The Mice and the Cherry Blossoms: What Epigenetics Teaches Us About Leadership

It’s incredible to think that, two generations on, the grand mice had inherited a reaction to a scent.

There are many epigenetic studies from the Holocaust and from wars that show similar, compelling examples of the profound transmission of responses. All of these studies suggest that our responses and emotional experiences can be transmitted epigenetically across generations.

As an Executive Coach and Psychotherapist who works at depth with leaders, I often observe human parallels: None of us is untouched by the systems we inhabit; we are all interconnected. 

Who we are and how we show up isn’t just about what we do, but about where our human stories begin.

So, how might this impact our lives and our leadership?

Are there behaviours or mindsets that, no matter how much work you do, how many self-help books you read, or how much feedback you receive, keep showing up in unhelpful and stuck ways? It is likely that some of these are not entirely yours but are harder to shift because they have been hardwired across generations. 

I have met CEO’s who avoid conflict, unaware that this tendency echoes a grandfather who survived war by steering clear of confrontation. I have worked with leaders who felt an incessant need to prove their worth, reflecting generations who endured scarcity or exclusion. These inherited behaviours shape culture, decision-making, and the emotional tone we set through our leadership. Just as a stone creates ripples when it’s thrown into a pond, these inherited responses affect us and those around us.  

Leadership development often emphasizes visible aspects—strategy, goals, performance. However, sustainable high performance and wise leadership benefit from deeper inquiry: from asking ourselves,

What am I carrying that isn’t mine? 

Which patterns am I unconsciously repeating?

What is it that keeps repeating itself because it is not yet resolved in me?

True psychological growth must be understood in relation to the collective experience of community and society, both past and present 

Awareness is the first step to freedom and psychological flexibility. We are not bound to repeat the past, particularly if we have the courage to understand its imprint.

Intergenerational narratives include the generational stories and inherited meanings that quietly shape identity, beliefs, choices, and ambitions

At comma, we are psychotherapeutically trained in the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. IFS refers to these intergenerational responses as legacy burdens. These can include limiting beliefs, roles, emotions, or expectations passed down through family, culture, or society. They are described as burdens because they are conditional and constrain an individual’s freedom and wellbeing, obscuring the authentic Self. Thankfully, we also inherit legacy heirlooms or gifts: the positive values and traditions passed down from ancestors that nourish and sustain us. These can take many forms, like integrity, courage, particular talents, resilience, and stewardship.

A burden can be personal—something experienced when something difficult happened, and there were insufficient internal or external resources to deal with it. When burdens are personal, they are things that happened to me. When burdens are inter-generational, they are things that happened to, or around, my ancestors within my generational line.

Whereas personal burdens are often patterns or situations that can be remembered or directly connected to lived experience, intergenerational burdens tend to appear as more deeply held and rigid beliefs. These can feel bigger or out of proportion to our own experience and often show up in moments where we say:

“I don’t know why this affects me so much,”

or

“It’s always been this way.”

We also inherit cultural burdens—absorbed from the dominant culture into which we are born and passed down through our families and ancestors, literally transmitted across generations. Cultural burdens are taken in through the messages we receive from the dominant cultures that surround us and are then systemically reinforced by cultural institutions and values until they become the norm. They are often difficult to spot, because they simply feel “normal.” 

Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, identified four primary cultural burdens:

Individualism

Racism

Patriarchy

Materialism 

These legacy and cultural burdens are not necessarily “ours,”—they do not inherently belong to us—yet they can operate as powerful internal narratives and belief systems. They are transmitted through the emotional climate of our caregivers and wider family, as well as through broader environments of influence, such as schools, media, institutions and influential figures.

When we are young, we absorb these messages and take them on as our own. From this, the process of developing protective and adaptive strategies begins. These protective strategies form the essential scaffolding of survival for our young selves. In IFS, they are referred to as “protectors”— parts that take on roles to prevent pain and vulnerability from resurfacing. 

This transmission of burdens occurs across generations. While the original stories and contexts may fade over time due to shame, stigma, secrecy, or the passage of time, the burdens themselves—and the protective strategies we develop around them—still exist. 

The transmission is powerful—remember the mice—as each generation models certain defences, beliefs, ways of being. We learn these directly and through implicit learning, absorbing the emotional rules of our ancestors, such as “don’t take space.” These patterns can also be transmitted epigenetically through gene expression, priming nervous systems, for example, towards hypervigilance. And they can be passed down through unresolved trauma; what is not resolved, repeats. 

When we enter into deeper work with ourselves, protective parts will emerge

In the coaching room, when we introduce intergenerational burdens, insight deepens as protective parts step up to do their assigned jobs. These parts often did not originate in our lifetimes, but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and beyond, extending down our ancestral lines. In the language of IFS, protector parts serve one of two jobs. “Manager” parts attempt to control and prevent situations from ever happening again, while “firefighter” parts work urgently to numb or distract us from the pain of the burden when it is activated. 

We often carry personal, cultural and legacy burdens—inherited rules about toughness, perfectionism, success, failure, and emotional stoicism— alongside our inherited heirlooms: values such as integrity, resilience, courage, and optimism. 

In executive coaching, this means exploring the roots of behaviours, intergenerational patterns, unconscious loyalties, and inherited fears, and the impact these have on our present. The mice feared cherry blossoms; similarly, many of us fear slowing down, confronting emotions, or engaging in self-reflection, worried about what we might find there. We may fear conflict or intimacy, letting others down, or getting it wrong. Yet, it is precisely within these spaces of deeper self-awareness and skilled compassion that true transformation begins. 

If we miss the systemic origins of these patterns, we risk reinforcing rather than releasing them. This is why skilled practitioners are required to do this deeper work—helping us choose what to carry forward and what to leave behind. Experienced coaches can recognise where pervasive, hard-to-shift, and out-of-proportion tendencies influence leadership, decision-making, and risk appetite. Through this process, we come to understand that these historically intelligent adaptations and strategies need updating for the current context. The job is to release, not repeat.

When leaders undertake this kind of inner work, they not only alter their own trajectories but also interrupt inherited cycles, modelling a different kind of leadership: grounded, wise, flexible, and free.

Feature Image Credit: Photo by Howard Senton on Unsplash