Leading in the Age of Anxiety

Elevated systemic anxiety can have severe effects, and most organizations are at risk. The good news is that it takes only one person to break the cycle and turn the company around.

If you’re a leader, you feel it in your gut: Stress is at an all-time high, and no wonder. The uncertain economy keeps even those who work for successful companies slightly off-balance. Doing more with less has become a way of life: fewer dollars, fewer employees, and what feels like fewer hours in the day (The only thing there seems to be more of is competition). And now that working virtually is de rigueur and globalization has truly taken hold, we must collaborate with people at the proverbial four corners of the Earth. It all adds up to anxiety overload and that can be deadly for an organization.

Helping your organization manage excessive, chronic anxiety is your No. 1 job, because it means ensuring that employees operate on principles rather than emotions. When people stay in low-grade panic mode, they can no longer think clearly, creatively, and flexibly. They make irrational decisions, and when irrational decisions start adding up, the company isn’t long for this world. (See the tip sheet below to find out if you work for an anxious organization.)

Of course, some anxiety in the workplace is normal and even desirable. It goes back to our primitive survival instincts. All organizations face internal and external threats, anxiety is an instinctive response to any threat to one’s survival, and when the natural chronic anxiety in an organization rises to an excessive level, employees become like a herd of stampeding wildebeests. They start operating on “fight or flight” instinct rather than thinking clearly, creatively, and in a flexible manner.

Furthermore, anxiety is contagious. To relieve your anxiety, you unwittingly pass it on to a co-worker. She passes it on to someone else, who passes it on to yet another employee. Before long, the entire organization is trapped in a cycle of anxiety that seems to have no clear starting point. All the while, the underlying cause goes unaddressed.

What happens next is rarely pretty. Perhaps the anxious employees succumb to group-think and run their company off the proverbial cliff. One person is singled out as a scapegoat, or employees can’t take the stress any longer and start leaving the company. People are commonly fired to solve the problem, which only reappears later with the new employee because the system that caused the problem hasn’t changed.

Dismal as this scenario sounds, there is some good news. Rather than accepting the cost of excessive anxiety as a way of life, you can change your organization for the better. It takes only one person—that could be you—to break the destructive cycle of anxiety. Here are my suggestions:

• Be a predictable leader. The least stressful companies to work for are those in which the rational system—the officially stated goals, values, policies, procedures, job roles, and so forth—is a fairly accurate description of what actually transpires on the average workday. This means that the rational system and the emotional system are reasonably well aligned. What the leaders of such companies have in common is their predictability. If you want to guess what the leader will do in any given situation, check out the company’s mission statement, current objectives, policy manuals, and reporting structure. The leader’s behavior is consistent with what the rational system of the company would lead you to expect. When there’s a conflict between the rational system of an organization and its emotional system, the latter will usually prevail. Employees tend to disregard the rational system when the emotional system contradicts it. They will, for instance, ignore their written job descriptions if the emotional system rewards them for doing something else, and disregard policies and procedures that conflict with the interpersonal ecology. The emotional system of an organization is more compelling than the rational system. People apprehend it with their entire bodies. It’s personal.
  
  
• Map the anxiety in your situation. Because anxiety feels uncomfortable, we tend to dilute the pain by passing it on to someone else. When you understand this mechanism, it’s possible to figure out where your anxiety originated. Draw a circle that represents you and other circles labeled with the names of those around you. Use arrows to indicate where anxiety is coming from and where it’s going. Interestingly, you may find that some of your anxiety is coming from a family member or even a figure from your childhood. Once you’ve mapped your anxiety, you can use the following techniques to help you defuse it.
  
  
• Learn to take an “I-position.” When you have to solve a problem, it’s tempting to worry about how your decision will affect the feelings of other people. Keep in mind that pleasing everyone is impossible, and that trying to control the reactions of other people is anxiety-driven behavior, which results only in more anxiety. To take an I-position you need to make a principle-based decision rather than one based on feelings and personalities. Taking an I-position may cause anxiety to rise temporarily, but in the long run the entire system will be able to calm down.
  
  
• Calm yourself with a six-second vacation. When you’re in a situation that makes you feel anxious, you must distance yourself from it before you can think clearly. If you’re in the middle of a meeting, conversation, or other incident that’s triggering your anxiety, try taking a six-second vacation:
  
  
  • Inhale for two seconds, sending the air to any part of your body, mind, or spirit; or you can direct it to a troubling idea, a present worry, a concern, or even a recurring theme.
    
  • Exhale for two seconds, releasing all muscle tension in your body, starting at the head and moving to the toes. Think of yourself as a boneless chicken.
    
  • Do nothing for two seconds.
    
    
• “Detriangle” yourself. Did you know that any relationship between two people seeks to stabilize itself by pulling in one or more third parties? This process is called “triangling.” Suppose you have a conflict with a co-worker (let’s call him Mike). Because the two of you can’t reach an agreement, anxiety builds up. You decide to draw in a third co-worker (let’s call her Mary) to get her on your side and relieve your anxiety. You have created a triangle—you and Mary against Mike. Triangles are perfectly natural, and they can sometimes create even more anxiety. The good news is that you can detriangle yourself. Here’s how:
  
  
  1. Look for the objective cause of the anxiety that has led to the creation of the triangle.
  2. Take sides on issues, not with people. Take an I-position and state it clearly.
  3. Maintain an independent one-on-one relationship with each of the other members of the triangle.
  
  
• Correct an overfunctioning or underfunctioning relationship. Overfunctioners take over responsibilities that belong to another person, and underfunctioners allow this to happen. It’s a reciprocal relationship—neither can exist without the other—and both parties are reacting to anxiety. Too much of this type of behavior is unhealthy for both people and for the organization as a whole. Fortunately, either party can break the cycle by taking the all-important I-position. If you are an overfunctioner, realize that you aren’t responsible for someone else’s success or failure. You cannot do his job for him, even if he’s a subordinate. If he fails, he fails (but he probably won’t). On the other hand, if you’re the underfunctioner in the relationship, your long-term passive approach serves to maintain the other person’s overfunctioning behaviors (micromanaging, controlling, etc.). Get clear on your responsibilities and take actions that will reverse the overfunctioning/underfunctioning cha-cha.
  

Of course, these tips represent only a few techniques. Because anxiety is a very complex phenomenon, many companies need professional help in identifying its many permutations and sorting out its root causes. But don’t despair. When you make an effort to rise above your own anxiety, you may start a ripple effect that transforms your entire organization.

I’m amazed by the power one person can possess, because everyone in an organization is connected—you can’t change your own behavior without changing the entire system. Sometimes these changes are subtle, sometimes profound. I had one client who learned to manage his own anxiety and as a result averted a strike, saved his company $6 million, and earned a major promotion.

Taking responsibility for yourself—giving up the need to blame or control others—requires tremendous courage, the stuff leaders are made of. When enough people are able to manage their anxiety and find this kind of courage, the formula for a stunningly successful organization is found.

About The Author

Jeffrey A. Miller

Jeffrey A. Miller, author of The Anxious Organization: Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things (Facts on Demand Press, 2008) has worked with countless anxious organizations during his career and has seen many of them come up with innovative and unexpected solutions to their problems. Through Jeffrey Miller + Associates he helps businesses attain key goals and objectives by increasing their organizational effectiveness. He has more that 20 years of experience as a family therapist, management consultant, and coach to top executives in corporate and not-for-profit settings. Miller has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in social work from Loyola University of Chicago. He has completed a two-year post-graduate program in human/natural systems theory and intervention, and is certified as a level III organizational engineer.