How Great Leaders Emerge from Burnout and Inner Tension

What if burnout isn’t a sign you’re broken, but a signal that your old way of leading has reached its limit?

In today’s volatile and unpredictable business environment, traditional leadership development, focused on acquiring new tools and techniques ("horizontal development"), isn’t enough. 

What’s needed now is a deeper, inner evolution: vertical development. This isn’t about doing more, but about becoming more. It means upgrading your internal operating system to meet the growing complexity of your external world.

And for many leaders, that journey begins in a space few talk about: the liminal space.

The Liminal Experience

Liminality is the in-between. The threshold. The space between who you were and who you're becoming. It is disorienting, uncomfortable, and often invisible to those around you. But it is also where profound growth is initiated.

One of my clients, a high-performing, driven manager, experienced this firsthand. Externally, he was thriving: respected, goal-oriented, consistent. But inside, something began to shift. A quiet voice emerged, one tied to legacy, meaning, and a deeper purpose. He felt torn between the safety of his corporate success and a call to continue the vineyard legacy of his grandfather.

He told me, "It feels like I’m standing, but there’s no ground beneath my feet." That’s when we understood, he was grappling with a polarity. A profound inner tension between safety and purpose.

From Burnout to Breakthrough

As this polarity intensified, so did his internal discomfort. Anxious, exhausted, uncertain, not in the boardroom, but late at night, when the world was quiet. Classic signs of burnout. But here’s the reframe: burnout wasn’t a failure. It was a signal. A signal that his current way of making sense of the world had reached its edge.

When leaders suppress these internal tensions, the result isn’t more productivity. It’s inner fragmentation. The energy it takes to maintain a version of yourself that no longer fits eventually burns from the inside out.

But when we made space in coaching, space to meet the messiness with curiosity instead of judgment, his system began to shift. The discomfort didn’t vanish. But it started to make sense. And from that clarity, a new direction emerged.

Here’s the twist, he didn’t leave his job. Instead, he stepped into a more strategic role with the clear intent to bring more harmony between purpose and safety, not just for himself but for his team and the organization. Because often, leaving isn’t the answer. Sometimes, the real move is to bring more of your true self into the space you’re already in.

Polarity Integration: The Leadership Superpower

What he was facing wasn’t a simple choice. It was a polarity: safety vs. purpose. Stability vs. transformation. These aren’t problems to solve. They’re tensions to navigate.

Vertical development enables leaders to see and hold polarities with increasing nuance. Early-stage leaders often fall into either/or thinking. But as we evolve, we gain the capacity for both/and: to plan and respond, to lead and listen, to act and reflect.

This shift is essential to leading in complexity. It transforms burnout into breakthrough. Identity crisis into expansion. Strategy into wisdom.

Leading From the Middle

This is what real leadership development looks like today. It’s not about better KPIs or productivity hacks. It’s about expanding who you are so you can meet the moment with more truth, more presence, and more power.

And if you’re reading this from a place of inner conflict or quiet exhaustion, I want you to know:

You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re in transition.

Stay there. Listen. Reach out. This is where transformation begins.

And what emerges is not just a better leader. It’s a deeper human being.

Want to explore this space for yourself or your team? Reach out. The future needs more leaders who can hold the tension of opposites—and lead from the center.

Marjana Laibacher Rogelj, Your companion in developmental yourney

Vertical development Coach, Systemic Team Coach Practitioner