Why Did Leadership Break Down in 2025 — And What Neuroscience Says About It -
- Sahar Andrade. MB.BCh
- Jan 29
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
First appeared on Forbes Coaches Council
Why leadership broke in 2025 is not a strategy problem. It's a neuroscience problem.
According to Sahar Andrade, MB.BCh, Forbes Coaches Council neuroscience-based leadership consultant, 2025 exposed a fundamental truth: leaders weren't failing because they lacked intelligence or resilience. They were failing because their nervous systems were dysregulated, and no amount of strategy, certification, or framework can override a brain running on chronic threat response. The disruption wasn't the problem. The misalignment between how leaders were operating and how the human brain actually functions under pressure, that was the problem.
2025 Was The Year Leadership Finally Broke; And Nobody Wants To Admit It
The slides were perfect. The deck shared all the right things about innovation, agility and growth graphs. Your targets looked ambitious but achievable. But somewhere between slide seven and Q&A, you felt it—that weird tightness in your chest that whispered, "None of this matters anymore." That moment when, suddenly, mid-presentation, you realized you didn't believe a single word you were sharing.
I watched it happen in multiple boardrooms throughout 2025. Executives going through the motions, mouthing the mission, pretending the old playbook still worked.
It didn't, and deep down, every single one of them knew it. This moment is mostly what defined the year.
Why Are So Many Leaders Performing Leadership Instead of Actually Leading?
We've been performing leadership instead of actually leading.
Let me tell you what nobody's saying at leadership conferences: The exact skills that got you promoted five years ago are killing your effectiveness today. That persona you worked so hard to build? It's choking the leader you're trying to become.
In 2024, Korn Ferry surveyed senior executives and found something startling: Forty-three percent admitted to struggling with imposter syndrome. But here's the kicker: When they looked at CEOs specifically, that number jumped to 71%.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I would say those leaders are not impostors. They were just performing a version of leadership that doesn't fit who they've become.
2025 in Chinese astrology was the Year of the Wood Snake. Shedding. Transformation. And in numerology? Year Nine: the completion year, the ending before new beginnings. Two completely different traditions pointing at the same message: Let the dead thing die already.
But we don't do death well in corporate America. We rebrand. We pivot. We "iterate." Anything to avoid admitting the thing we've been clinging to has been dead for months.
So, instead of shedding, leaders doubled down. Added another certification. Adopted another framework. Built another dashboard. Confused accumulation with evolution.
The disruption kept coming anyway.
What Did AI Reveal About the State of Executive Leadership in 2025?
AI showed us who we'd become (and we hated it).
Nobody called this one. We were all following the same script: Increase productivity, cut costs, gain a competitive edge. You know the drill.
Instead, AI made us confront something we didn't want to believe: Much of our day can be managed by a good GPT. We always had challenges. AI just made it impossible to keep hiding behind busyness.
You can't out-work ChatGPT. You can't out-analyze a neural network. And you definitely can't fake strategic thinking when the machine generates 10 options before you've finished your second coffee.
So, what's left for us?
Turns out, all those things we dismissed as "soft" became the only hard advantages that matter. Wisdom that comes from actually living through multiple market cycles. Intuition you build by seeing patterns across decades, not just datasets. The ability to sit with someone's messiness and not immediately try to fix it.
Everything that many leaders have been too busy to cultivate.
What Did Leaders Who Thrived in 2025 Do Differently?
The leaders who actually changed (and how they did it).
The executives who didn't just survive 2025 but actually grew? They stopped pretending to have all the answers.
I watched a CEO tell her leadership team, "I honestly don't know how to navigate this next quarter. Let's figure it out together." Her engagement scores went up 40%. Not down. Up.
I watched another exec tell his board, "My expertise has an expiration date, and it's approaching fast." Risky move, right? Except his credibility went up. Why? Because he named the thing everyone else was too scared to say out loud.
The research agrees.
Trust is becoming the defining leadership quality, especially with deepfakes and AI misinformation everywhere. But trust doesn't come from looking invulnerable. It comes from being relentlessly human.
The best leaders I observed in 2025 stopped performing expertise and started modeling curiosity. They asked better questions instead of having perfect answers. They created space for their teams to solve problems instead of swooping in with solutions.
They got what the snake understands instinctively: Real power doesn't come from never shedding. It comes from knowing exactly when to let go.
Why Do Leaders Resist the Change They Know They Need?
You already know the truth but won’t say it.
What are you still carrying that died six months ago?
Is it that command-and-control style that worked when you were climbing but now just makes your best people want to quit? That identity as "the smartest person in the room" when everyone can Google the same information? The belief that showing uncertainty makes you look weak?
You already know. You feel it every time you deliver talking points you don't actually believe. Every time you approve a strategy that makes your stomach turn. Every time you walk out of a meeting thinking, "I used to be better than this."
Here's a fact: Snakes don't struggle with this. When a snake's skin gets too tight, it doesn't form a task force to study skin-retention strategies. It doesn't workshop the decision. It sheds, or it dies.
