Leading Under Stress

Leadership can be stressful. Not only does it take a lot of energy but the “challenge” is further compounded by the situation: many leaders may find themselves in a crisis and therefore under extraordinary stress. What to do in such a situation? Research led me to an article by Heifetz et al, “Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis”, 2009, HBR where the authors point to “fostering adaptation” and “embracing disequilibrium” to engage and motivate followers through the crisis; however further to that they also provide five key guidance points to “take care of yourself” as a leader so that you don’t sacrifice yourself to the crisis by neglecting yourself.

Here’s how to lead under stress followed by further observations (“et alors”):

Leading Under Stress

The authors state that “taking care of yourself both physically and emotionally will be crucial to your success. You can achieve none of your leadership aims if you sacrifice yourself to the cause.” Here are the five things a leader needs to do to take care whilst leading under stress:

Be Both Optimistic and Realistic

Not just one or the other, but create a “healthy tension that keeps optimism from turning into denial and realism from devolving into cynicism.”

Find Sanctuaries

A sanctuary may be a place or an activity that allows you to step away and “recalibrate your internal responses”. In other words, take some quality time to “get away from it all”.

Reach Out to Confidents

Seek feedback from a true confident who cares more about you than the crisis. Usually a third party, this is someone to whom you can “articulate your reasons for taking certain actions.”

Bring More of Your Emotional Self to the Workplace

A leader cannot survive being too reserved. Under stress, an appropriate “display” of emotions can help to increase trust and defuse difficult situations.

Don’t Lose Yourself in Your Role

No matter how important your work is, don’t let “a single endeavor” define you. Besides making you vulnerable to changing circumstances, opportunities may be lost… 

Et alors

At once and at the same time, the leader needs to be able to “step out” and “step into” the situation. This can only be done if the leader is “authentic”, or otherwise put: the leader is the same person both in- and outside work. Stress from a crisis can easily “de-mask” the inauthentic leader and significantly reduce leadership effectiveness. Stepping-in can be getting the balance right between optimism and realism along with bringing more of your emotional self to work (i.e. your real self “behind the mask”); stepping-out can be ensuring that there is a sanctuary, a confident and above all else your own detachment to realize that your current project is just that and only that!

How Leaders Create Meaning

Leaders are often asked to build an innovative-enhancing corporate culture for “tomorrow” whilst at the same time having to deal with an innovative-inhibiting corporate culture of “today”. Some leaders are quite happy to forge ahead focusing on tomorrow and hoping to “drag” the present into the future; however some leaders focus on today and appear to be reluctant to spend their time and energy trying to advance changes that might never succeed. When pressed this is not just “realpolitik” or healthy scepticism; instead it often occurs that leaders have “lost faith in the system”. What is causing this and what is the remedy?

 

Research led me to a book by Dotlich et al, “Leadership Passages: the personal and professional transitions that make or break a leader”, 2004, John Wiley & Sons. Instead of just looking at leadership transitions (e.g. junior to mid to senior levels) this book looks at “passages” that leaders usually experience that are both “predictable” and “intense” such as coping with a bad boss, living in a different country and dealing with work-life imbalances. Of the 13 passages, one is entitled “losing faith in the system”. Besides identifying root causes, the authors suggest ways how to cope with these passages.

Here’s how leaders can deal with losing faith in the system along with further considerations (“et alors”):
 

How Leaders Create Meaning

Leaders can lose faith in the system when there is a disconnect “between how people want to perceive their companies and how they actually experience them.” A sense of “betrayal” can come from leaders witnessing unethical behaviour, a lack of merit-based promotions, and top leaders acting “in ways they themselves would not”. The authors suggest that there are two key things to avoid: 1/ Cynicism, as this will just drain your passion and energy; and 2/ Victimisation, as this will spiral into pessimism and despair. Instead the key is to “create meaningful work for yourself”. There are four ways to do this:

1.       Through other people 

One thing is the hierarchy of today; however as a leader you have the hierarchy of tomorrow to consider. Take responsibility for their development seriously. Focus on making their goals your goals and create meaning by helping, supporting and developing others.

