Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellovaldo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven point thirty two. Today we're talking about
Speaker 2: something that every leader has experienced, but not everyone has
Speaker 2: had the courage to examine closely. And that's this. The
Speaker 2: way you make decisions under stress is not the same
Speaker 2: as the way you make decisions when things are calm,
Speaker 2: and that gap, that gap can define your leadership. So
Speaker 2: let me paint a picture for you. You're a leader.
Speaker 2: You've got a team to manage, goals to hit, a
Speaker 2: boss asking questions, and maybe a few fires burning. At
Speaker 2: the same time. Things are tight. Maybe it's a budget crunch,
Speaker 2: maybe there's a personnel issue, maybe a key client just walked,
Speaker 2: and in that moment, you have to make strategic decisions,
Speaker 2: real ones, ones that matter. Here's what most leaders don't realize.
Speaker 2: Stress doesn't just make you tired. It actually changes how
Speaker 2: your brain processes information. Under pressure, your brain shifts into
Speaker 2: a kind of survival mode. It narrows your focus, it
Speaker 2: gravitates towards familiar patterns. It wants a quick answer, not
Speaker 2: a good one, and that is completely natural, But it
Speaker 2: is also completely dangerous when you're in a leadership role.
Speaker 2: Strategy at its core requires the opposite of what stress produces.
Speaker 2: Good strategy needs wide vision, it needs patience. It needs
Speaker 2: the ability to hold two competing ideas at the same
Speaker 2: time and figure out which one serves the long game.
Speaker 2: Stress compresses all of that. It makes the urgent feel
Speaker 2: important and the important feel optional. So what does strategy
Speaker 2: under stress actually look like? Honestly, it often looks like
Speaker 2: reaction dressed up as decision making. It looks like choosing
Speaker 2: the path of least resistance and calling it pragmatic. It
Speaker 2: looks like doubling down on what's always worked, even when
Speaker 2: the situation clearly calls for something different. And sometimes, and
Speaker 2: this one is important, it looks like not making a
Speaker 2: decision at all and hoping the problem resolves itself. None
Speaker 2: of those are strategy. They're just stress with a title. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to be clear, I'm not here to tell
Speaker 2: you that you should never feel stress, or that great
Speaker 2: leaders don't get rattled. That's not real. Every leader I've
Speaker 2: ever met or studied has had moments where the pressure
Speaker 2: got to them. What separates the good ones isn't that
Speaker 2: they feel less stressed. It's that they've built habits and
Speaker 2: practices that protect their thinking when stress is highest. Here
Speaker 2: are three things that actually work. The first one is
Speaker 2: to create a pause ritual. Before you make any significant
Speaker 2: decision under pressure. You build in a moment, even a
Speaker 2: small one, where you stop and ask yourself, am I
Speaker 2: thinking clearly right now? Or am I reacting? It sounds simple,
Speaker 2: but most leaders skip this entirely. Just naming the state
Speaker 2: you're in can interrupt the automatic response. Even sixty seconds
Speaker 2: of deliberate breathing or stepping away from the conversation can
Speaker 2: shift your brain out of that narrow, reactive mode. The
Speaker 2: second thing is to keep your strategic anchors visible. These
Speaker 2: are your core goals, your team's priorities, your non negotiables.
Speaker 2: When stress hits, leaders tend to lose sight of the
Speaker 2: bigger picture because everything feels urgent. If your strategic anchors
Speaker 2: are written down somewhere, you can actually see them on
Speaker 2: your desk, on your phone, wherever. They act as a
Speaker 2: check before you act, you look at them and ask,
Speaker 2: does this decision move us toward what actually matters, or
Speaker 2: am I just reacting to the noise. The third thing
Speaker 2: is to build a small circle of honest voices, not
Speaker 2: yes people, not people who are also stressed about the
Speaker 2: same thing you're stressed about. I mean one or two
Speaker 2: people in your world who will tell you the truth
Speaker 2: when you're thinking is off, a mentor a peer, trusted colleague.
Speaker 2: Stress is isolating. Leaders tend to pull inward when the
Speaker 2: pressure mounts, and that's exactly when outside perspectives matter them most.
Speaker 2: Give yourself permission to say, Hey, I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of something hard. Can you help me think through this?
Speaker 2: Here's the bigger idea I want to leave you with
Speaker 2: before we close. Your team is watching how you lead
Speaker 2: under stress more closely than they watch anything else. They
Speaker 2: don't just want to see your strategy when things are easy.
Speaker 2: They need to know. They need to believe that when
Speaker 2: things get hard, you're still thinking. You're still intentional. You
Speaker 2: haven't abandoned the plan just because the plan got uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: That kind of leadership doesn't happen by accident. It happens
Speaker 2: because you've taken the time to understand how you personally
Speaker 2: show up under pressure. And you've put guardrails in place
Speaker 2: to protect your decision making when it matters the most.
Speaker 2: Strategy under stress looks different, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: look worse. The leaders who earn real trust aren't the
Speaker 2: ones who never struggle. They're the ones who struggle and
Speaker 2: still choose to be thoughtful. That's the standard worth chasing.
Speaker 2: Take some time this week to think about one recent
Speaker 2: decision you made under pressure. Was it strategic or was
Speaker 2: it reactive? You don't have to beat yourself up about it,
Speaker 2: just look at it honestly, because that's where growth starts.
Speaker 2: This has been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
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