The Leadership Pressure Cooker: Taming the Top Triggers
You're a leader. You wear a confident facade, but beneath the surface, a simmering pot of emotions churns. Deadlines loom, expectations weigh heavy, and sometimes, even the most seasoned leader can feel triggered.
We all have triggers – those hot-button issues that send our emotions into overdrive. But for leaders, these triggers can have a significant impact on decision-making, team dynamics, and overall effectiveness.
Top Leadership Triggers
Triggers come in different forms for different leaders. Explore the different ways a trigger can show up in leadership to better understand how they effect you the most. Here are the top five triggers leaders experience, and how to keep them from boiling over:
Micromanagement Mania
The Trigger: A team member makes a mistake.
Your Reaction: The urge to swoop in and take control.
The Smarter Move: Take a breath. Trust your team's capabilities. Use this as a coaching opportunity, providing guidance without micromanaging.
The Blame Game
The Trigger: Something goes wrong.
Your Reaction: The finger-pointing starts.
The Smarter Move: Focus on solutions, not fault. Lead a collaborative problem-solving discussion to identify the root cause and prevent future issues.
The Approval Seeker
The Trigger: A stakeholder expresses doubt.
Your Reaction: You scramble to win back their approval.
The Smarter Move: Be confident in your decisions. Address concerns directly with data and reasoning, while remaining open to constructive feedback.
The Perfectionist Trap
The Trigger: A project falls short of your ideal vision.
Your Reaction: Disappointment and self-criticism.
The Smarter Move: Acknowledge room for improvement, but celebrate progress too. Focus on learning from the experience and moving forward.
The Burnout Blues
The Trigger: You're constantly swamped and exhausted.
Your Reaction: Pushing yourself even harder to keep up.
The Smarter Move: Prioritize your well-being. Delegate tasks, set boundaries, and schedule time for rest and rejuvenation. A healthy leader is a more effective leader.
How to Manage Your Triggers
Thankfully, triggers are something we can learn to handle. To start having a better handle on your leadership triggers, focus on the following point.
Self-awareness is key
Identify your personal triggers and how they manifest in your behavior.
Develop coping mechanisms
Practice relaxation techniques like deep breathing or meditation to manage your emotional response in the moment.
Seek support
Talk to a trusted mentor, coach, or therapist about your challenges.
Reframe your thinking
Challenge negative self-talk and focus on empowering mantras that build resilience.
Remember, being triggered doesn't make you a bad leader. It's how you respond that defines you. By understanding your triggers and developing healthy coping mechanisms, you can become a more self-aware and emotionally intelligent leader, fostering a positive and productive work environment for yourself and your team.
Leadership Practice
Think back to a time when pressure got the better of you. How did you react? How would you have preferred to react? Do you see any patterns in how you operate under pressure? Take time now to identify what you could do differently in the future knowing your triggers and patterns. If you are unsure how you react, you may want to ask a trusted colleague what they notice so that you have objective feedback.
About Athena
Athena Williams, Founder and CEO of Tenacious Leadership Institute, has been supporting leaders worldwide to become more tenacious for over 20 years. She has found that tenacity is the key to sustained leadership success in today’s ever-changing world. Through her coaching and leadership development programs, she helps leaders expertly handle change, complexity and other challenges so they can quickly get better results for themselves, their teams and their organizations. Take the first step to becoming a tenacious leader by scheduling a call with us.
