Sira Laurel breaks down why leadership burnout is rising among high performers and highly sensitive professionals. In this episode, discover how traditional leadership models fail, how burnout is created at a systemic level, and what needs to change to build sustainable high performance without sacrificing well-being.
Before we dive into this episode, it is important to understand what the Give A Heck Podcast is all about and why these conversations matter.
🎙️ Give A Heck Podcast
The Give A Heck Podcast is about living intentionally, breaking free from autopilot, and having honest conversations that challenge how we think, live, and lead.
Each episode brings real stories, practical insights, and unfiltered discussions designed to help you grow, take action, and create a life that actually matters.
🎧 Episode Overview
In this episode of the Give A Heck Podcast, Dwight Heck sits down with Sira Laurel to explore why traditional leadership models are failing high performers, especially those who are highly sensitive or neurodivergent.
Sira shares her journey from early awareness of sensory processing differences to building a career in HR and organizational development. Over 15 years, she consistently saw high performers burning out inside systems that were never designed for how they actually function.
This conversation challenges conventional leadership thinking and exposes how organizations prioritize speed over depth, output over sustainability, and control over trust.
🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode
• What it means to be a highly sensitive person
• Why leadership models are misaligned with human biology
• How burnout is created at a systemic level
• The cost of push harder workplace culture
• Why high performers burn out first
• How nervous system awareness improves performance
• What leadership must evolve into
⏱️ Chapter Summaries
00:00 Sensitivity Is Not a Weakness
Reframing sensitivity as a leadership advantage.
03:00 Early Signs of Being Different
Childhood awareness of sensory processing differences.
07:00 Overload and Breakdown
A major life transition created physical and mental strain.
10:00 The Turning Point
A shift from seeing sensitivity as a dysfunction to a strength.
17:00 Inside Corporate Leadership
Trying to create better systems from within organizations.
23:00 Burnout and Exit
The moment she could no longer ignore misalignment.
29:00 What Highly Sensitive Really Means
A simple explanation of sensory processing sensitivity.
35:00 Why Leadership Models Fail
Traditional systems ignore how people actually function.
40:00 Performance vs Survival
People pleasing and constant output lead to burnout.
50:00 The Future of Leadership
Why organizations must shift to human-centred systems.
💡 Key Takeaway
Burnout is not a personal failure.
It is the predictable result of systems that ignore how people actually operate.
🔗 Continue the Conversation
👉 Ken Kunken Paralyzed at 20 Built a 40 Year Legal Career
A powerful story of resilience and building purpose after a life-changing injury.
👉 Why Most People Never Tell Their Story Michele DeFilippo
Learn how sharing your story creates clarity and long-term impact.
👉 Turning Grief Into Story John DeDakis
A discussion on loss, healing, and storytelling.
👉 From New Age to Jesus Dr Laurette Willis
A journey of transformation through identity and purpose.
👉 Are You Drifting Through Life Purpose Direction
A solo episode on regaining clarity and intentional living.
👤 About Guest
Sira Laurel is a leadership strategist and founder of North of Normal, helping organizations move away from burnout-driven systems toward sustainable performance rooted in neuroscience and human behaviour.
🤝 Connect with Sira Laurel (click below to access)
🌐 North of Normal Website
▶️ YouTube Channel
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💼 LinkedIn Profile
📝 Substack
🤝 Connect with Dwight Heck (click below to access)
🌐 Give A Heck Website
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🙌 Final Thoughts
Sira’s message challenges more than leadership; it challenges how we define performance itself.
For too long, organizations have rewarded output without understanding the cost behind it. High performers, especially those who are highly sensitive or deeply aware, are often the ones carrying that cost.
This episode is a reminder that burnout is not a personal failure. It is a signal that something in the system is misaligned.
When leaders begin to understand how people actually function—mentally, emotionally, and biologically—they create environments where performance becomes sustainable instead of destructive.
📣 Call to Action
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Full Transcript of Episode:
[00:00:00] Dwight: What if everything you thought was holding you back at work was actually your greatest untapped advantage? What if the way your brain processes the world, the depth you bring to decisions, the empathy you feel for your team, the patterns you notice that others miss was never a weakness to manage, but a strength you were never taught how to use?
Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast. I’m your host, Dwight Heck, here to help you live life on purpose, not by accident. My guest today spent 15 years in senior leadership roles in HR and organisational development, building expertise from the inside of some demanding corporate environments. She holds two master’s degrees, one in organisational development and one in business administration with data analytics, along with multiple coaching certifications, including specialised training and highly sensitive people and neuroscience coaching.
For the past four years, she has also worked as a certified Berkman Method consultant, helping companies build high performing teams. But what makes Sierra Laurel’s perspective genuinely different is not the credentials. It is the fact that she has lived the gap between how traditional workspaces operate and how certain kinds of minds actually work.
The gap has a real cost, and she has built her entire practise around closing it. She’s the founder of North of Normal, where she helps leaders and organisations use brain science to move from stressed out reactive management to building strong, flexible cultures, particularly as AI continues to reshape the world of work.
Sierra, welcome to the Give a Heck podcast. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.
[00:01:53] Sira: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:55] Dwight: This is, I’m, I’m excited for this. Listeners, people viewing buckle up. Uh, we had a great prior conversation. Those that are, uh, familiar with the show that have been listening for a long time, you know how I enjoy the initial conversation and creating that chemistry, that connection, and it tells me a lot about what kind of, uh, podcast conversation we’re gonna have, and I think you’re gonna really enjoy what you’re gonna learn.
