By Kathleen Gramzay
•
July 10, 2025
Humanity is at a paradoxical crossroads. We are wired for greatness, but chronic stress has short-circuited our potential. Why is this an issue? Under chronic stress or burnout, greatness isn’t an accessible menu option. What then determines whether we can access our greatness and embrace our collective capacities to solve the significant shared human challenges, or devolve into threat-based, fearful people who believe the only way to survive is to dominate others, take as much as we can get right now, and let everyone not like “us” fend for themselves? - The conditioned state of our nervous system, our awareness of it, and our conscious will to reclaim sovereignty over it. Chronic stress conditions us to respond as threatened prey or predator. Stress resilience conditions us for problem-solving, long-range decisions, and positive action under pressure. Perhaps you’re familiar with this scenario: The leader shows up smiling and in a good mood; everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief and relaxes with a sense it’s going to be a good day. The next day, the leader shows up barking orders and demanding everything NOW. Instantly, each person’s nervous system goes into its individual aspect of survival mode. Communication goes from collegial to cutthroat or no communication at all. Strategic thinking, positive engagement, and creativity are neurologically offline. The collective goal is sacrificed to reactionary individual protection and safety. Like a network of computers, human nervous systems respond relative to those with whom they interact. The fact is, business leaders aren't just managing employees, they're managing human nervous systems. And more critically, they are either regulating or dysregulating them. Our wiring has been burning for a while, fueled by the pandemic, distrust, invasions, and political upheavals that continue to disrupt personal-to-global relationships, supply chains, markets, and the world economy. Consider data from leading industry sources: Senior-leader and manager burnout levels: 50 -70% (SHRM, Gallup, McKinsey) Employee burnout levels: 88% (Forbes/MyPerfectResume) U.S. employee active engagement: 32% (Gallup) The ripple effects of employee disengagement/burnout are exponential: Economic : (American Journal of Preventive Medicine April ‘25) Annual Cost Per Employee $3,999–$20,683 (hourly to executive) Equal to 0.2–2.9 times average health insurance and 3.3–17.1 times employee training costs Human : The mental, emotional, behavioral, and physical health of each person The contagious dysregulating impact on others around them In the leader survival mode example above, the workday is unproductive and the ripple effect continues. Impacted employees unconsciously vent their emotions perhaps by cutting off someone in traffic, being rude to a convenience store clerk, or berating a family member for not doing a task at home, causing more separation and survival mode behavior. We know it’s necessary to care for business operating systems. We spend big budgets maintaining and protecting them. We understand they must be defragged, updated, and rebooted if we expect them to run efficiently and continue working well. Our human operating systems - our consciousness, mental, and physical states of being - are infinitely more powerful, resilient, and expansive. Yet they are less understood, less valued, and less prioritized. Our intellect has brought us far in terms of technology. Yet it’s our human operating system - the state of the body/mind, our mental and physical felt sense of safety, that determines whether we direct that technology to benefit everyone or use it to fuel division, hatred, greed, and chaos. It begs the question: Why are we willing to invest heavily in artificial intelligence yet allocate little budget to stop the deterioration of human intelligence and health at a time when every human’s highest capacity is critically needed to optimize our advancements? To successfully navigate today’s tumultuous world, we must consciously upgrade our human capacity to live and lead through it. How? Prioritize (budget & model) mental and physical restoration to reduce chronic stress and its corrosive effect on humanity and business. Resilience is a leadership necessity, not a luxury. Leverage neurosomatic (body/mind) skills to turn stress into strength activating the innate intelligence that fuels creativity, and connection of our greater Selves. We can defrag our minds, remove the toxic files from our bodies, and reboot our desire to positively engage with each other. Operating through our higher-order thinking minds and hearts we can draw from the collective wisdom of coherence and reason for human success and sustainability. The capacity of these body/minds is regenerative and expansive. By investing in and applying resilience to all aspects of our human intelligence – neurosomatic, emotional, and intellectual, we can regain our sovereignty to individually and collectively move ourselves, our families, communities, businesses, nations, and humanity forward. In future posts, I’ll share practical applications to enhance resilience in yourself and your teams. Follow along as we recharge our collective resilience. If these articles resonate, I invite you to comment, subscribe, or share them. ___________ Kathleen Gramzay is the Founder of Kinessage LLC. She is passionate about helping leaders of mission-driven organizations reduce burnout, and recharge their resilience, to lead and succeed with greater positive ripple impact and reach. If you'd like to provide a deeper level of conscious engagement and effective resilience tools for your leaders or organization at your next monthly meeting, quarterly retreat, or conference, please contact Kathleen directly Here. Kinessage LLC supports performance, culture, and wellness-conscious organizations, empowering leaders, managers, and teams to show up more effectively, confidently, and collaboratively through resilience strategy and training. The Kinessage® interactive body/mind training programs teach individuals skills to reduce burnout, build stress resilience, and self-release chronic tension and pain, increasing mental and physical resilience for greater individual and organizational success and sustainability. You can find out more at www.kathleengramzay.com