Before You Lead, Tune In: A Call to Recalibrate This Mental Health Awareness Month
- Presidential Consultants
- May 15
- 6 min read
Updated: May 15
We talk a lot about mental health in the workplace—about burnout, compassion fatigue, quiet quitting, even moral injury. We’ve got language for all the things we see our teams going through. But what we often don’t talk about is what it means for us—the leaders—to care for our own well-being in real time.
I learned the hard way that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
During the pandemic, opportunity and urgency collided. One of those opportunities became the biggest contract we’d landed to date—a project with a school system that I deeply believed in. I gave everything to it. It was bold. It was beautiful. And it was breaking me.
The days blurred together. Meals were an afterthought, energy shots became a lifeline, and I kept whispering to myself, “Just a few more weeks.”
One day, I sat quietly in the back while my husband, Anthony, was leading a workshop on the signs of stress. He broke down the physical and emotional indicators—things I’d taught before myself—and yet something hit different that day.
When he mentioned chronic headaches as a sign, I paused. I had been waking up with a headache nearly every day for weeks. Then he started talking about behavior changes. That’s when I realized that someone who had kept up a meditation practice through over a decade on the road as a speaker hadn’t meditated in more than a month—and hadn’t even noticed.
That moment was my wake-up call. It took me back to a practice I’d developed years before—what I call my tune-up practice. Not a to-do list or a wellness trend, but a radical act of self-honesty. A deliberate pause to check under the hood of my life: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically.
Just like a car can look fine on the outside but be one bad day away from a breakdown, leaders can present as polished and professional while quietly crumbling inside.
Leading with Wholeness During Mental Health Awareness Month
And so this Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to invite you—fellow mission-driven leader—to pause.
Not just to check in on your team.
Not just to review the employee assistance program.
Not just to schedule the wellness speaker or approve the new training series.
But to check in on you.
Looking for a space to pause and come back to yourself? We’re offering one.
What’s Under Your Hood?
In our recent Workplace Wellness Series, I shared a framework called Giving Yourself a Tune-Up. It’s simple, but powerful. And it starts with three core questions:
How am I really doing?
What’s draining me—and what’s restoring me?
Who am I becoming in the process of doing this work?
These aren’t questions for your journal. They’re questions for your leadership. Because how you answer them changes how you show up—at the podium, in the hallway, and in the mirror.
But here’s the truth no framework can protect you from: even when you’re equipped, it still gets hard. Setbacks still show up. Tools get dusty. The calendar creeps in. You fall asleep to yourself again.
Sometimes it helps to have something steady to return to. Here’s a starting place.
From Awareness to Alignment
When we treat Mental Health Awareness Month as more than a hashtag or a poster campaign—when we use it as a framework for personal reflection—something powerful happens.
It becomes a check-in point.
A recalibration.
A permission slip to shift from awareness to alignment.
When we do this, we don’t just raise visibility—we raise vitality.
We don’t just encourage wellness—we embody it.
Because when leaders align, cultures shift.
And that shift starts inside.
But let’s be honest: our culture rewards over-functioning.
It praises self-sacrifice. It claps for people who “push through.” But when leaders push past their limits too long, the cost shows up everywhere:
In team morale
In missed opportunities
In broken boundaries
In joyless leadership
That’s why a tune-up is so essential. Not because you’re failing. But because you’re still human.
If something in you is asking for more support right now, this offering was made with you in mind.
The Tune-Up Isn’t a Fix—It’s a Return
Your tune-up may not look like mine. That’s okay. What matters is that it brings you back to yourself.
It might be a practice.
A conversation.
A sacred pause.
A hard no.
It might be noticing that you haven’t laughed in weeks—and deciding to change that. It might be seeing the signs of a setback (you’re snapping, forgetting things, withdrawing), and instead of pushing through, asking, “What’s my soul trying to say?”
Wellness isn’t a luxury.
Presence isn’t a bonus.
Self-care isn’t selfish.
These are the foundations of sustainable leadership. And they must be chosen over and over again.
You Are the Wellness Culture
You can’t poster your way into wellness. You can’t train your team into safety and care if your own presence is brittle and frayed.
You are the culture.
Your nervous system sets the temperature.
Your values shape the atmosphere.
They’re watching how you lead. But more than that—they’re watching how you live.
Do you show up in peace, or in performance?
Do you pause when you need to—or push past it all?
And perhaps the most revealing question of all:
What version of you do they believe is necessary for success?
Because they’ll likely mirror it.
Real Leadership Starts with Recalibration
One of the biggest myths in leadership is that we have to arrive at wholeness. That if we just get it “right” this quarter, we’ll stay aligned.
But the truth? Leadership is dynamic. So is wellness. The goal isn’t to avoid misalignment. It’s to recognize it sooner—and to lovingly return.
Sometimes that return looks like:
Saying no, even when you’re afraid of disappointing someone.
Scheduling recovery time before the crisis.
Creating a support plan for your own hard days, just like you do for others.
Trusting that your wholeness is more valuable than your output.
If you’ve been craving something practical—but personal—to help you realign, we created a space for exactly that.
Enter: WorkWell Live.
And if you’re looking for a companion on that journey, our WorkWell Live sessions are designed for this very moment. They’re not wellness theater. They’re real, reflective space. They hold you up when the doing gets too loud to hear your own wisdom.
This is our gift for Mental Health Awareness Month. Real support. No strings. Just space to breathe.
Leadership Is What You Model When No One’s Clapping
There will be days when tuning in feels inconvenient. When your team’s needs are louder than your own. When your inbox feels like a tidal wave. When you’ll be tempted to postpone your tune-up because “this week is just too full.”
But I promise you: this work doesn’t wait.
And the people you lead? They don’t need you to be perfect.
They need you to be whole.
They need you to be honest.
They need you to come back to yourself, again and again and again.
That’s the kind of leadership Mental Health Awareness Month is calling us into.
Not more programming. More presence.
Not more checking boxes. More checking in—with yourself.
So before you lead—tune in.
Check under the hood.
Tend to what’s been quiet.
Let your wholeness rise.
Because the most powerful tool in your leadership toolbox this month… is you.
Entrepreneur and international speaker CeCe President is the creator of Be BOLD Enough: A Service-Based Leadership Development System. She empowers passionate leaders with the coaching, confidence, and clarity they need to create massive impact and serve customers at the highest levels.
CeCe holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the City University of New York. With over two decades of experience leading public, private, and non-profit organizations, CeCe is a sought-after consultant, speaker, and leadership coach whose work changes lives and reshapes organizations.
CeCe is an avid volunteer, outspoken advocate, and committed donor to various causes. Among the many ways she serves her community is as a board member for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northeast Ohio, Greater Cleveland Partnership, and COSE, Cleveland’s small business Chamber of Commerce. CeCe and her husband, company founder Anthony President, are both native Clevelanders and proud alumni of John Carroll University.
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