Um, so let’s get started. Sarah. I always like to start at the beginning because our origins absolutely shape everything in our lives. When listeners hear those early stories, they see themselves in the journey. Maybe in your journey, they can see themselves watching what you’ve gone through and put themselves right there.
It’s a comforting thing for people. It can help them, you know, listen better, be more intentful and, and this conversation be more impactful. Another feeling. Yours is gonna connect with a lot of people in the audience. So take us back. What are some of the earliest recollections that shaped how you understand yourself and the way things have worked up to where you are?
[00:03:03] Sira: Sure. So, um, there’s a few, well, there’s many pivotal moments, but a a few that I’ll mention is that I’ve actually known that I was a highly sensitive person since I was very young. It wasn’t called that in the eighties. Uh, but I, uh, had the fortune of being inside of a Montessori school that employed an occupational therapist, and that person noticed that some of my behaviours, uh, in the classroom, uh, might’ve been the result of some sensory processing differences.
And so at the time, talked to my mom about that. And, uh, the description at the time was sensory integration dysfunction, so obviously pathologized and, and classified as a, as a problem, right in dysfunction, not a positive, uh, uh, term, but I was put into occupational therapy to help, uh, manage my sensory overload from being inside of social systems that weren’t designed with my kind of nervous system in mind.
And I grew up in a small town, Eugene, Oregon, where I was really able to mind and manage my sensory needs, uh, rather well for most of my young life, uh, because it’s a small, quiet, quaint town, also very familiar to me. And things were really slow and low. And that was all well and good until I relocated to San Francisco, California and hit what I now know is a sensory wall.
And I could not, um, continue to operate in this way that I had, which was essentially ignoring, you know, this part of myself because of the damage that it was causing to my nervous system and my ability to, uh, leverage my executive function. Uh, my speech was slowing down. Uh, I couldn’t think as clearly.
And it wasn’t just the, uh, that cognitive, uh, struggle or pain, it also was representing itself in, in physical pain. And so at that time, I called, this was 2014, and I called my dad, who I knew, even though we hadn’t really talked about it, I had inherited. Uh, this aspect of myself from, uh, again, we didn’t have the terminology at the time of highly sensitive people or sensory processing sensitivity, but I knew that he had been living with the kind of intensity that I had been living, and he was still in Southern California.
And so I had called him and said, how the heck have you been dealing with this in the onslaught of sensory information that happens in, you know, la uh, you know, I’m relocating to this new city for career and education. I was gonna start a master’s programme and I, my back was against the wall. I didn’t know what to do.
And he had told me that he had a meditation practise that he’d had for 25 years and that was the way that he had been able to self-regulate and be able to continue going out into the world, um, and operating, you know, as a high functioning individual. And he said, there’s a meditation retreat just north of you, blue Mountain Meditation Centre, and I’ll send you there, uh, if you want to for a young meditator’s retreat.
And it was there that I met somebody who in the dark hours of, of a night in the library, I felt so comfortable talking about my lived experience and just, but I was describing what was going on again as a dysfunction, right? That this was a problem that I needed to solve. And that person looked at me and, and very patiently was listening to my entire story and, and then said, you know, Sierra, what what you have is not a dysfunction, it’s not a disorder, it’s a gift.
You are a highly sensitive person and you need to read this book, the Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Elaine Aaron. And so that pivotal moment then shifted everything for me as I reframed everything I’d, um, assumed or known about my nervous system needs in terms of this neutral trait, uh, of sensory processing sensitivity.
[00:07:20] Dwight: Wow. You, you’ve had, you know, the thing that the monastery school, I’m familiar with that I’m familiar with what you talked about, you know, getting into an environment, like even myself, if I go into, I’ve gone and spoken somewhere, or I’ve gone and I’ve done a workshop to a smaller group or whatever, by the time I leave, I am emotionally wiped, even recording podcasts.
I put a blanket, I put book time in between before I do anything else because I, depending on the sensitivity of what we’re communicating about it, about, and I’m not saying I’m the same as you, but I can relate to being sensitive to energy and to what it does to me and feeling drained. And for years it, I push past that and just, oh, you’re tired having another coffee.
And what are you doing when you have coffee or stim. You’re emotionally can have that issue. It’s not helping you. It actually is making it worse to a point where I, I, I figured it out probably about eight, 10 years ago, that there had to be something that I could figure out to make it so that I didn’t over feel overwhelmed.
Because then when I’m feeling overwhelmed and I have a call, or I was going to a group of people to educate, or I was going to, you know, I’m at a conference, I’m not even in my home location. What do I need to do to in order to survive? It wasn’t about prospering my mindset. It was like, oh, I’m exhausted.
What am I gonna do to survive to get through this next thing, this next call, this next conversation? So I had to learn to segregate myself, right? Realising that, okay, you can do it. You can handle that for a specific amount of time, but the end result is, is your tank is gonna be empty. Your, uh, uh, your ability to be emotionally, your, your emotional IQ is gonna be lower.
Just everything. ’cause I had to notice the patterns, but how many of us don’t notice the patterns of our lives? Right? And that’s part of what you specialise in doing and is helping people. So what happened though? So you spent 15 years in senior HR and organisational development roles. At some point something shifted and you left that world to build north and normal.