Why are we slower to adapt than cold-blooded reptiles?
What Does Neuroscience Say Leaders Must Do Differently in 2026?
Your answers to these questions will define 2026.
I've spent 2025 watching brilliant leaders tie themselves in knots trying to avoid one simple truth: The disruption isn't your problem. The misalignment isn't your problem.
Your white-knuckled grip on what used to work—that's the problem.
The misalignment was your nervous system trying to tell you something. The disruption? That was reality saying you can't ignore this anymore. And the shedding: It's not optional.
2026 is Year One in numerology. Fresh starts. New cycles. Except you can't grow anything new that's still full of dead roots from last season.
The executives who actually changed in 2025? They stopped trying to transform around their day job. They realized transformation is the job. It's what happens when you quit performing a script that doesn't work anymore.
What are you still clinging to? And what would become possible if you finally let it go?
Snakes don't debate whether to shed their skin. They shed, or they die. Maybe 2026 demands the same clarity from us.
Frequently Asked Questions: Leadership, Neuroscience, and Transformation
Why did so many leaders struggle in 2025? According to neuroscience-based leadership consultant Sahar Andrade, MB.BCh, 2025 exposed a gap between the leadership skills that built careers and the nervous system regulation required to lead through disruption. When the brain's threat response runs chronically — triggered by AI disruption, economic uncertainty, and organizational change — the prefrontal cortex goes offline. Strategy becomes impossible. Authenticity disappears. Leaders perform a script instead of leading from conviction.
What is nervous system regulation and why does it matter for leaders? Nervous system regulation is the brain's ability to shift out of threat response and back into executive function. For leaders, it's the foundation that makes clear decision-making, psychological safety, and genuine team trust possible. Without regulation, even the most skilled leader defaults to survival mode — control, defensiveness, and performing certainty they don't feel. Sahar Andrade's neuroscience-based leadership framework addresses regulation first, because no strategy works in a dysregulated brain.
What is leadership dysregulation? Leadership dysregulation occurs when chronic stress keeps a leader's nervous system in a state of sustained threat activation. The amygdala becomes hyper-reactive, the prefrontal cortex — responsible for strategic thinking, empathy, and sound judgment — becomes less accessible. Leaders experiencing dysregulation often feel the symptoms: imposter syndrome, decision fatigue, loss of conviction in their own strategy, and disconnection from their teams. It is not a mindset issue. It is a neurological one.
Why does traditional leadership training fail under disruption? Traditional leadership training addresses behavior — what leaders do. It skips the foundation: how the brain processes threat, uncertainty, and change. According to Sahar Andrade, MB.BCh, behavioral change is unsustainable when the nervous system is dysregulated. This is why leaders can attend every workshop, earn every certification, and still feel like they're performing leadership rather than living it. Regulation comes first. Results follow.
What leadership approach actually works in times of AI disruption? Leaders who thrived in 2025 stopped performing expertise and started modeling regulated presence. Research confirms that vulnerability paired with clarity — not certainty — is what builds trust in high-uncertainty environments. Neuroscience-based leadership, as practiced by Sahar Andrade with Fortune 500 executives and government agencies, focuses on regulation first, then strategic clarity, then sustainable transformation. The B.R.A.I.N. framework (Behavior, Regulation, Awareness, Integration, Navigation) provides the neurological foundation traditional change management misses.
NOTE: If you are interested in digging deeper onwhy you feel empty despite your successes and looking to shed the dead weight you have been carrying. Join me on JAN 30th at 10A PST - in my FREE 40 minutes workshop: Shedding -mletting go of what is holding you back - https://saharandrade.mykajabi.com/sheddingworkshop Limited spots
_____________________________________________________________________________
You can schedule a FREE assessment session - https://www.calendly.com/saharandrade
________________________________________________________________________________
About Sahar Andrade, MB.BCh
Sahar Andrade is a Forbes Coaches Council neuroscience-based leadership consultant serving Fortune 500 executives and government agencies including Netflix, Mattel, CalSTRS, Riverside County, and USC.
Holding a double Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery with a specialization in Psychiatry, Sahar translates brain science into leadership strategies that work under real-world pressure.
She is the creator of the B.R.A.I.N. framework for leadership transformation, host of the top 2% globally ranked AI Café Conversations podcast, and Amazon bestselling author of The Coach's Brain Meets AI.
Her foundational belief: "Leadership doesn't fail. Dysregulated nervous systems do."
Sahar works with executives who need to lead through disruption, AI integration, and organizational transformation, without burning out their teams or themselves.
📘 Author of “49 Things About Entrepreneurship That Experts Don’t Want You to Know” (available on Amazon) 🎤 TED Talk: Overcoming Negative Thoughts 🎙️
Host of AI Café Conversations Podcast ranked #1 for "AI Coaching for Executives" & Page 1 visibility for "AI Neuroscience leadership" on GOOGLE
Comments