How to Lead Confidently When You Experience Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

By Eleanor Hecks

I always remember the times when a client says they want to talk. Those moments hit me like a freight train. My heart races, and suddenly, I replay every decision I’d made and brace for the worst. If you experience rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), that kind of intense reaction to perceived criticism or disapproval can show up fast, especially when you’re the one making calls and carrying responsibility.

The tricky part is that you can be deeply capable and still feel like one piece of feedback means you’re failing. When that happens, confidence is about learning how to lead while your nervous system is sounding the alarm.

What Is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria?

Rejection sensitive dysphoria is an intense emotional reaction to perceived rejection, criticism or failure. A “rejection” can even be small or not happen at all, and you still may react severely. It’s more than a feeling of slight embarrassment — it can feel sharp and immediate, like your brain goes straight to “I messed up,” “They’re upset,” or “I’m in trouble.” RSD is commonly linked to neurodivergence, and some experts suspect it’s connected to differences in how the brain regulates rejection-related emotions.

If someone has ever told you that you're overreacting, RSD can make you question your own leadership instincts. Yet, what’s often happening is an immediate nervous system response. As a leader, this can manifest as misreading a neutral Slack message as disapproval or obsessing over a tone in an email. These reactions can influence how you lead, preventing you from having tough conversations or resorting to people-pleasing to ensure you’re still liked by those you work with.

How RSD Manifested in My Leadership

People-pleasing is one of my greatest challenges. I once led a small training seminar and felt confident because of how much I prepared for it. That is, until I noticed a few blank stares and someone checking their phone during the meeting.

My brain immediately latched onto it like proof that my talking points were boring, or worse, that people didn’t like me. Even though no one said anything negative, I could feel my throat tighten, and my thoughts spiraled into regret about being here or how terribly I was doing at my job. Although I finished the session professionally, I wanted to run off and hide because I felt rejected.

In those moments, I’ll replay a meeting for hours because one person looked unimpressed. The only way to fix it, though, is to recognize it. When you realize it’s happening, you can respond with clarity and keep yourself calm.

Your Action Plan for Leading With Confidence

Leading a team when you experience RSD means learning how to work with your sensitivity. With a few simple strategies, you can stay grounded, make decisions more easily and show up as the steady leader you need to be.

1. Find Your Mentor

When you’re leading with RSD, a mentor can make a major difference in helping you stay steady. Having a trusted person by your side is crucial because they have the power to reality-check your thoughts. They also give you the chance to separate feedback from rejection and remind you that one awkward meeting doesn’t mean you're incompetent. That outside perspective helps, especially on days when your brain insists everyone is “mad at you and you’re failing.”

Mentorship also shows up in leadership success. Research shows that the majority of executives attribute their success to their mentors, which speaks volumes about the impact guidance can have on shaping confidence and growth over time.

To find the right fit, look for someone whose leadership style you respect and who makes you feel emotionally safe. That could be a trusted former manager, a senior peer in your industry or a mentor you connect with through a professional group. If you’re comfortable, you can also be up front about how you take feedback and how much you value their perspective when handling leadership moments.

2. Know Your Triggers

Confidence becomes easier to maintain when you can predict what crumbles it. Even though you may have little control once an episode begins, it helps to understand what is causing it and why.

Start paying attention to the moments that spike troubled feelings. Are they performance reviews, a client email that feels short, or even seeing someone’s message and getting no reply for hours? The point is to name the pattern so you can remind yourself of the trigger to know it’s not a fact. A simple way to do this is to keep a trigger log for one week. 

After a strong reaction, jot down what happened, what story your brain told you, what you felt and what you did next. By the end of the week, you’ll usually see themes. Once you can spot your triggers, you can build a plan for them instead of getting blindsided.

3. Reframe Your Narrative

One of the most challenging aspects of RSD is how quickly your brain fills in the blanks. Almost always, it is with a worst-case story. A delayed response can lead to the thought that the other person is disappointed, or the suggestion you made at work feels impractical. Reframing your narrative means you must slow down long enough to question whether the story you’re telling yourself is the only explanation or just the loudest one.

Practice this using the Three C’s method. This tactic is your one way to rescue yourself when your mind starts to spiral with negative thinking. It helps you pause in the moment and take control by challenging your thoughts before they overwhelm you.

The Three C’s process works by catching the thought first, challenging it, and then changing it. For example, you might notice an idea about how bad you are at a task. Challenge it with what you know to be true, like “No one said that — this was one piece of feedback.” Then, change it to something more grounded, such as “They’re offering a different perspective, not criticizing me.” Over time, this creates a space between feedback and self-worth, allowing you to respond as a leader instead of reacting out of fear.

4. Reframe How You Look at RSD

It may not feel like it at the moment, but many of the traits that make RSD challenging are also the ones that make you a deeply impactful leader. When you’re sensitive to rejection, you’re also often highly attuned to other people’s emotions, unspoken concerns, and shifts in team dynamics. That awareness can evolve into strong empathy, thoughtful communication, and the ability to recognize when someone on your team is struggling.

That empathy leads to real-world outcomes. In one study, the majority of business leaders across countries agreed that empathy directly ties into performance, which means the experiences you have as someone with RSD also bring uniquely valuable qualities in your role as a leader .

When you start to look at it as a gift, RSD stops being something you need to “fix” and becomes something you can work with. That same emotional intensity can fuel intuition, care, and a genuine desire to create a safe and inclusive environment. Leaders with RSD may work harder to establish trust and promote a sense of belonging because they have a deep understanding of how powerful it feels to be on the receiving end of compassion.

Lead the Way, Your Way

If you experience rejection-sensitive dysphoria, you’re not “too much” for leadership. You may just need a different way to support your nervous system while leading. With the right tools, you can handle feedback effectively and maintain steady confidence, showing up with the support your team needs.

Eleanor Hecks is a business writer with a passion for helping other women thrive as leaders in the workforce. From mental health strategies to communication tips, Eleanor has published on a variety of leadership subjects for publications such as Fast Company. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, where she writes on SMB topics and leads Designerly's creative team.