What can you tell me about that part of your origin? Like from, you can continue on obviously from what you were talking about, um, in regards to your childhood and young adulthood, but what, what was specific in there? Was that all tied to the north or normal because of what you discovered about yourself and then through your dad understanding, you know, meditation?
[00:10:02] Sira: Yeah, definitely. So once being introduced to the trait of sensory processing sensitivity through Dr. Elaine Aaron’s work, that was in 2014, the subsequent decade became a, a very deliberate journey of self-development. And I had pivoted into human resources, uh, from a five, five-year career of what I call managing the revenue cycle.
Uh, which again, before I had the terminology of organisational development, organisational psychology, and anything in terms of, you know, the neuroscience and, and neurobiology of, of this trait, that I knew that I wanted to create a, an employee experience that I would’ve wanted and to be the confidential resource that I never had in my first five years out into career.
And that’s why I pivoted into human resources because I thought I could do that from that seat in an organisation. And so I spent that next 10 years building HR and OD programmes. Consistently advocating for creating psychological safety in teams and systemic equity. But I found myself repeatedly clashing with leadership teams who preferred comfortable dysfunction to necessary growth.
And after that insight, I could clearly see really what I was doing was running from burnout from organisation to organisation. And I finally reached a point where escape was no longer possible. And in February of 2025, I took a formal leave of absence from my latest role as a director of talent and culture, overseeing the entire end-to-end employee experience for a global firm.
And I realised finally that with absolute certainty that I could not return to trading my authentic self for perceived security. And Oh,
[00:12:07] Dwight: I love that. I love that.
[00:12:08] Sira: Yeah. Well that’s,
[00:12:09] Dwight: I do. I love that.
[00:12:10] Sira: Thank you.
[00:12:10] Dwight: That discovery phase that we go through where we have those, uh, those aha moments, it’s just, it’s, it’s priceless.
And we don’t give, we don’t give enough attention to those little moments in life. And, and really, it wasn’t a little moment for you, I believe it would’ve been a big moment for you, that discovery, that aha, that realisation that I don’t have to be pigeonholed into a little box anymore. I don’t have to do what the committee of they, which is society tells me is the way I should live or the way I should report or represent.
Um, you know, I, I wrote down here a couple little comments like you talked about the leaders and you’re clashing with the leadership in, in regards to what they were creating. I’ve found, because I do a lot of, uh, in my finance business, and even prior, I owned a computer consulting company. I’ve dealt with a lot of high level corporations, governments, and leaders.
I’ve, I’ve seen a pattern, I don’t know if you would agree with this or not, but I’ve seen a pattern that sometimes leaders want to feel, they want to create self-importance. They want to create that I image to their people that they are that smart and they create chaos. They create, um, challenges that they take a little mole hill and make it into a mountain.
They, they, you know, maybe they’ve got whatever going on and they are afraid for their career. Maybe they are looking to advance, so they wanna look smarter. But really at the end of the day, it is taxing on the people that deal with those leaders.
[00:13:43] Sira: Yes. And the notion of competitive advantage is one that I think is.
Really damaging to our organisations, to society at large. We’re the most pro-social species on the planet. It’s because of our cooperative advantage that we have come so far as a species not competitive advantage. Yes. Do you have to, uh, you know, make a judgement call about, uh, somebody or a group who is operating outside of the value system of a society?
And you, there’s some competition there. Yes. But we have so much internal and intra competition that happens inside of organisations that leads to this kind of mutant, I’ll call it opportunism and this mutant individualization, that it’s all about me and what I need to do to get to, you know, from point A to point B into ascend and role and responsibility.
And it’s every person for themselves. That is not the way our species works. That’s not the way that it’s ever worked. That’s not the way that we’ve evolved to succeed. And so we’re actually operating, I believe, inside of our organisations, contradictory to the success factors Right. Of our species.
[00:15:02] Dwight: Well, they’re slowing themselves down.
I just, I can remember sitting in a room I did some consulting work for in our city, and just for those people listening that aren’t familiar, Edmonton is a capital city in Alberta, Canada. We’re 1.5 million people. So we’re not small, we’re not super huge compared to some cities in the us but we’re fairly diverse.
Uh, and I mean diverse of all culture, diverse types of businesses. And sitting as a consultant in boardrooms with different people that were trying to out posture one another and giant waste of time. And, and when, when the issue that we were gonna communicate and deal with and people could take their, their bad eagle.
’cause I believe there’s both good and bad eagle. And check it at the door and just be a good listener and only interject not to be heard and feel important, but interject when they’re, what they have to say adds value and, and put sustainability in the conversation to get to a flow of completion. Right.
And it used to frustrate me so bad. Right. It is just, I, I don’t get. Why people need to be like that. But then I look at my own growth and realise that I might have been that person when I first started and was young. I just chose to continue to climb and grow. What have you seen with the people that you work with?
Is it, is it something like an aha moment for themselves where they actually reach out to you? Or, or do you have more of a, a, a system of analysing and identifying circumstances where you reach out to people and point out, you know, maybe there’s something I can help with you within your organisation or maybe just yourself so that you feel not as helpless within the circumstances, it’d be your career or business to make a difference?
[00:16:53] Sira: Yeah, so oftentimes, so with my content, I’ve had people reach out to me because it’s so visceral, their reaction to it, that they, they recognise themselves in the experience I am describing, and they’ll come to me, you know, despite a track record of success, questioning their leadership because of how painful it’s been to live lead as if they had someone else’s nervous system.
