An Invisible Leadership Crisis: Rebuilding Connection Starts With Knowing Ourselves

Forbes

16-04-2025

We hear it all the time: teams are disconnected. Cultures feel brittle. Belonging is down, burnout is up, and even the most well-intentioned leaders are struggling to create connection in increasingly complex environments. But what if the root cause of this crisis isn't what we think?
Apple and NASA veteran, Rajiv Mehta, a brilliant systems thinker and longtime advocate for personal science, recently pointed out something that should be obvious, but rarely is:
'A lack of connection and belonging in teams is not only due to circumstances, busyness, or technology. It is because we don't know ourselves.'
Rajiv Mehta reminds us "A lack of connection and belonging in teams is not only due to ... More circumstances, busyness, or technology. It is because we don't know ourselves."
This insight gets to the heart of 3D leadership: the idea that sustainable, impactful leadership isn't about doing more, but aligning our efforts across three dimensions—ME (our personal wellbeing), WE (team and organizational performance), and WORLD (broader impact on communities and systems).
When we lack connection to ourselves (ME), we struggle to build genuine relationships with others (WE), and our ability to contribute meaningfully to the wider world (WORLD) is compromised. Mehta's work offers a powerful example of how this plays out—and how we can begin to heal it.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a wellness collective called Body Politic became a lifeline for people suffering from Long Covid. Founded in 2018, the collective's leadership quickly mobilized to support thousands of patients, conducting some of the first and most influential research into the new illness.
But while they poured their limited energy into serving the WORLD, they were quietly sacrificing ME—their own health and relationships—and even skipping over the WE: the bonds between each other as leaders.
When Mehta led a seven-week workshop for the Body Politic team using his "Mapping Ourselves" tools, the results were revelatory. Participants, many of them seasoned scientists, discovered profound insights about their daily lives and bodies that even months of meticulous symptom tracking hadn't revealed. One participant, for example, learned to recognize early signals of migraines and tinnitus, allowing her to intervene and avoid debilitating crashes.
That's the ME dimension. But the real surprise? The WE.
Though these leaders were in constant communication, they realized they had been neglecting their own internal community. They had been so focused on the mission that they forgot to nurture joy, empathy, and friendship within the team. Mehta's program helped them rediscover that connection—and, in doing so, amplified their ability to serve the WORLD.
Mehta's program helped them strengthen their WE dimension, and amplified their ability to serve the ... More WORLD.
As Mehta notes, the WE dimension is often the most neglected in American culture, thanks to our obsession with individualism. Author Mia Birdsong captures this beautifully in her book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, writing:
'The do-it-yourself-ness of the American dream narrative … doesn't work for anyone because none of us is self-sufficient. Interdependence is part of who we are as people.'
And yet, our workplaces often run on the myth of the lone hero leader. We invest in technologies, toolkits, and culture initiatives—but skip the human work of helping people know themselves and one another more deeply.
This echoes the findings of the U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 Advisory on Social Connection, which declared loneliness a public health epidemic. And in A Call to Connection by the Einhorn Collaborative, the authors point out that 'our strategies for cultivating connection can be found wanting.'
In other words: we have a connection crisis, and our solutions aren't keeping up.
So what can we do?
Start by understanding your own care ecosystem. Mehta's Atlas CareMap tool is a deceptively simple yet profound way to begin. Who do you care for? Who cares for you? Mapping those relationships reveals both the hidden work of care and the possibilities for deeper connection.
Mapping our relationships reveals both the hidden work of care and the possibilities for deeper ... More connection.
In conversation with leaders across finance, healthcare, and professional services, I often hear a version of the same question: How can I do more good without burning out?
The answer isn't more hustle or more hacks. It's clarity. Do what only you can do. As Mehta has modeled in his own shift toward keynote speaking, scaling your impact doesn't mean abandoning self-care or community—it means anchoring in them.
When we lead in 3D, we:
Ask yourself:
Then explore your own CareMap. Use the tools. Start the conversations. Because true connection doesn't start with a new Slack channel or offsite agenda. It starts with ourselves.
And the good news? That work doesn't just benefit you. It's the fastest path to doing more good—in your company, your community, and your corner of the world.