 

2.       Through a specific project on which you are working 

“Just because you believe the organisational system is bankrupt doesn’t mean it taints everything it touches.” You will create meaning from knowing that your project is worthwhile; and that you are creating and developing, making change and introducing new perspectives. 

 

3.       Through your sense of achievement 

“Even in a moral vacuum, achievement is possible.” If things are really bad you can think of “injecting” good values into a corrupt system; however ordinarily as a leader you can achieve things and that sense of achievement will sustain you by creating meaning. 

 

4.       Through reconnecting with what originally drew you to your area of expertise 

Refocusing on what initially excited you about your profession / business can help create meaning. Replicating that initial excitement can help to replace what might now be missing. Seek another stretch assignment or challenge but reconnect with the essential and original sense of purpose.

 

Et alors

As the authors say, “losing faith in the system challenges you to discover your rationale for work.” There are many motivators (e.g. achievement, affiliation, power) but one motivator which is fundamental (and can be the driver behind others) is a sense of purpose (or the “will to purpose”). Instead of relying on external motivators, you have to summon your motivation from yourself and in so doing, as a leader, you create meaning. When you have a reason for leading others, others will follow, you accomplish goals and you achieve much better job satisfaction. This is how leaders can reconcile “today” and “tomorrow” even if they have lost faith in the system: when there is meaning and a sense of purpose, there is always a brighter future which can be built!

Dutiful Leaders

“Dutiful leadership” seems almost oxymoronic: can a leader be a leader and dutiful at the same time? “Dutiful followership” might seem a more appropriate phrase! In lots of organizations however, most leaders are also followers and are therefore expected to be dutiful. Unfortunately, being dutiful might actually hinder leadership and possibly derail the leader, curtailing the effective achievement of their goals. Researching the above led me to the definitive work on derailment by Hogan and Hogan: Hogan Development Survey Manual, 2009, 2nd ed. Hogan Assessment Systems. Therein they define “dutiful” as one of eleven possible leadership derailers.

Here’s a summary of “dutiful” as a derailer followed by further implications (“et alors”):

Dutiful Leaders

According to Hogan dutiful leaders can be characterized as follows:

How they see themselves:

• Concerned about being accepted, being liked and getting along, especially with authority figures.
• Quick to spot signs of disapproval but also for opportunities for ingratiation.
• To amend an offense, they will redouble their efforts to be model citizens.

How others see them:

• Good natured, polite, cordial and indecisive.
• Reluctant to challenge authority since they will do anything their boss asks.
• Reluctant to support staff and hence have reduced legitimacy as leaders.

At their best they:

• Are charming and eager to please.
• Are seldom critical or threatening.
• Rarely have enemies and tend to rise in organisations.

At their worst they:

• Have problems taking initiative or making a stand.
• Find it difficult to take a decision.
• Have trouble maintaining a team.

Et alors?

According to Hogan, being dutiful is first and foremost a potential derailer and only afterwards might it have some value mostly in the context of followership; however dutiful leadership appears to be pervasive in large organisations. As Hogan’s research has shown, there are many “leaders” who have risen in the organization because they are dutiful. What are the symptoms for an organization if it is full of leaders who are overly dutiful? Potentially derailment on a collective rather than individual scale? The organization will certainly be less effective because the teams will not be fully engaged with the leaders; initiatives and business will be lost not least due to slowness in decision making; and the actions of the senior leaders will go unchallenged leaving little room for “bottom-up” innovations.

Might some national cultures be more prone to dutiful leadership than others? There certainly appears to be a link between Hogan’s concept of “dutiful” and Hofstede’s concept of “power-distance”. For cultures with a high sense of power-distance, the unequal distribution of power is accepted. That acceptance is directly translatable into the “dutiful” behavior of those who do not have power even if some of those “dutiful” people could be leaders and/or aspire to power themselves. In low power-distance cultures “dutiful” behavior is less likely to be observed. This might go some way to explaining why low-power distant cultures such as the USA have given rise to some very dynamic corporations in comparison to their counterparts in Europe…