We have this false, uh, notion of a neurotypical brain, of this non-existent average, around which most of our systems have been designed and one size fits all, when the neuroscience reality is that no two brains are alike. And we have this messaging from very, very early on in our lives around being stoic, non-emotional, toughening up, um, suppressing sensitivity, suppressing emotion, needing to be aggressive, particularly in the United States.
I’ll speak for my, my Amer centric point of view that we force this toughen up mentality across systems. And we often promote a push harder culture, which is completely misaligned with the needs of sensitive brains, of neurodivergent brains, of creative brains, of introverted brains, of really the majority of brains, which ultimately does lead to fatigue and exhaustion and burnout rather than motivation.
And so I help people who, again, right, despite a track record of success, they’ve learned how to optimise within a system and to optimise a system. They’re high performers, but it’s been excruciating to do that. And so my goal in working with anyone is to help them recognise their own nervous system needs and build nervous system literacy as I describe it, and moving them towards mastery where they’re able to be high performers while meeting their own needs in real time.
[00:19:12] Dwight: I like that. And I didn’t put this down, but it just popped into my head, how many of those people that are high functioning that are, you know, people aren’t aware how it’s tearing them apart from the inside out. How many of them have destroyed their lives in regards to their families or even their own mental and physical health have driven, been driven to addictions and addiction just isn’t, uh, alcohol and drugs.
It can be a, a addicted to avo. It can avoidance, can be an addiction, right? Mm-hmm. So now they’re avoiding family because the family thinks they should be around more and they don’t know how to let this, I’m just using this an example because I’ve heard it from clients. They don’t know how to apolo they’ve given up apologising for being late again or missing this event or whatever.
And I’m not saying it happens both to men and women, those listening and watching. How, how do you feel that has caused so much problems in their, in regards to the abuse of alcohol, drugs, or any form of addiction?
[00:20:13] Sira: Yeah, it’s, uh, like, as you put it, there are, there are many kinds of addictions and ignoring our physical cognitive needs, like traditional leadership ignores signals from the body and focuses on inbox urgency, where we then treat people pleasing as empathy and we fail to account for sensory overwhelm and will self-medicate.
Uh, and in order to be able to maintain that level of interaction, which is just really task management, it’s not actually solving like deeper problems, right? To, to get to inbox zero is, it’s just, it’s practical or a tactical prioritisation of, of basic tasks. Uh, not actually deep value creation is, is happening from, from that kind of model.
And yet I certainly in entering the workforce was, it was immediately reinforced that I should be responding to everybody and be always on. And the what I had to do in order to maintain that, that work hard was I also played hard. And so after work was often spent going out for drinks with the group to try to decrease the overstimulation that I had subjected my body to, that I had invited right through my behaviour throughout the day, not taking breaks again, like responding to every single email all hours of the day being on for everybody, uh, in this goal to be rewarded and recognised, to be included right in, in this tribe.
[00:22:04] Dwight: Yeah, that’s self-importance. We want to be, we wanna be the, the person, right? We want to be the connector. We want to be everything. And I hear you being on all the time. I, I, I had to, I know, started noticing this with my own coaching clients over the last 25 years. And obviously clients, not even on my finance side, that, you know, I was on all the time.
I was sick all the time. Because when you’re emotionally and mentally drained, it, it does, it takes a toll on you. And when you’re not self-aware or you don’t have somebody that helps you be self-aware and points it out, that maybe, you know, if you dial it down or, you know, I, I don’t have the answer for you, Dwight, but maybe you could look at doing this because you ever realise that you have an association between, you’re always on and the fact that you got colds all the time, or that you’re run down and, and I don’t think a lot of people watching or listening realise how, how our intensity of wanting to be in being the in-person, being the connector, being, you know, like you said, you talked about, you know, that inbox urgency getting to zero.
I used to be that person right at, at one time when I get an average of 110 to 120 emails a day. And then you get caught into that rabbit hole. ’cause one of them might be a a, a type C priority, not a type A, but yet, oh my goodness, email, I’m gonna take care of this because there’s something else I really am kind of not wanting to get back to.
So then I got avoidance behaviour of that. And then it causes, even though I’m not realising it, it causes tension, anxiety causes my emotional and my intellectual IQ to not be as sharp. But those are all things that I had to realise over a period of time and that people pleasing, you talked about pick me, right?
I can relate to what you’re talking about. Oh, I’m just gonna please everybody and everybody’s gonna always give me what I want because they’re, oh, Dwight’s such a good guy, right? But, but in reality, when you’re a people pleaser, you get more dumped on you about by people above you potentially, or even, you know, maybe you’re, that people pleaser, oh, Sally or John, they’re, they’re not doing the grace.
I’ll just take on that task. Meanwhile, I take on that extra task and my family’s suffering, or my mental health suffering. And it’s just, it’s all over the place and I don’t. The brain sensitivity and why traditional leadership fails, which is what I want to go into for our next segment. You work with highly sensitive people.
Obviously, as we talked about being one yourself and I, I’ve fallen into that category. I’ve never been diagnosed per se, but I have commonalities that I can, that I can, uh, pick out that I do have some challenges. Right. Obviously never saying that I’m the same as you or those that are, are in that highly sensitive category.
Um, as you mentioned and you work with neuro Deb Urgent Professionals. Before we go anywhere else, could you help our listeners understand what do those terms actually mean? Like, you talked a little bit about highly sensitive people and how it affected you, but if you were to explain those in like a grade eight situation, like I tell people, let’s give it to so that anybody can understand, explain to us what those two terminologies mean.
