Many of the leaders I work with would not describe themselves or the teams they lead as anxious. The leaders I love to support are thoughtful, competent, compassionate, and centered.
And yet, we are leading in anxious times. In such times, leadership performance is challenged to rise to the next level.
In our anxious systems, we’ve got political tension. Technological acceleration. Economic unpredictability. Social fragmentation. Even if you and your team are steady, none of us is operating outside the wider nervous system of the culture. Anxiety does not need to be dramatic to be influential. It can be subtle.
Signs of it often show up in performance patterns:
- Reduced tolerance for ambiguity – People want certainty, quick answers, or rules even when a situation is complex.
- Heightened reactivity – Small frustrations trigger stronger-than-usual emotional responses.
- An urgency in tone – Emails, meetings, or decisions feel rushed even if there’s no actual deadline pressure.
No one names it as anxiety. But it underlies actions.
The question for leaders however is not: Is my team dysfunctional?
The question is: Where might anxiety be influencing leadership and decision-making?
Anxiety rarely announces itself directly. It leaks. It leaks into language, facial expression, and the timing of things. And because nervous systems are social, anxiety transmits.
The leaders I respect are aware of this at some level. They already know they influence the emotional field of their teams, so why wouldn’t the state of the world be impacting the workplace as well?
Here are three practices to consider to help strengthen your team’s culture, collaboration, and capacity to be more grounded – a non-anxious presence:
1. Separate Facts From Stories
Strong leaders distinguish between what is actually happening and the narrative forming around it. Instead of reacting to interpretations others might create, they slow down and ask questions like:
- What do we know for certain?
- What are we assuming?
- What is the impact versus the fear of impact?
This reduces unnecessary escalation. This also protects decision quality under pressure.
2. Listen for What’s Important Beneath the Surface
When a team member sounds stressed, regulated leaders become curious rather than corrective. They ask:
- What’s worrying you here?
- What feels at risk?
- What’s at the heart of the matter for you?
What can appear as rigidity in a team member is often unspoken anxiety. When concerns are surfaced, tensions can decrease because the unknown becomes known. We can do something about it then. Surfacing concerns early prevents distortion later.
3. Monitor Your Own Self-Regulation
Leaders who stabilize teams are attentive to small shifts in themselves:
- Is my voice tightening?
- Am I rushing this decision?
- Am I subtly signaling impatience?
They understand that tone often shapes culture more than policy. Composure is not a niceness (alone). It is performance capacity.
The Leadership Discipline
When anxiety is recognized, it can lose its intensity. When it is ignored, it often goes underground and resurfaces as a build up of small pinches that can eventually lead to a big crunch – the dissolution of a group or regrets about behaviour and actions.
Leading through anxious times is not about calming everyone down. The most steady leaders I know are not those who eliminate anxiety. They recognize it early, work with it skillfully, and prevent it from silently shaping the room.
Anxiety is part of being human. But it does not have to define our conversations or our cultures. It requires more than anything the ability to hold multiple realities without negating one another. That is collaborative leadership under pressure.
Leadership Practice for This Month: Map Multiple Perspectives
This month, try noticing and mapping different viewpoints in your team interactions:
During conversations, explicitly invite different viewpoints: “I’d like to hear how others see this.” Get curious about those you lead and consciously ask for input. It’s easy to simply state your own preferences and visions. Collaborative leadership under pressure requires a shift to inviting multiple perspectives.
Notice what emerges.
This simple practice can turn into a habit to prevent anxiety from influencing decisions, and can strengthen a team culture so differences are surfaced and worked with collaboratively.
