Identifying how pressure occurs and can affect our ability to perform
Everyone is busy nowadays. While this is intrinsically a good thing, many situations develop in which this busy-ness turns negative and results in stress. This hinders development and positive leadership. So what can we do?
There are two main issues that we need to look at. First, we are all faced by what I term the "overwhelming demands of the situation". We live in a world where we have dozens of checklists and things we have to get through.
And it is not that there is simply too much to do. If it were, it would just be the age-old problem of setting priorities. It is more than that. People are overwhelmed by demands that are not seemingly linked in a meaningful way.
The second aspect is what I call "insurmountable constraints"; there are too many constraints on people. While, clearly, compliance systems should not be dismantled, human beings behave in a particular way when they see constraints. They start to imagine all sorts of other (problems). And that affects their psychology and energy. The result of insurmountable constraints is that we are becoming increasingly de-energised.
These two factors - this loss of energy combined with the overwhelming demands, the lack of focus, the fragmentation - leads to a loss of leadership in organisations. The inability to focus on the job at hand means we are missing out on unexplored choices.
There are many stress sources in an organisation: excess uncertainty, personal conflicts, or goals that are competing with other people or expectations. It can also be personal life changes. When anxiety and its natural push stop being useful and start converting into what we call stress. This stress transforms into a vicious cycle.
So how does the mind work when it is faced with these sorts of things? Much like a computer screen, it becomes fixated, and gets caught, crashes. We start focusing on just one or two details that are not helpful.
As a result we miss information, nuances, and enter a phase of "selective perception". We lose any form of creativity. Our moods and emotions become uncontrollable to us.
In the end, we start relying on patterns and routines. We become impulsive in our decision-making and consult others less. This leads to more problems for the organisation. It is not leadership.