Sure.
[00:25:25] Sira: So highly sensitive person is a colloquial term that Dr. Elaine Aaron, who’s done the majority of the research and with her research team, um, on the trait of, uh, sensory processing sensitivity. And so she describes folks who are on the high end of this spectrum as highly sensitive people. ’cause all of us are sensitive, right?
We take in sensory information and if we weren’t sensitive to that information, we wouldn’t be taking in that information consciously or unconsciously and processing it, right, using it. So the fact that we’re having this conversation and that there’s any kind of cognitive or emotional, uh, reaction to it, responsiveness to it, uh, any attention to detail, there’s actually six different subscales of, of sensory processing sensitivity.
We’ll put that over to the side for now. Uh, but sensory processing sensitivity is the trait that we’re referring to when we talk about highly sensitive people. It’s a neutral inherited trait that recent, um, research has shown approximately 30% of the people on the planet. Um, it is not location determinant, it’s in our species.
It’s actually in at least a hundred other species as well, which is fascinating. Wow. Approximately 30% of US can be considered highly sensitive. 40% of US measure moderately sensitive, and the remaining 30% are considered low sensitive. And this sensory sensitivity is an evolved survival strategy that helps our species and obviously many others, better assess opportunities in our environment as well as threats.
So, because a highly sensitive brain is, if you think of it in terms of a funnel. And that most of the information that’s coming in, you know, via your census is pushed to the subconscious, right? Your brain just automatically filters that out as unnecessary information for making decisions moment to moment.
A highly sensitive brain has a much wider funnel for taking in information consciously then a moderately sensitive brain, and then a low sensitive brain, right? The, the funnels get smaller, um, but the neck is the same size. So the highly sensitive brain has a lot more information consciously to process, right?
That’s coming into the system, which is why the, really, the only downside of high sensitivity is the, uh, over simulation that can come from having to process all of this information consciously. The sound, the smell, the sight, it’s the, the feeling, et cetera. Um, but leveraging that sensitivity right, is what has helped our species survive.
They exist in approximately the same quantity, right? For a reason is that they have equal weight, uh, in terms of our, our survival as a species. So it’s helpful to have those who are willing to take risks, right? Low sensitive and be the first, right, and to lead out there and, and, uh, to go before others and check out what’s going on in the grass.
And it also helps to have another group that’s like, maybe we should wait a little longer or collect a little bit more information before we brush into anything, right? We have that balance and then we’ve got moderates in the middle who are really the bridges right? Between these two groups who would have a more difficult time, right?
And we see this in organisations. I do, you know, ex understanding one another. We’ve got the moderates in the middle who are, who are bridge builders.
[00:29:04] Dwight: Oh yeah. I love how you put that. Everybody’s required. It’s just getting to a point where everybody plays nice, right? Yes. Everybody, everybody, you know, and, and I get it.
We’re trying, trying to make light of it, but I’ve just experienced it far too long, 30 years of, of working within the, the corporate environment. Even small businesses can have challenges with, it doesn’t even have to be large corporate. Um, where, you know, you got your highly sensitive, your moderate low like you talked about, but the highly sensitive people that I’ve met, if you can learn to reign that in, in a sense of, of understanding who you are, as you were mentioning earlier, as you figure out things and make decisions.
I are some of the best leaders I’ve ever dealt with, but you can still have a moderate person that can be a great leader. But, uh, I like that how you said a highly sensitive, it’s like we got our, our antenna is better, we can receive more information, right? So I like how you discussed that and that it all evolved it as a survival trait, right?
Really at the end of the day, everything about that, what I didn’t know is that 30% of like, that it’s around, it’s not central to North America. It’s just in it’s ingrained with inside of our, you know, human DNA. That is very interesting. Um, I imagine as you learned all this stuff yourself and you’ve been researching it and educating others, it’s been solace for you correctly.
It’s been something that’s been very good for you.
[00:30:38] Sira: Yes, absolutely. It’s affirming, confirming, motivating, inspiring. It is certainly something that’s helped me be able to trust myself where, you know, inside of so many systems, the messages, you know, over and covert are to suppress your sensitivity, right?
And to suppress that natural signal. Right? I think organisations punish sensitivity by creating environments that work against the natural processing styles of, of anyone who’s outside of, again, this, this, uh, non-existent average that we’ve designed our systems around, uh, that you then start to question, right?
Your own knowing. And that can be, could make for some crazy making, you know, experiences up here. Uh, and I certainly went through that. Um, but to, to know that this is, uh, the evidence is substantial, uh, decades and decades of, of research now on, on this trait, uh, it’s relieving, uh, to know. And I find that as I work with others who, you know, they may have never heard of sensory processing sensitivity or, or a highly sensitive person, any of these labels are terms, but again, like as they read content or I talk to them, the experience is what jibes and to then offer them this framework for them to experience their identity in a new way.
The relief that washes over people is just incredible.
[00:32:15] Dwight: Well, and I can, yeah. To, you know, to be aware, people listening are watching to understand who and what you are. And you may not have realised. It does not mean that you hit a life of perfection or, or intentional. A hundred percent. It doesn’t work that way for me, as I continue to evolve and continue to get better and understanding my six inches between my ears, which is both my emotional and my mental, it’s everything to do with, with how I function, whether it’s high level at a moment or low level.
