When leaders failed us during COVID, it wasn’t because they lacked information – it was because they couldn’t access their full intelligence.
For six critical weeks in early 2020, leaders across North America remained largely paralyzed as uncertainty mounted, fear spread, and consequences escalated. What few recognize is that this wasn’t just a failure of information gathering – it was a failure of intelligence processing.
The Leadership Paradox We Face
We’ve been conditioned to believe that leadership decisions should flow exclusively from our cognitive brain – from data analysis, logical reasoning, and intellectual processing. But this creates a critical vulnerability:
When uncertainty is highest, our cognitive processing is most compromised.
Fear activates survival mode, shutting down our prefrontal cortex – the very part of our brain responsible for visionary thinking, innovative problem-solving, and possibility-based leadership. This creates a paralyzing catch-22: we need clarity most when our traditional thinking tools are least available.
The cost of this paradox during COVID was catastrophic: a six-week leadership vacuum that allowed fear to spiral, trust to erode, and preventable suffering to multiply.
The Intelligence Centers We’ve Ignored
Science now confirms what visionary leaders (and ancient societies) have always known intuitively: we possess not one but three sophisticated intelligence centers:
- Brain Brain: Our cognitive processor – excellent at analyzing information but vulnerable to fear-based shutdown
- Heart Brain: Contains 40,000 neurons and generates an electromagnetic field extending several feet beyond our bodies – interprets emotional data and environmental resonance before cognitive awareness
- Gut Brain: Contains 500 million neurons – processes instinctual knowledge and intuitive signals
These centers communicate constantly via the vagus nerve, with 90% of signals traveling upward from body to brain – not the other way around.
What This Means for Your Leadership
When you learn to access all three intelligence centers, you gain clarity precisely when others remain paralyzed by uncertainty. Your decisions flow from integrated wisdom rather than fragmented analysis.
Perhaps most importantly, others can feel the difference. When you speak and act from this aligned place, people sense your coherence before you open your mouth. They naturally trust your guidance because your nervous system is regulated when theirs is not.
This isn’t mystical, it’s neurological. It isn’t soft, it’s sophisticated. And it might be the most powerful leadership skill you’ve never been taught.
Begin With This Simple Practice
Next time you face uncertainty or resistance, try this:
- Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly
- Take three deep breaths, focusing on the sensation of both areas
- Ask your question, but instead of trying to “figure it out,” simply notice the sensations that arise
- Reframe any discomfort as “wisdom emerging” and don’t try to attach a logical narrative to it, from your cognitive brain
With practice, this pathway to embodied wisdom becomes more accessible and reliable – especially in high-stakes moments when cognitive processing alone fails you.
What This Could Mean for Our World
Imagine a world where leaders hadn’t waited six critical weeks before responding to the pandemic. Where despite unprecedented uncertainty, they had the ability and skills to access innate answers within to instantly begin building trust and keeping people safe.
What might our collective experience have looked like? How many lives might have been saved? How much economic damage might have been prevented? And perhaps most importantly, what would our world look like today if that leadership capacity had been present when we needed it most?
The crisis revealed a gap in leadership capability that we can no longer afford to ignore. When uncertainty strikes again – and it will – we need leaders who don’t freeze in fear waiting for more information. We need leaders who can tap into the wisdom that’s already present within them.
This is precisely what we teach in the Crisis Ready® Certification – not just the theory of body wisdom, but the practical skills to access it under pressure when the stakes are highest. Because the world doesn’t just need different information. It needs a different kind of leadership intelligence.
Your body already knows the way. The question is: are you ready to listen?
This is the work we do inside the Crisis Ready® Certification.
It’s where purpose-driven leaders develop the presence, self-awareness, and energetic fluency to lead through uncertainty. Not by reacting faster, but by embodying something deeper.
If you’re ready to lead from vision rather than fear—this is your pathway.
👉 Explore the Certification here: https://crisisreadycertification.com
You can also listen to this episode of “Leading Through Change” on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, where I go deeper into this concept and guide you through a meditative practice to begin learning—and, more importantly, embodying—this skill.
Founder and CEO of the Crisis Ready Institute, Melissa Agnes is the author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, and a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted keynote speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. Learn more about Melissa and her work here.
