Most leaders will do anything to avoid a breakdown. Who wants to hit a breaking point after spending years building and optimizing only to have it all fall apart?
A breakdown is any moment when people, systems, strategies or structures we’ve relied on stop working, often suddenly, without a clear roadmap forward.
Yes, breakdowns are uncomfortable. It’s dark, confusing, and messy. It’s easy to get deflated.
With all the negative energy in a breakdown, leaders can get overwhelmed and stuck in what’s wrong.
We may not choose the breakdown, but how we show up and lead ourselves through them is where we have choice.
Breakdowns shake the systems we’ve build and demand we lead differently. They shatter old rules, the false calm, and the illusion of control. In the wreckage, leaders face a choice: patch it all back together the way it was or use the breakdown as a portal to something bolder, more honest and entirely new.
The real risk isn’t the breakdown—it’s wasting it. By approaching the breakdown with courage and a shift in perspective, what looks like failure might become your fiercest turning point.
Ultimately, breakdowns have the potential to lead to the greatest breakthroughs we’ve experienced.
Across industries, this current time is bringing significant change economically, politically and socially. Leaders and executives are facing challenges they never saw coming.
As we face new crises and situations we couldn’t have predicted, it can lead to substantial breakdowns in ourselves and organizations.
Leading through a breakdown takes significant emotional labor, which means showing emotions that don’t reflect how people feel. Though leaders may be falling apart inside, many show up with strength and confidence on the outside because they know it’s important to lead their team and organization through the challenges.
However, if leaders stay stuck in the negativity of a breakdown for too long, it is incredibly energy depleting and can lead to burnout.
But, it is possible to shift even if it feels messy.
How to Harness a Breakdown for a Breakthrough:
Now more than ever, leaders need strategies to transform the negative energy of a breakdown to positively fuel a breakthrough.
Leaders can consciously cultivate their internal energy resources using the four factors of vital leadership to create an opening for a breakthrough.
1.Psychological: Cognitive Reframe
Cognitive reframing means to mentally take an idea and change the lens we look at it through.
Instead of seeing the breakdown as a failure, what if you saw it as an opening? That’s the reframe.
It’s how we move from: why is this happening to me? To the reframe of: what’s the power in this moment?
Cognitive reframing doesn’t solve the problem; it shifts our mindset so we can solve the problem from a more empowered place. Give yourself permission to ponder what’s bold, what’s possible and what could be different.
Breakthrough reflection: Ask yourself powerful questions. What’s possible now that wasn’t before? What’s the most courageous action I could take to change this situation?
2. Physical: Take a walk
When we are in the thick of breakdowns, we tend to fixate on the problem. Our minds spiral and loop the same unhelpful thoughts. In truth, when your mind feels stuck, it’s hard to shift your perspective.
That’s where movement becomes essential. One of the simplest, most effective tools I recommend to leaders is to take a walk without technology. Disconnecting from technology will free your mind from the distraction it creates.
A body in motion doesn’t allow the mind to stay stuck. Walking literally changes your perspective. It gives you distance from the pressure to see new possibilities.
Look at your calendar and schedule times for walking meetings. Add 10-minute breaks to walk. Walking meetings work best one-on-one; experiment by using a walking meeting to discuss a challenging situation.
Breakthrough reflection: When could I schedule daily 10-minute solo walks? What in person or phone meetings could become walking meetings? Prepare and block the walks on your calendar.
3. Emotional: Process difficult emotions
In moments of breakdown, difficult emotions often feel like too much. Leaders may try to compartmentalize, suppress, or numb what they’re feeling just to make it through the day. Those can be necessary short-term tactics. But, they keep our emotions stuck and in negativity. Ultimately, emotions are meant to be felt so they can move through us.
Leaders can create moments where they have the space to process their feelings instead of avoiding them.
Give yourself permission to feel what you need to feel, whatever that is.
Breakthrough Reflection: Name what you are feeling without judgment. Become aware of what’s physically happening in your body. Sit with it and allow it to be there: What’s here? What am I feeling?
4. Spiritual: Create space to listen to and follow your instincts
It’s natural to question why you do what you do and lose your sense of purpose when facing a breakdown.
When there is a crisis, leaders can default to over-functioning without realizing it. It could feel unproductive to make time for stillness when pressure intensifies. Yet, creating the space for quiet is how we connect to ourselves deeper so our own answers can emerge.
I’ve noticed times when leaders have had the answer within them for a long time but have created barriers towards acting upon it. During a breakdown, there is more permission to stop focusing on the barriers you’ve built. Instead, there is less to lose so you can follow your instincts.
Breakthrough reflection: Create space for stillness. Take some deep breaths. Ask yourself: what do I know is true? Listen to the answer that emerges.
When everything is going well, there is a tendency to want to stay the course and continue the forward momentum and not make major directional changes.
However, that perspective no longer applies if everything is falling apart. The power in the breakdown is the opening to envision what’s possible and could be different.
If we harness the energy of a breakdown, it breaks paradigms. It breaks down the boxes we’ve put ourselves in, leaving pieces everywhere. Instead of putting the pieces back together the same way, breaking points can be a catalyst for leaders to courageously reinvent and build something new.