The difference between me and other people, and maybe you concur with this, is that I can correct myself if I hit, uh, if I’m on the climb and all of a sudden I plateau and. I start going down into the value despair for any reason. I have the tools that I teach others to, to continue to work on myself and continue to evolve.
And then my practise continues to change. Maybe I’ll have realisations, but it’s been really healthy for me as an individual to not get trapped and get stuck. And that happens to so many of us. Correct?
[00:33:22] Sira: Yes. When you don’t have the information, right, the knowledge, the understanding of what is going on in your, I call it your internal operating system.
There’s, you’re, you’re just operating in the dark as it were. And you may be trying certain things and not understanding like why things aren’t getting better. And it’s, it’s because we are lacking the fundamental information about how nervous systems work and our brains work, and how uniquely each of us operates.
And then applying strategies to Right. Your specific operating system that work for you. Right. Without that fundamental understanding of, of ourselves, the strategies are is just like spaghetti. It’s a wall.
[00:34:11] Dwight: Well, and then we’re gonna, this is gonna flow into the fact that the traditional leadership training that I, I’ve been involved in throughout my life, you know, being in my late fifties, I’ve experienced it, I’ve been, parts of it, I’ve been asked is communicate in it.
And, and a lot of it, I don’t want to say all of it’s broken, but it, it is in a lot of ways, it’s, it’s top down flow. There’s just enough information to keep the structure, hopefully not falling apart like a house of cards, but there, there’s so many things that fail when they train on how a person should be a proper leader and what it should look like.
You’ve argued, and I’ve read about it, and obviously this is something you focus on, that the model fails a significant portion of the workforce. Why specifically does it fail? Obviously some of the things you discussed are the reasons why for it, but if you could put it into a, you know, some sort of concise explanation for people, why does it fail?
And who’s paying the price for that failure? Like, obviously you and I know, but the people listening, watching need it. I want it to be really easy for them to digest.
[00:35:18] Sira: Mm-hmm. So, I, I describe this category of, of people as like highly sensitive leaders and highly sensitive people or folks who are high on sensory processing sensitivity are absolutely right.
Called out, obviously in, in that term. But what we also find with other neuro conditions is that a lot of, uh, what we define as neurodivergence converges on the trait of sensory processing sensitivity. So someone with, uh, A DHD tends to be highly sensitive. Autism spectrum disorder. It could be highly sensitive as well.
It can also be on the other side of the spectrum and be, and be low sensitive. Uh, but it’s RSD synesthesia, um, dyslexia, like a lot of these neuro conditions converge on the trait of sensory processing sensitivity. So it’s, there’s a whole host of us, um, who are left out of traditional leadership development because it promotes a rigid command and control and extroverted model that undervalues deep processing empathy and emotional intelligence that these programmes typically prioritise.
Still to this day, aggressive, fast-paced decision making, uh, which is a complete misalignment with the highly sensitive or neurodivergence, like authentic, thoughtful, more relational systems thinking. And thus like order effect thinking approach. It’s a complete failure to nur to nurture these unique strengths.
Um, the preference for command and control, the overemphasis on speed, over depth, neglective emotional intelligence. And again, that misalignment with what it means to be an authentic leader. That, again, as a the most pro-social species on the planet, it’s trust, right? That is the leadership quality that we’re all looking for, right?
Inside of, um, organisations. And when we, we look out or up right to somebody, I mean the leadership, um, relationship with a say a formal leadership structure, a manager direct report is really akin to the parent child relationship that we are learning from this person who has been there, done that, and we are, we are trusting them to honour our needs and to provide belonging and a safe space for learning, which is making mistakes and failures and, and trying things that don’t, we don’t get right the first time.
That is not how traditional leadership development works. Uh, despite I think the veneer, especially where I’m located in Silicon Valley of, you know, creating inclusive or growth mindset oriented or regenerative or sustainable models of leadership. That’s, it is just a veneer.
[00:38:15] Dwight: Wow. It’s, there’s so much more.
I, I know after now with us communicating and discussing and I’m looking at, uh, some of the things I wanted to discuss. We could have multiple episodes about this. We really could definitely, and, and the people listening and watching, I’m gonna say many times on, you need to check out, um, what she’s talking about.
Check out our website, go and look into it, because at the end of the day, I like how you put speed. And depth can’t, don’t go hand in hand. They just don’t. Um, people are always constantly pushing people to the envelope and oh, you know, or they’ll manipulate and I’ve seen it, leadership pat somebody on their back, whether it’s physical or virtual or just through words, oh, you can do it right.
Push out a little bit more. But they don’t think about the fact of all the different issues with that person. Do they have a DHD? Do they have all these, uh, highly sensitive sensory things? Um, I have a daughter that’s severely H-D-A-D-H-D, and I have a daughter that’s also on the autism spectrum. So I get what you’re talking about.
Um, there’s a reason why you’re on this show, why I didn’t even realise how, sometimes I don’t realise until we’re into the conversation how much that person connects within my own sphere, my own tribe and world of people. And I appreciate you talking about this stuff and I hope people check you out because sometimes the best coach, the best leader is somebody that’s lived it and still living it in some extents, because I don’t believe it ever totally goes away.
We learn to manage it. And I think being a coach, a teacher like you, an educator that wants to help people, that satisfaction makes it even easier to contain what you have experienced and might still be con, um, still continuing to experience. Wouldn’t you agree?
