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How To Be Sure You Won't Fold Under Pressure

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Rob McKenna

For most of us, especially leaders, everyday life can feel like a pressure cooker - an endless array of choices and challenges that feel like a high-wire act with no net.  Why do some choke under pressure while others thrive?

I spoke with Dr. Rob McKenna, CEO of Wild Leaders.  His book, Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure reveals research spanning 15 years from more than 3,000 leaders on what it takes to hold it together when the stakes are high.   Most management literature offers mere stress-management technique or more superficial self-management approaches. McKenna’s approach, by contrast, digs a bit deeper to more fundamental origins of healthy, or unhealthy, responses that leaders form in the face of unrelenting pressures.  Says McKenna, “When I ask people to offer one word they wished would describe them under pressure, common answers include patient, calmer, resilient, connected, assertive. There is something deep inside all of us that longs to be a better version of ourselves when storms we didn’t see coming hit .”

(You can also see a comprehensive video interview with Rob at our upcoming virtual summit Leading Through Turbulence.)

Among the many insights McKenna offered and that I gleaned from the book, I found these most salient, and applicable to anyone wanting to show up better prepared to face pressure.

Acknowledge the core tension that pressure exposes.  Says McKenna, “In the face of difficult moments, the leaders in our research struggled with what felt like a paradoxical contradiction, asking themselves, ‘How do I stay true to what I have to get done and who I am as a leader, and how do I stay connected and tuned into the people I am leading?”  For many leaders, the desire to be experienced as strong and decisive, and at the same time caring and attentive, makes weathering difficult situations even more stressful.  Most leaders will default to well-formed habits.  McKenna says, “Under pressure, the sense of contradiction feels heightened.  Leaders default to habits because they offer the easiest response that doesn’t require work.  Pressure makes everything more difficult so we’re always looking for easier ways out.  So if you’re inclined to over care for others, under pressure, you are going to give up yourself to meet the needs of others.  If you are inclined toward self-interest, self-preservation, or simply driven to get results, then under pressure, you will likely hunker down at the expense of others.”

What leaders under pressure must do is recognize which direction they are more naturally inclined to lean, and then recognize the consequences of leaning too far in one direction over the other.  Overly accommodating others at the expense of your own convictions or objectives means people may like you more, but over time, may lose respect for you as they realize you are willing to sell your own needs short for theirs.  By contrast, excessively advocating for your own positions or objectives, and not seeing how doing so demotivates others, can lead to people withdrawing their support when you need them most.  McKenna says, “The reality is that this is a false binary Being true to yourself, and true to those you want to lead well, don’t have to be at complete odds with one another .  Leaders have to learn they can keep peace and be assertive.  They can get results and care for those who must sacrifice to get them.”

Stay riveted to a sense of purpose.  In McKenna’s research, those leaders that performed best under pressure - maintaining a balance between their needs and the needs of others - held fast to a sense of purpose . In other words, their actions were guided by a clear sense of reasoning.  Says McKenna, “People were more likely to emerge well from a difficult situation if they had a sense for why they got into it in the first place.  Leaders think quickly about ‘what’ or ‘how,’ under pressure, and last about ‘why.’ But ‘why’ is the centering question that helps leaders make different choices.  It helps them reach a more balanced view of their own contribution to the situation at hand, something most leaders avoid seeing at all cost.”  Most leaders facing challenging circumstances reflexively react with, “How do I get out of this mess?” and do damage control to leave as little mess as possible.  But those inclined to reflect on why they got into the mess in the first place are less likely to repeat it than those who simply speed through it.

Focus on potential.  Leaders in the study who broadened their options for positive outcomes also fared best in comparison to leaders who folded under pressure.  Says McKenna, “Leaders who were able to ask themselves, ‘What could happen here?’ were able to generate alternative outcomes that frequently could transpose problems into opportunities. I coach leaders to identify three possible positive outcomes to any given situation, no matter how impossible it may seem.  This has two benefits.  First, it generates a sense of hope in the face of no tangible reason to have it.  Second, it helps leaders shift from blame and self-justification, which are backward-looking perspectives, to positive action and possibility, which are forward-looking perspectives.”  Leaders who can stay grounded in reality about the severity of any given pressure situation while helping create a sense of momentum are leaders people naturally want to follow.

I recently worked with an executive whose sales team had a major customer put their contract out to bid as a negotiating ploy.  Their first tendency was to give in and lower price, and the executive’s first instinct was to dig his heels in and call their bluff.  But he also knew that if the contract was lost, it meant the loss millions of dollars of revenue. He gathered his team and asked them, “What can we do to win this business, get the pricing we need, and in the process, make our relationship with this customer even better?” The team pulled together very creative ideas they’d not considered to add value to the customer in ways they weren’t even asking for, and won the contract renewal.

Remain “editable.”  Says McKenna, “Leaders who can graciously hit their own ‘back space’ key and self-correct are more likely to have the resilience to course correct under pressure.  Too often, leaders either become stubborn under pressure, unwilling to consider the possibility of being wrong. Or, they turn to shame when they realize they are wrong, and can’t get past their own fallibility.”  Leaders must balance strong convictions and viewpoints while testing their assumptions and beliefs against new data and conflicting views. When they do, they build the most creative solutions to unprecedented problems and the strongest degree of ownership for those solutions among those that must carry them out.  It takes grace and humility to self-edit your thinking and choices, but leaders who can prevail well in the face of turbulent circumstances.

Pressures on leadership are an everyday constant.  How you respond, and if you thrive, under that pressure is more under your control than you think.  Next time the harsh winds of difficult circumstances blow your way, be ready for them.

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