April 1, 2026
By Joelle Martinez
How Are You Really Doing?
Leadership stress is one of the most common challenges facing leaders today, yet it is often the one we talk about the least.
The question we ask most is the one we answer least honestly: How are you doing?
Somewhere along the way, that question stopped being real. It became a script, a reflex, and a quick exchange that expects nothing more than, “I’m good,” “Busy,” or “Hanging in there.”
Beneath those responses, however, is a truth many of us are carrying but rarely saying out loud: I’m stressed. All the time. This is not simply a personal feeling. It is a widespread reality. Nearly three in four adults report that stress affects their daily lives, and more than 40 percent say it interferes with their ability to function.
For leaders, those numbers are often even higher. When you are responsible for people, outcomes, and decisions that matter, stress does not remain in the background. It becomes part of the job. In many ways, it becomes the cost of carrying it all.
The Weight Leaders Carry
If I am honest, that cost can be significant.
I am a CEO, a mother of two teenagers, a wife, a daughter, and many other things to many different people. On any given day, I am making decisions about the future of an organization while also figuring out what is for dinner. I am balancing long-term vision with the realities of everyday life.
I know I am not alone.
For many leaders, and especially for women, leadership rarely exists in isolation. It arrives layered with responsibility, cultural expectations, and a constant pressure to show up fully, consistently, and without breaking.
For years, I responded the way many leaders do. I ignored the stress, pushed through the exhaustion, and convinced myself that this was simply what leadership required. Strength, I believed, meant continuing no matter what.
Eventually, that belief caught up with me.
When Stress Becomes Physical
A few years ago, the demands of work and life began to intensify. Nothing felt dramatically wrong, but I knew something was off. Even so, I continued moving forward until I could no longer ignore it.
What I expected to be a routine doctor’s appointment quickly became something much more serious. Within minutes of reviewing my results, my physician informed me that my EKG was abnormal and that I needed to see a cardiologist immediately.
The first question I was asked was surprisingly simple:
Are you stressed?
Not questions about my diet. Not questions about exercise. Stress.
In that moment, I had to confront something I had been avoiding. Stress was not just influencing how I felt emotionally. It was affecting my physical health.
That realization changed the way I thought about leadership and well-being.
The Hidden Impact of Leadership Stress
Stress is not simply emotional. It is physiological.
Chronic stress elevates cortisol levels, increases inflammation, disrupts sleep, impairs decision-making, and raises the risk of serious health conditions, including heart disease.
For leaders, the consequences extend beyond health.
Stress influences how we communicate, how we respond under pressure, and how effectively we make decisions. It affects our ability to stay present with the people who depend on us and shapes the quality of the leadership we provide.
When stress goes unmanaged, we gradually shift from strategic thinking to reactive behavior. Energy declines, patience shortens, and the distance between our intentions and our actions grows.
Over time, stress does not just affect the leader. It affects the organization, the team, and the results we are working to achieve.
Redefining Strength
Many of us still operate from the belief that pushing through is strength and slowing down is weakness.
The reality is quite different.
Ignoring stress does not make us more resilient. It increases risk. Eventually, that accumulated risk shows up somewhere—through our health, our relationships, our performance, or our ability to lead effectively.
You cannot build something sustainable while running on empty.
Leadership is not measured by how much pressure we can absorb. It is measured by our ability to sustain performance, make sound decisions, and remain effective over time.
That requires a different definition of strength.
Building Capacity, Not Just Endurance
April is Stress Awareness Month, but stress management cannot be a once-a-year conversation. This is ultimately about leadership. It is about creating a new standard where awareness is not viewed as weakness, sustainability matters as much as success, and self-care is recognized as a leadership responsibility rather than a luxury.
The truth is simple: Your business will not outgrow your capacity to lead it.
For me, protecting that capacity means creating intentional systems that support performance. I guard my mornings for thinking and high-value work. I move my body every day, spend time outside, and create moments to reset and recharge.
I also acknowledge where I still have room to improve. Sleep and nutrition remain ongoing areas of focus because those gaps inevitably show up in how I lead. This is the work.
The Question That Matters
So, I will ask you again, and this time I encourage you to answer honestly:
How are you really doing?
I am not looking for an automatic response or a polished version. I want to hear the truth. But more importantly, I want you to speak your truth.
If the answer is stress, you are not alone. Awareness, however, is only the beginning. At this level of leadership, stress must be actively managed.
Pay attention to what stress is telling you. Build systems that support your capacity. Shift from carrying it all to leading it well. Because how you show up is never just personal. It becomes either the ceiling or the catalyst for everything you are trying to build.
