During my marketing years, I have had NPDs rejected by the trade, I have had to deal with the wrong barcode printed on the freshly printed packaging of a new product about to be launched, I have had to present my plans and manage difficult questions from the Group Management of a multinational who sometimes didn’t agree at all with the recommendations or spotted mistakes in my plan (note to self: wearing turtle necks in the appropriate season helped me not show I was getting all red!). At times, I removed myself from it all to just be the toughest judge of myself on earth, at other times, I stopped being the friendly Mags people knew as I kept convos to the minimum and even stopped smiling and probably became a little short without intending to!

Speaking of self-control….

So how do you adjust to challenging situations in the work place? How to you manage self-control? When you get angry or frustrated by a situation, a comment made by someone, are you steady under pressure or do you get sensitive and critical (to self and / or others)?

Being able to adjust to stressful situations that arise is a key skill to develop as a leader. Every challenge coming at you is a great opportunity to boost your growth. In fact, I’d even wish you many tough challenges at work, because that’s the antidote to immobilism and development stagnation. And that IS truly awful. You can work consciously on this scale:

On one end we’ve got you self-critical, very tense, quite irritable and short, negative. On the opposite end we’d have you be confident, resilient and fairly optimistic.

Where do you currently stand when it comes to how steady you are in the face of pressure?

Storm or calm in stressful situations

Your ability to deal with pressure and conflictual situations is an essential skill to develop as a leader. Challenges are part of any business, and for a good reason as they are a catalyst to improvement and forward-movement.  

When under pressure, you might be frustrated or even annoyed – you would typically physically be closed up, be tense, you might even be short when people ask you a favour or say something to you because your cup is simply full. There would be no reason to be like that towards people other than you struggling with composure in relation to this situation (e.g. a market research result that’s come back very negative, forcing you to go back to the drawing board, a product recall due to a production issue, the wrong barcode printed on the back of pack, a delay in the shipment of raw material that is impacting the launch of an NPD….)

 Some of us even tend to be hostile towards others or critical of them, when under pressure. The big watch-out here is how this impacts relationship in the long term, especially when on repeat. The more hostile to people you’ll unexpectedly be, the less reliable people will find you. A highly damaging behaviour in the long run, which can be stopped when working consciously on the reason why you feel that way and what made you react like so to the trigger in the first place.

Why does it matter?

Simply because your team is looking to you as a role model of how to behave and react to situations. They are expecting you to share advices, tips and techniques with them on how to tackle these types of stressful situations – which are inevitable.

 Think of all the great leaders you have worked for or along with. How would you describe their posture in the face of pressure and stressful situations? How about the not so good leaders? What lessons can they teach us when it comes to the behaviour they displayed that either provoked more stress in their team, them being critical of others and pointing their fingers at you? What was the short term and long term impact of it?

Great, so how do we avoid ugly behaviours under pressure?

It’s really quite normal to have a few things that are triggering you, even though you usually have a rather composed posture under pressure.

The key when you feel the frustration surfacing, is to spend time to identify what were the things that set you off, so you can anticipate them in the future and remain calm under pressure. Then, and only then, will you be able to see the reality of the situation more calmy and with more perspectives, and therefore be in a position to choose the best behaviour to adopt.

A quick self-reflection exercise

Pick one situation where you were frustrated.

1. Write down how you were feeling (try to write a few of these feelings, use the emotion wheel below to help you pick the right ones)
2. Make a list of the thoughts that went through your head – there could be judgement (“they never help me”, “it always happens”, “I can never get this right”, “They must think I’m incompetent”, “I think they’re stupid”)
3. What behaviour did you display when tackling this stressful situation?
4. What were the impacts of this reaction on you? What about on others?
5. How would you like to behave / react next time this happens?

The more you self-reflect, the easier it’ll be to spot what often triggers you, as you’ll notice a clear pattern. It then becomes easier to choose the right attitude and behaviour next time these triggers surface. The big secret to leadership skills development resides in practising and practising – exactly like training for a marathon. You can’t expect to excel at it nor cross the finish line if you don’t go through regular practice.

15 min of practice a day keeps the ugly leadership away!

💡I provide 121 coaching, and if you wanted to have more details about it / how it works, or how to move from 3 to 5, you can book a free call with me here.

Speak soon!

Mags, your ex-Marketer and now Leadership Coach

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