills here fit into 30–120 seconds. The key is frequency, not length. A few short resets woven through the day are often more powerful than an occasional long session.
5. How does this link to our wellbeing and duty-of-care commitments?
Nervous system-aware leadership directly supports your duty to manage psychosocial risk. Leaders who can regulate themselves are less likely to create fear-based cultures, more likely to spot early signs of burnout and better equipped to respond when someone is struggling – all central to the wider Human Leader playbook.
Make the manager’s body part of your leadership system
You can have the best policies and the clearest strategy – but if the people leading your teams are in constant fight, flight or freeze, everything feels harder than it needs to.
Leading with nervous system awareness is about:
Managers who know their own signals of stress and overload.
Simple somatic skills to come back to centre.
Cultures where breath, movement and regulation are seen as part of good leadership, not a secret weakness.
If you’d like your managers to experience these skills in a safe, practical way – and to weave them into psychological safety, hybrid design and AI-era change – I’d be honoured to support you through The Human Leader Workshop
Together, we can help your leaders move from reactive firefighting to a steadier, more embodied way of leading – one that supports both people and performance.
I look forward to connecting with you in my next post.
Until then, be well and keep shining.
Peter. :)
