When Projects Collapse: Strategic Tools for Capacity-Aware Leadership

Created and owned by Itzel Yagual

Opening Insight

Leadership doesn’t always collapse loudly. Sometimes it pauses quietly in the middle of a project, in a half-written email, or while staring blankly at a to-do list that once felt purposeful. For neurodivergent women, especially those carrying multiple roles and navigating workplace misfit, that pause is often mislabeled as inconsistency or a lack of motivation. But in industrial-organizational psychology, we understand disengagement, task avoidance, and withdrawal not as deficits but as critical feedback loops. Signals that the role, expectation, or environment is out of sync with the individual’s current identity, values, or capacity.

In this issue of Unfolding Insights™, we go beyond the personal story to deliver frameworks, decision-making tools, and capacity-aware strategies. This is for the women who are still acting a version of themselves that is acceptable in public but unraveling in private. For those who dropped the project not out of disinterest, but out of self-preservation.

Framework: Why High-Capacity Women “Drop the Ball”

In I/O psychology, there’s a concept called person–role fit: the degree to which an individual's traits, values, and capacities align with their role’s demands. When that fit becomes distorted—due to shifting identity, workload overload, or cultural misalignment—the system responds with fatigue, avoidance, or burnout. Feminist scholars add that identity role strain is compounded by gendered expectations and emotional labor, particularly for women of color and neurodivergent professionals, who must often perform multiple, contradictory selves to remain seen or safe.

Sapient-centered leadership acknowledges that we are not just bodies executing tasks—we are thinking, feeling, evolving beings making decisions in real time. Sentient-centered strategy respects that our systems (emotional, cognitive, sensory) are not separate from our leadership but part of it.

Before the Crash: Reading Your Body’s First Memos

Your nervous system always knows before your Google Calendar does. The trick is spotting the signals early—before your body files for an unplanned shutdown.

That’s where the Capacity Signal Decoder™ comes in. Here’s the first half: four of the most common early warnings your body gives when your capacity is being crossed.

Visual learners—this is your quick-glance guide.

Created and owned by Itzel Yagual

If you recognized yourself in even one of those four signals, that’s data, not drama. The more quickly you can spot these cues, the faster you can adjust your capacity plan, reframe deadlines, or renegotiate expectations before you’re in a full shutdown spiral.

When I Knew the System Was Broken

Years ago, in corporate education, I was given two additional jobs without extra pay, on top of my existing responsibilities. I was instructed to rectify the previous person's mistakes while completing my own work.

The stakes were absurd. I was supposed to oversee and train career services departments across eight states, fill in as an employment specialist, and turn around compliance numbers so every campus could pass without a single ding. Two people had already left the department, and the compliance team expected me to submit flawless reports and place students in jobs, all at the same time.

My body knew before my brain did. My knees wouldn’t stop shaking. My stomach churned like I was going to vomit. I had shortness of breath, lightheadedness, pounding headaches — my nervous system was waving every red flag it had.

I said no, not to the work itself, but to the ethics of it. I emailed compliance with my findings and stood my ground, knowing I’d be questioned, reprimanded, or worse. My refusal was about integrity. About not letting a toxic system use my labor to cover for their mistakes.

I was laid off soon after — along with many others. My boss cursed constantly, gossip was management’s main currency, and the culture thrived on fear. I walked away unemployed, but I also walked away certain of what I would never accept just to survive.

Was it easy? No. My rejection-sensitive dysphoria and neurodivergence made the aftermath brutal at times. But my therapist helped me steady my voice, protect my well-being, and follow through on my decision. And that moment became a blueprint for me, one that now lives in my consulting and the tools I share with other women: the signs your system is calling it, and how to listen before it costs you more than your paycheck.

Three Common Collapse Patterns Among Multi-Role Women

1. The Executive Overload Loop

You’re leading on paper. Producing outputs. But inside, the fog is thick. You reread the same sentence ten times. You can’t start the next task without checking three others first. Your nervous system is working harder than your calendar reveals.

Strategic Insight: This isn’t procrastination—it’s executive function saturation. When your brain is overstimulated, emotionally burdened, or managing multiple identity roles, your capacity to initiate, sequence, or complete tasks fragments.

If you recognized yourself in even one of those four signals, that’s data, not drama. The faster you spot these cues, the sooner you can adjust your capacity plan, reframe deadlines, or renegotiate expectations before burnout hits.

From Signals to Strategy: Acting Before Burnout Hits

Here’s the second half, a quick-reference chart you can keep at your desk or in your planner. It’s designed to help you distinguish between everyday stress and system red flags.

Download the Capacity Signbal Decoder™ PDF — Plan from reality, not perfectionism.