Latest / The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast / 254. Leadership Under Pressure: How I Work With Elite Leaders

Transcript

254. Leadership Under Pressure: How I Work With Elite Leaders · The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to my channel.
• 0:01
  My name is Kathie Owen.
• 0:02
  This is where we talk about leadership under pressure.
• 0:06
  You know, the kind you don't see on LinkedIn.
• 0:09
  Elite athletes train for pressure.
• 0:12
  Most leaders don't.
• 0:14
  What I do doesn't fit neatly into a box.
• 0:19
  So people often ask me.
• 0:21
  Are you a coach?
• 0:22
  Are you a personal trainer?
• 0:24
  Are you a consultant?
• 0:25
  Are you corporate wellness?
• 0:27
  Are you leadership development?
• 0:29
  The honest answer is, well, I started there, but this work has evolved into something very different.
• 0:38
  And today I want to explain what I actually do.
• 0:43
  How I work.
• 0:45
  Why I work the way I do.
• 0:47
  And where this ability came from.
• 0:50
  This video is for leaders, founders, executives, and people who carry responsibility most people never see.
• 1:00
  For most of my life, I didn't know this was a skill.
• 1:03
  I thought everyone noticed what I noticed.
• 1:07
  I see patterns very quickly.
• 1:10
  I see what happens beneath words, beneath behavior, beneath systems and beneath culture.
• 1:20
  I can walk into a workplace, a home, a boardroom, or a conversation, and immediately feel where energy is leaking, where tension lives, where performance quietly breaks down.
• 1:35
  For years, I called this intuition or empathy.
• 1:40
  But through healing, reflection, and deep inner work, I now understand it differently.
• 1:47
  This is discernment.
• 1:51
  And it was forged through lived experience.
• 1:55
  It came from navigating environments where reading the room mattered even as a child.
• 2:01
  Where emotional regulation mattered, where power dynamics were very real, where silence spoke louder than words.
• 2:13
  What once helped me survive is now what allows me to serve at the highest level.
• 2:20
  I study professional athletes, not just how they train their bodies, but how they train their minds.
• 2:28
  Elite athletes live under pressure, high expectations, public wins, public failures, disappointment, criticism, loss.
• 2:40
  Leadership is no different.
• 2:43
  What separates elite performers isn't talent alone.
• 2:47
  It's emotional regulation.
• 2:50
  Professional athletes are trained to stay present under pressure, recover quickly from mistakes, detach from outcomes, take radical responsibility, perform again and again, and again.
• 3:06
  That is leadership.
• 3:09
  Executives don't burn out because they aren't capable.
• 3:12
  They burn out because no one taught them how to regulate their nervous system while carrying responsibility.
• 3:20
  That's where my work lives.
• 3:23
  Everything I do is built on three pillars.
• 3:27
  Number one, non-attachment.
• 3:30
  You can care deeply without being emotionally hijacked.
• 3:34
  Attachment clouds judgment, non-attachment creates clarity.
• 3:42
  Number two, radical responsibility, not blame, not shame, no excuses, just ownership.
• 3:54
  And number three, courage.
• 3:58
  The courage to see reality clearly.
• 4:00
  The courage to interrupt patterns, the courage to lead differently.
• 4:07
  These aren't motivational ideas.
• 4:10
  They are performance principles.
• 4:13
  This part is important because my work doesn't look like traditional consulting.
• 4:18
  When I work with a leader, I observe.
• 4:21
  I might sit with you at a board meeting.
• 4:24
  Or at a restaurant or at a sporting event or in your home or during a speaking engagement.
• 4:31
  Sometimes I'll fly in and quietly attend something you're already doing.
• 4:35
  And here's the key part.
• 4:37
  I don't analyze in the moment.
• 4:40
  I don't critique, I don't correct.
• 4:43
  I observe.
• 4:45
  Then I go home, I process, I meditate.
• 4:48
  I contemplate.
• 4:50
  Because this work requires discernment, not judgment.
• 4:56
  When I'm sitting in a room, my ego doesn't get a vote.
• 5:01
  If I judge from ego, I lose clarity.
• 5:04
  If I retract, I distort truth.
• 5:08
  The real work happens in the stillness afterwards.
• 5:12
  That's where patterns organize themselves.
• 5:15
  That's where truth surfaces.
• 5:18
  That's where precision is born.
• 5:21
  And from that place, I design a plan, a clear plan, a grounded plan, A plan that saves leaders time, energy, and often millions of dollars.
• 5:33
  Multimillions.
• 5:36
  Because small unaddressed patterns become expensive over time.
• 5:41
  I don't just look at work.
• 5:42
  I look at the whole system.
• 5:44
  Your leadership style, your communication patterns, your emotional regulation, your home life, your routines, your recovery, your wellness.
• 5:54
  Leadership doesn't turn off at 5:00 PM.
• 5:58
  Performance doesn't live in silos.
• 6:01
  I don't create content to call people out.
• 6:04
  I create content to call patterns forward.
• 6:08
  Workplace case studies allow me to teach without exposing, educate without shaming, give language to things people feel but can't name.
• 6:18
  These stories are never about one person.
• 6:21
  They're about patterns that repeat everywhere.
• 6:24
  And once you see the pattern.
• 6:27
  You can change it.
• 6:29
  This might be the most important part.
• 6:31
  My power is not force.
• 6:34
  It is not volume, and it also isn't charisma.
• 6:39
  It's presence.
• 6:41
  Presence with a capital P.
• 6:44
  I see this clearly in places like Toastmasters.
• 6:47
  Toastmasters is a playground for me.
• 6:49
  I go there to sit in presence.
• 6:52
  To observe, to regulate, to notice, and I've watched the clubs I'm part of grow dramatically.
• 7:00
  Not because I'm trying to lead them, but because regulated presence organizes systems naturally.
• 7:08
  The same thing happens when I study leadership through shows like Quarterback and Receiver on Netflix or Ted Lasso.
• 7:18
  I'm not watching for entertainment.
• 7:20
  I'm watching regulation, attachment, pressure responses, leadership under stress.
• 7:27
  All of it informs my work.
• 7:31
  Because of the depth of this work, my client list is confidential.
• 7:35
  Our conversations are confidential, their lives are confidential.
• 7:39
  I work with leaders who carry real responsibility, sometimes public.
• 7:44
  Often private.
• 7:46
  That is why my work is invitation only.
• 7:50
  I work with a very small number of clients each year.
• 7:54
  This is high touch, highly precise, deep work.
• 7:59
  I don't scale this through volume, I scale it through impact.
• 8:04
  I started in corporate wellness, movement, health, burnout prevention.
• 8:08
  But as I healed, so did the work.
• 8:11
  I realized most leaders don't need another program.
• 8:14
  They need someone who can see the whole board, someone who understands pressure, someone who expects excellence.
• 8:23
  Not perfection, excellence.
• 8:26
  And knows how to train it.
• 8:29
  If you're interested in my workplace case studies, you are in the right place.
• 8:33
  That's what I share publicly.
• 8:35
  If you're curious about working with me, my work is invitation only.
• 8:39
  But you can always reach out through my website.
• 8:42
  And if nothing else, let this land.
• 8:45
  You don't need to work harder to lead better.
• 8:48
  You need to regulate better.
• 8:50
  That's where performance lives.
• 8:54
  All right, thanks for being here today.
• 8:56
  I trust that you found it helpful, and if you know someone who can benefit from this, please share it with them.
• 9:01
  And until next time, I will see you next time.