[00:40:14] Sira: Absolutely. Yes. And I certainly went through a period of, with my burnout, right, of agonising reappraisal I’ll call it, of like, how did I get myself here?
I knew this about myself. I, I, and I was teaching other people in my human resources leadership roles of like how to attend to their nervous systems. I became a certified Berkman Method consultant. And so we started implementing that top bottom side to side in my last organisation so that people could start talking about their needs in a neutral way.
I really dislike accommodation language and thinking. I recognise that it was put into place in, you know, our legal frameworks here in the United States to protect people, but it often inadvertently does the opposite. Uh, it puts a target on people’s back. And what I attempted to do in my last organisation was, uh, create a environment where we could just all talk about our needs, right?
Some people need alone time to do deep work, and some people like talking about it with other people. Some people need to work in the morning for, for their creative moments, and some people like working in the evening, et cetera, et cetera. So we all have needs. Uh, and the irony of my situation is that in attempting to meet the needs of everyone else, I ignored my own, uh, right.
I was still masking. And, uh, that of course was, you know, a result of the containers that I was in, where organisations were demanding that. I and other individuals hide our true sensitive, you know, neurodivergent selves. And that of course, led to exhaustion and cognitive overload and ultimately burnout, where I could not ignore the fact that I was ignoring my physical and cognitive needs.
So yeah, not a, not a perfect person, uh, have learned, uh, from my own experience and I absolutely apply that in my work with others. Right. It’s not a, it’s not a failure of, of who you are to, to go through these moments of crisis. It’s actually helps you transform into the person you were meant to be.
[00:42:18] Dwight: Yeah.
It’s, you know, it, it is so true. Everything you are mentioning and the, and the flow of how we are treated, how we treat others, I like you talked about, you, you don’t really like when they say, well, we’re gonna accommodate this person. We’re gonna accommodate this group within our organisation. Labels have never worked.
People don’t need one more label. Well, that’s one of the people we accommodate, or that’s a person that has a DHD. So we have to accommodate, you know what, I’m so tired of people saying, how do, how do you survive? I don’t know. I’m in my late fifties and I’m a NightOwl. And people say, what does that mean to you?
I prefer the calmness of night. So I get some of my best work done from six till two in the morning sometimes and three in the morning. Well then when do you sleep? Well, I go to sleep and I don’t, I, depending on the day and what I’ve got going on, I have a very stringent schedule and my links won’t let them book at this time for this type of call, for a finance call podcast, because I’m protecting me.
I’ve learned that this is where I am most focused. And then other people for my, for my son, my adult son, for an example, he goes to bed by 9 30, 10 o’clock at night. He has, since he was a little boy and he likes getting up early. That’s his performance window. I don’t judge him for it. He doesn’t judge it for me.
Right. It’s, we just have to be more accepting and quit labelling people and realising that anybody that’s got any form of emotional, um, sensitivity, um, you know, at the end of the day, that’s a good thing. They can be sometimes your biggest advocate, your best friend, the most empathetic people I know are people that are highly sensitive.
Right. But how do they become good empath coaches? How do they become good people to utilise their strengths as awareness situations like you, where you’re able to coach them to bring out their best and, and help them focus that their label is a strength, not a weakness. Right.
[00:44:24] Sira: Exactly. And we don’t all have to become neuroscientists to impart Right.
Or take on Right. A little bit of the science into management. Into our organisations. ’cause we’re, we’re spending billions of dollars on leadership development that ignores basic neuroscience, basic neurobiology. And I think the result is the $300 billion plus, like burnout crisis that we’re experienced because leaders are attempting to lead with misaligned or borrowed nervous systems.
Right. That really just a very, very small percentage of humans Right. Actually have who those true extroverts who, uh, completely charge their battery by being on and out. Right. And with, uh, at all times. And, uh, who can Right process can think and, and you know, respond at the same time. Um, but that is effective for us also a small slice of the problems, right.
That we need to solve as human beings inside of organisations, communities, cultures, countries. Right. On this planet as a whole, it’s really requires complex, uh, abstract and systems thinking that requires more time because we need as much information as possible to actually be able to think about not just the near term effects and making a decision for today, but tomorrow and the next two years and the next 10 years and beyond.
And we have deep processors among us who are able to do that. And organisations are demanding that from their people right. To be systems thinkers and to be creative, be innovative, and yet not giving them any time to actually access their cognitive capacity to meet that expectation.
[00:46:17] Dwight: Well, they give lip service.
Right? Yeah. I was reading some stuff about, I forget where I read it, because I went through a little bit of a deep dive on you yesterday and you know, they give, these organisations demand all this stuff. They give lip service that they’re gonna be supportive and that they’re going to help you grow in the right way.
And they have these retreats and they have these conferences and they have all this stuff. But it’s fine to have lip service and say, this is what we expect, but yet there’s no action. There’s no, there’s nothing that they’re applying to get into the trenches to help. The organisation or the people that are specifically needing that level of support, they’ll hire out.
I’ve seen it too many times. They’ll hire outside companies and they don’t really, um, what’s the word I’m looking for? They don’t really vet them very well, and they’re not necessarily, they hire ’em because of their flashy website or their, or their referral. They’re not really, they do more damage. I’ve seen that happen too, when they don’t realise that sometimes we just need to all have a come to that aha moment together.
Like you talked about, just having discussions. What can I do for you? What do you need? Vulnerability has been used as a shield and a weapon all at the same time with an organisations and, and how, um, people are coddled or over coddled or, or overly forced upon them. Like, you can do this. And, and I, it’s just become a really big problem.
