Why Eating the Right Foods Fuels Your Leadership

There is an unrecognized challenge many leaders face preventing them from leading at their best: nutrition issues.

One of the first compromises leaders make is deprioritizing nutrition. Whether due to a busy travel schedule or an overbooked calendar, leaders reach for what’s convenient and often unhealthy, not what’s energy-sustaining. However, as a CEO coach, positive organizational psychologist, and nutritionist, I can attest that a key to performing at our highest capacity is what we eat every day.

Food provides a huge source of energy. The food we choose to put in our bodies impacts our mental concentration, our emotional stability, and how much energy we have to give as leaders.

When leaders have nutrition issues, they can experience extreme energy highs and lows, sleep issues, and potentially get into a negative downward spiral. Energy crashes could look like: having trouble focusing, not engaging, being slow to respond, and not displaying empathy. These behaviors can be mistaken for leadership issues.

In my recent Psychology Today post, I explained why it’s vital to prioritize a leader’s well-being. I discussed that step one is building awareness, which includes: changing your mindset and connecting to your purpose. Well-being stems from both awareness and energy for self. An important step to increase energy begins with the foundation of food.

Yet, most have had unsuccessful attempts at improving nutrition. The standard ways people approach health goals often don’t work.

Three of the top New Year’s resolutions for the past few years have been: exercise more, eat healthier, and lose weight. Four months into 2024, less than 20% are still progressing on their health goals; 80% gave up by February.

Sadly, without achieving last year’s resolutions, health goals tend to remain on the top of the list each year, with the failure cycle repeating.

Why do health goals fail year after year?

• We have the wrong goal. Without realizing it, we can set goals out of self-criticism—our harsh, negative self-talk—such as losing weight. Goals that revolve around stepping on the scale can be incredibly demotivating.
• We go way too hard, way too fast. We try to change everything at once. Then, when nothing sticks and we haven’t transformed immediately, we feel like a failure.
• We don’t understand nutrition is a balance between our physiology and psychology. Whether it’s not understanding either or only relying on one, we need the combination to change from a nutrition perspective.
• We deprioritize ourselves. We can start with good intentions, but then don’t take action in support of serving ourselves, allowing everything else in our lives to be a higher priority.

We can easily get caught in a negative downward spiral when we think nothing is working. It can feel defeating to not achieve health goals year after year. In these moments, we need to bring compassion and kindness to ourselves.

How to make progress

Consider a different approach to make progress on your health goals. I expand upon the ideas below in my book, Brilliant: Be the Leader Who Shines Brightly without Burning Out.

1. Connect to a place of possibility. Envision what’s possible if you achieve a lasting healthy lifestyle. Consider how you could cultivate your physical energy to lead at your full capacity.
2. Leverage the neuroscience of change. Our brains are wired to make small incremental changes, not massive changes all at once. Recognize it’s taking one small step at a time that brings long-term transformation. Start by doing the easy small step right in front of you.
3. Prioritize yourself. Caring for yourself through good nutrition as a leader requires intentionality and prioritization. Plan ahead to ensure you have healthy food and snacks with you throughout the week. During busy times, you can easily grab your own previously packed food with sustenance. Reflect on what serves your physical body every day.
4. Balance both your physiology and psychology. Acknowledge there are a lot of bad cycles to break in order to get to an energy-sustaining cycle of good sleep, good food, and good hydration. Focus on creating good cycles that support both your physiology and psychology, without depriving yourself.

Foundational steps for improved nutrition

1. You are the expert of your body: Everyone is biochemically different. Though a lot of people may tell you what’s good for you, you can become your own food expert. What foods make you feel good and energized? What foods make you feel awful? If you are unclear about how food makes you feel, start to pay attention to become wise about your body.
2. Drink more water: Being dehydrated puts a strain on our bodies. With an estimated 75% of Americans chronically dehydrated, even if you don’t feel thirsty, most of us don’t drink enough water. Drinking more water is one of the easiest and highest-impact steps in the right direction. Increase your water intake slowly, by 8 ounces a week.
3. Eat real food: Make small changes to slowly include more whole food in your diet. Balance your macronutrients in every meal, which means including the three major nutrients of: protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

Reflection questions

• What do I most want for my health in the next year?
• What are the best ways to nourish myself physically and emotionally?
• How might I show myself self-compassion in this journey versus allowing myself to dip into negativity?
• What’s the small step I could take that’s right in front of me?

Diet Essential Reads

The Body Mass Index Fallacy

3 Psychological Barriers That Make It Hard to Go Vegan

When leaders feel inspired to take steps towards improving their nutrition and health, they start spiraling up: sleeping better, waking up refreshed, and having the highest brain capacity. They operate with the sustained physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy to excel in leadership and in life.

Nutrition is not separate from leadership: It is absolutely foundational to leading at your peak performance. To lead at your best starts with cultivating your energy with food.