The key to good leadership is that you need to be able to manage your stress and pressure because the way that you respond to stress will actually affect your team and your ability to achieve your goals. Here are four tips on how you can lead more effectively under pressure.
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Pressure is part of the game as a leader. If you are not experiencing pressure in your leadership, I would be questioning whether you’re actually pushing yourself to the limits of what you’re capable of as a leader, or maybe you just don’t recognize it. The reality is most leaders have times in their leadership where they are under intense pressure. It could be because of deadlines, difficult staff members, a lack of resources, or any number of other challenges that can cause you to feel stressed and under pressure. You’ll never totally eliminate stress from your leadership but you can manage it to minimize the potential consequences. The key to good leadership is that you need to be able to manage your stress well.
The simple truth is the way you respond to stress will have an impact on your team and your outcomes. If you respond badly to stress and let that spill out onto your team then that will affect the motivation of your team. It affects productivity and it makes them less willing to work with you.
When you can’t handle your stress you also become reactive in your decision-making and problem-solving which tends to lead to greater challenges down the line.
So how do we manage stress more effectively?
1. Manage your expectations
You need to manage your expectations. One of the things I learned early on as a leader is I have a much higher expectation of my team and of myself that is perhaps realistic. As a leader often you’re the expert in the room, you understand the problems faster and better than anybody else. You cant expect your team to get there as quickly as you do. The problem is many times your team is developing. They are new to the job or not as experienced as you so they won’t see the problem as quickly as you.
They won’t respond as quickly as you and you’ve got to manage that gap between your expectation and their ability. Don’t get angry and stressed about team members that don’t perform at the level of your expectation. Ask yourself about the gap. It may be that you need to do some training with them if they have not been provided with the right level of support. Maybe you’re putting them into a job that they’re not equipped for or experienced in, and setting them up for failure. Perhaps, you’ve failed to provide sufficient resources for the task that you have assigned or you’ve got unrealistic expectations fo what’s possible. These all come back to you. There is no point getting frustrated with your team if you haven’t first analyzed the root cause of the frustration and checked if, in-fact, it is the expectations gap that is causing your stress.
2. Let go of Perfectionism
My second tip is to let go of perfectionism. One of the problems with leaders who are perfectionists is they can raise their expectations so high that it’s unrealistic for everybody else including the leader. They put themselves under so much pressure and intensity that they never get anything done. They’re always going for perfection and so they’re always stressed and under pressure.
Well here’s the reality, “perfect” doesn’t exist but excellence does. Excellence says we will do our very best with the resources and the people that we have right now and we will continue to look for ways to improve. You have to learn to substitute perfection for excellence. Perfectionism is a slippery slope that will only cause more stress for you and your team. You will never attain the lofty heights of perfectionism. Encourage your team to go for excellence. Ask them the question, is this the best we can do with what we have, is there a way that we can improve it for next time? Ask yourself that question too, can I be happy with good enough?
There comes a point where you’ve got to say, you know what, I’ve done everything I can. I need to put this to market and get this out, I need to be done with this project. You’ve got to know where that good enough line is. You’ve got to be able to say “ok maybe it’s not perfect but it’s good enough, we’re going to go with it and then we’re going to keep improving”.
This is why software developers have updates because they never get it perfect the first time. They put out the beta and they test it, they know that it works, they get it out there and then as they go they find flaws. They improve on the flaws as they go. If software developers didn’t operate like this and instead were perfectionist then nothing would ever come to market. They would constantly be trying to find the flaws and constantly trying to improve it before anybody has had a chance to test it. Make sure you let go of perfectionism and go for excellence instead.
3. Create Clear Goals and Boundaries.
The third thing to do to manage pressure is this you need to create very clear goals, expectations and boundaries. If you as a leader haven’t communicated clearly for your team where you’re going, how you’re getting there and what it will look like when you get there, then your team’s going to work to their own expectations and that will frustrate you. You will find that you have more disunity or confusion in the team because everybody’s trying to do it their way.
I used to work for a leader who never really knew what he wanted. He just knew what he didn’t want. He would come in after we’d finished a project and say I don’t like it. Now if you asked him what is it that you would like us to change he didn’t know. He would say things like I don’t know, I just don’t like it, find a solution and fix it. That’s really confusing for a team. It’s really hard to work with leaders like that.
If you’re not clear about where you’re going, how is your team going to know? All you do when you keep everyone guessing is cause more stress and pressure for your team which in turn sets you set up for frustration and stress. Set clear goals boundaries and expectations for your team and you will have less stress and pressure.
4. Create Margin
The final thing is this, You need to create margin in whatever you do. You need to create some room for breathing, you need to create room for blowouts. What if you don’t get it done on time? Have you created a margin so that you can keep working on it until its done? or are you pushing your team down to the wire? Are your projects so backed up that it ends up burning out your team? YOu’re only hurting yourself if you operate like that. If you burning up your team, you’ll have to constantly replace them and you’ll struggle to retain quality team members.
Create margin for your team. Give them opportunities to be able to have days where they just interact as a team and build relationships. Don’t just always be about the work. You’ve got to create some space and some margin. You will find that when you are under pressure the team will rise to the occasion. They will handle the stress more effectively and you will have a more cohesive team. Everyone will be less likely to burn out including you as a leader.
You also need to create margin for yourself. When you operate with margin in your personal or working life what you’ll find is you are less stressed. You feel less pressure. Create margin in your time so when you’re scheduling make sure you leave gaps. Then you will have some time to transition between appointments, meetings, or whatever it might be. Create margin in your personal life, for your family, or for recreational activity. Take time for exercise and rest. You’ll be better for it and the pressure of leadership will not feel so overwhelming.
You can’t escape stress and pressure as a leader but you can manage it. So take the time to start implementing these four tips:
- Manage your expectations
- Let go of perfectionism
- Set clear goals and boundaries
- Creat margin
Thanks so much for reading this blog, I hope you got a ton of value out of that episode don’t forget to let us know what you thought in the comments and if you have a topic you’d like us to cover next time, we’d love to hear from you.
If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.
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