Reflecting on last week’s first event of 2026, “Brain Health for Legal Leaders” Senior legal counsel at Global in London, Moushumi, shares her impressions on the importance of understanding our brains neurochemistry and relation to stress and behavioural patterns in a busy legal life.

While leadership development has traditionally focused on sharpening the mind, far less attention has been paid to the heart, despite it being both the engine room of human performance and the seat of our capacity for connection, compassion, and courage. For senior in-house leaders operating under sustained pressure, the heart carries a dual burden: regulating physical stress while simultaneously holding the emotional weight of responsibility, uncertainty, and constant decision-making. This paper explores the heart from both a physiological and human perspective, drawing on science, leadership practice, and lived experience to make a simple case: how we lead is inseparable from how our heart is functioning.