Imagine something powerful enough to…
- Keep you rooted where you are.
- Keep you focused inwardly vs. on your stakeholders and who you can serve.
- Push you to believe suppositions rather than facts.
- Keep you future-focused vs. grounded in the here and now.
Wanna hazard a guess as to what it is? If you guessed anxiety, you’d be right. And these are just a few examples of what it can look like when we let anxiety run the show.
In today’s work environment world, there is no shortage of reasons we might be anxious. Some of us are also naturally wired that way. 🙋🏻♀️ It can be paralyzing and all-consuming. So it’s not surprising that so many of us try to run from it.
Years ago, I worked with a leader who, out of the blue, started to freeze up in a leadership meeting. But it was only one meeting in particular that seemed to cause the reaction in her. She would get flushed. Feel intense knots in her stomach. And sometimes lose the ability to speak.
Despite focusing several coaching sessions on it, she could not identify what was different about this one meeting, why this was happening, or what to do about it. (And trust me, I tried every tool in my toolbox!)
Because she could anticipate this response, she was afraid of the anxiety and resisted it at every turn. And since anxiety is a consistent little bugger, she found herself with that inward focus, paralyzed, and with thoughts that were grounded in nothing tangible or ‘real.’
But what if we viewed anxiety as fuel vs. something to be feared?
I once heard David Rosmarin speak on befriending anxiety, and he offered this reframe, which I found helpful. Because it turns out, anxiety has many benefits. Here’s what I wish I’d had insight into when I was working with that client:
According to Rosmarin, a Harvard psychologist, anxiety can sharpen our awareness because it signals to us that we have to ‘do something’ or ‘perform.’ In this way, we become more attuned to our words, actions, body language, etc. He calls this ‘exposure therapy’.
Another benefit that I had not considered but that makes total sense is that if we can embrace the anxiety and allow ourselves to be (appropriately) vulnerable, it can help us strengthen teams by enabling us to connect with others in a very human way. (Which means, it’s ok to not have all the answers and it’s ok to let the team know this.)
If you’re going to hold a leadership role, you’re not going to escape the occasional late night, mad dash preparation for a big presentation or project launch. You will feel nervous and probably uncomfortable. Here again, if you can learn to tolerate the discomfort anxiety brings, and leverage it, you can use the energy to surge you forward.
Finally, how we approach someone else’s anxiety can also strengthen our leadership. What we resist, persists. So, trying to sweep someone else’s anxiety under the rug diminishes our leadership. Rosmarin suggests that we can support people through validating their experience and praising them for what they’re doing well.
Remember, from a physiological standpoint, anxiety and excitement are two sides of the same coin – butterflies in the stomach, dry mouth, racing heart, etc. So heads or tails, it’s your choice.
