Lisa Alessi is a leadership coach who helps highly capable leaders navigate complexity with greater awareness, resilience, and intention. Her work focuses on helping leaders understand the patterns shaping their behavior, relationships, and decision-making so they can lead with more clarity and range.

With over three decades of experience, Lisa works at the intersection of individual growth and team dynamics. She helps leaders and teams surface what’s happening beneath the surface, shift how they engage with one another, and create more adaptive, effective ways of working together.

She works extensively with leaders in local government, scaling, and social impact organizations, including her work with the UpNext leadership program, where she supports rising leaders in strengthening their capacity to lead effectively within complex public systems.

You're a capable, committed leader, but why does it sometimes feel like your best thinking disappears exactly when you need it most? In this episode, I sit down with leadership coach Lisa Alessi to explore what's actually happening in your nervous system when pressure hits and what to do about it.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why you cannot think your way out of a triggered state and what to do instead
• How to recognize the four stress responses (fight, flight, fawn, and freeze) in yourself and your team
• Why the strategies that made you successful as an individual contributor can work against you in a leadership role
• Practical self-regulation techniques you can use in the moment and build into your daily habits
• How your own nervous system regulation directly impacts the people you lead

 Resources Mentioned:

•  Lisa's Above/Below the Line handout 
• Lisa Alessi's website
• Episode 64: Stop Feeding the Beast

Visit ClaireLaughlin.com and connect with me @Claire Laughlin Consulting on Instagram and LinkedIn.

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