You talk about how bad it is in the us but we’re, we may be 10 times smaller, but we have those challenges too, right? It’s, it’s just we’re more brothers and sisters than people realise. So I, it really, I can understand what you’re saying and, and I think about all the people that I know right now that are struggling and maybe if that person that, that, that you’re listening to this, you realise that your organization’s going through this, maybe you need to do some research to see if you can actually make a difference within your corporation so that you can change it for others.
Or are you strong enough to do that? Maybe you need to exit stage, right? And, and go to a different company. Something smaller. Maybe you need to look at doing, you know, like Sarah’s doing and, and you know, maybe look at doing your own thing. I’m not saying everybody’s wired to be an entrepreneur, but you don’t need to stay stuck.
You really don’t. And, and if Sarah’s hasn’t gotten that through to you, reach out to her and have more conversations because we all have the seeds of greatness in us, but our society through learned behaviour and the way people communicate with us and have been taught to be leaders, make us go home and live in that hamster wheel of life.
Go to work, go home, get paid, never feeling like we’re truly appreciated or wanted that even though we just did something really great for our boss or for this team. There’s no celebration, there’s no pat on the back. There’s no 48 hours of journey of just relaxing before you start on the next thing.
It’s just, okay, you’re done. That go to the next thing. Go to the next thing. We’re a society that needs to realise that we all want to be appreciated, right? So if you’re a leader listening to this and you feel like any of what, what, what’s been discussed could be better in your company, reach out, right?
If you’re somebody that’s an employee that wishes there was difference in your company. Reach out. Right. Maybe you can be taught, maybe you’ll learn something to either stay and improve and figure out that you have more strength than you realise through obviously coaching and helping you understand it.
I’m not saying this is gonna be an overnight process either. This could be weeks, months, years. But I’m telling you as one person that’s been in the valley of despair, that the journey to understanding fulfilment is possible. It takes effort and then, and you just need to, every time you hit a little success, right?
Pat yourself in the back, be a part of a tribe of people, little patch on the back, and you can get through anything. Right? Just take some effort and some great mentors like Sarah, right?
[00:50:29] Sira: Yep, absolutely.
[00:50:31] Dwight: So I’ll get off my soapbox and we’ll go on to the, we’re running outta time here. Um, gonna skip over a few things.
If you were, if, if I’m gonna give you an opportunity, because then we’re gonna get into our closing segment. I just have too many things I wanted to discuss with you today. What would you like to share over the next few minutes that you feel would be a great close to the podcast of Informa, like sharing information, whether it’s on, um, leadership in AI or any of that you pick?
[00:51:04] Sira: Sure. Yeah. So I think that the similar to, well one, I, and I, I’ll nerd out on this ’cause we don’t have enough time. We can talk about this maybe in another session, but the fractal patterns right of, of living systems is something that I nerd out on and that what happens at the individual level happens at the team and the collective level.
Uh, right? These patterns are endlessly repeated yet with endless, unpredictable variety. And I see like my own path to inev, what I really was inevitable burnout and then this kind of reawakening and reemerging and realignment with who I truly am. There were moments of course that led up to that, and on a collective level, the COVID to 19 pandemic, right?
Like put us into a state of chronic stress. And also as organisations now, right? Following, uh, still this recovery period that we’re in really from that and what it did to our, our social systems and, and our ability to collaborate, coordinate, um, and, and exist in the world is that as organisations rush to implement ai, uh, you know, the failures that we have not resolved in terms of our broken systems, like those are accelerating, right?
Like, AI is not simply a technological shift, it’s a paradigm shift in how humans think, decide, and create value. And organisations are, we’re seeing this in, in reports now. White papers that are coming out about, you know, the last few years of. Attempts to adopt ai, but it’s, it’s really just been experimentation because we failed to account for the human transformation that’s required, right?
And so we’re experiencing stalled adoption, cultural fracture, and unrealized return on investment. And the needs me then is, is really simple, but of course it’s complex, right? Is that we’re still operating from an industrial era metaphor that organisations and systems are mechanical when they’re actually like living systems, right?
They are biological and technological shifts like AI increase the demand of these sensing systems, right? Organisations are just collections of human beings, which are just a collection of, of nervous systems right together that are sensing right from internal and external, um, input, right? Like whether it’s safe to proceed.
We are not changing the underlying biology of these systems. So leadership to me then my definition is the ability to regulate these sensing systems toward healthy adaptation and change. Industrial management failed because it treated organisations as mechanised structures when they’re actually biological and relational systems and leaders who right, adopt this, this new metaphor as, as systems, as, uh, organisational systems, as living systems, I think are gonna dominate in the best way, right?
Like they’re, they’re going to be the leading bleeding edge of leadership and will help transform organizations into the creative, adaptable, resilient spaces that they can be. I’ve loved it.
[00:54:33] Dwight: We’re gonna wrap up the show right now and, you know, talking with Sira, we’re gonna do a part two. There’s just far too much great information that, um, hasn’t been covered that we can share.
And I don’t want those listening or watching to feel like you know what’s next and be stuck, right? Obviously, the next step would be to reach out to her, but there are so many things that might stop you from making that decision to reach out that we haven’t discussed. So we’re gonna have a part two to this episode, and I look forward to talking to you again.
Thanks so much for coming on and, you know, people that are listening or watching, remember, it’s never too late to give a heck.