Leadership Pressure Is a Privilege. (#221)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
In 2023, we attended the US Open Tennis finals and discovered the saying that each player sees before walking onto the court: Pressure is a privilege. When embraced, it is one of the most powerful reframes of all time. Here’s why.
“Pressure is a privilege”
― Billie Jean King (American tennis champion)
This Week’s Edition
Feeling a sense of pressure, whether from other people or (more importantly) from yourself, means that you are being faced with an opportunity.
Clarify Your Thinking
In 2023, Novak Djokovic was attempting to win his 24th Grand Slam title, and Coco Gauff was striving for her 1st. The pressure of expectation for each could not have been greater.
Pressure is often associated with discomfort and used interchangeably with stress. Most don’t like stress, because it makes us feel, well, um…stressed!
We’ll craft elaborate workarounds to avoid anything uncomfortable. This plays itself out in our leadership efforts as we face difficulties. See if any of these thoughts have crossed your mind:
- I’ll make those business development calls next week.
- If it happens again, then I’ll have that hard conversation.
- I’ll start that challenging project tomorrow.
Old Thinking: Pressure is bad. It makes me stressed. I’ll avoid it. Things will resolve themselves. If they don’t, I’ll deal with them some other time.
New Thinking: I’m tired of not facing the things I’m supposed to handle. What am I afraid of? The pain of not addressing the hard things is now more painful than just dealing with them directly.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
Because pressure can be painful, it’s natural that we would attempt to avoid it. So, the concept that pressure is a privilege is a seismic shift in traditional thinking. For leaders who can make that mental shift, they’ll experience a radically different success trajectory.
It’s important to note that pressure and stress are not, in fact, the same. One is the cause, and the other is the effect. This distinction is the key to reframing our leadership thinking:
- Pressure is an external force, something beyond our control.
- Stress is our internal reaction, something within our control.
While we can’t control what happens to us, we can control how we respond. We can choose to believe that the pressure we are experiencing is enveloping an opportunity, an invitation to greatness.
As leaders, if we are experiencing pressure, chances are high that we are doing something that is:
- Outside our comfort zone – the proximate learning zone
- New – innovative and not the status quo
- Never been done before – pioneering
If we allow pressure to result in stressful thinking, we might hamper our performance and fail to achieve the result we want. We don’t perform our best when we are stressed.
This reframed thinking is powerful. It works…Djokovic won his 24th title, and Gauff won her 1st. It’s not reserved for professional athletes. As a professional leader, it can work for you too.
Boost Your Performance
Watch this week’s video to understand how pressure is a privilege.
What’s Your Opinion?
What pressure are you experiencing that can now be seen as a privilege? Let me know: robin.pou@robinpou.com
If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!
Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist
We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders.
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What is “The Confident Leader”?
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.
