What if leadership isn’t about doing more—but about how you show up while doing it? In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden is joined by Marcy Axelrod—bestselling author, award-winning management consultant, TV contributor, and two-time TEDx speaker—for a deeply human conversation that cuts through the noise of productivity hacks and performance myths. Marcy’s latest book, How We Choose to Show Up—winner of the Hayakawa Book Prize—explores something most leaders underestimate: the invisible system shaping how we lead, relate, decide, and sustain ourselves under pressure. This isn’t self-help. It’s a framework for human operating systems. Marcy traces the origins of her work back to an early personal rupture—losing her voice as a child when she didn’t feel seen or felt. That experience became the lens through which she began observing how people move through the world: present, disengaged, or fully alive—often without realising they have a choice. Drawing on over two decades of research, Marcy introduces a deceptively simple but powerful three-level “showing up” continuum: Level 1: Burned out, overwhelmed, disconnected—unable to meaningfully contribute (and often for valid reasons). Level 2: Functioning, executing, getting things done—necessary, but limited. Level 3: Fully showing up—aware, aligned, adaptive, and generative. The insight that lands hardest for leaders? Most organisations are optimised for Level 2—while expecting Level 3 outcomes. Marcy challenges the deeply ingrained belief that humans are designed to operate as isolated individuals. Instead, she reframes leadership and performance as inherently relational and contextual—shaped by who we are as individuals, the situations we’re in, and the societies we co-create. Ignore one, and the system breaks. There’s nothing mystical here. No woo-woo. Just a return to how humans—and therefore organisations—actually function. Flow requires tension. Growth requires contrast. And sustainable leadership requires recognising when you’re drifting along the continuum rather than consciously choosing where and how to show up. For executives navigating constant change, founders running hot, and leaders responsible for others’ energy as well as outcomes, this episode offers something rare: permission to rethink effectiveness without sacrificing ambition. You’ll walk away with: A practical language for understanding burnout, focus, and peak performance A leadership lens that reconnects personal wellbeing with organisational results A reminder that presence—not pace—is the real differentiator Because the future of growth won’t be led by those who simply show up early or stay up late—but by those who show up fully, intentionally, and sustainably. 🎧 Listen in—and ask yourself: where are you on the continuum today, and are you choosing it—or just defaulting to it?