Scenario:

Director leading a cross-functional team of 50 located across two regions (New York, San Francisco).

Presenting issue(s): sleep loss, high anxiety

“I’ve been at the company four years in good standing and on the rise. Recently, I was recently promoted to a management role. My scope of responsibility and team increased by 50%. I have a good relationship with my manager. While he doesn’t provide very instructional feedback, I value his ability to objectively analyze a situation.

I’ve worked hard to achieve harmony and high-performance on my team. As part of my scope increase, I inherited an extremely disruptive engineer and I need strategies on how to manage him more effectively while I move the rest of the group forward.”

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Starting with the question of “where will Anxiety appear today?” never fails to provide initial direction for both client and coach. Anxiety is an early-warning device that alerts the system to counter with some sort of coping mechanism, often some form of fight or flight.

In this case, the client’s lopsidedness showed itself in his dynamic with an employee joining his team. The client, whom we’ll name Brian, is thrown off balance by his own reactivity. Others witnessing his reactivity were also thrown off balance. These are the rippling effects behavior can have.

As a result, Brian’s thinking became narrow. His creativity in thinking through solutions and alternative responses to dealing with the new team member, whom we’ll name Chuck, went down. Instead of successfully navigating around barriers, both Brian and Chuck became stuck and felt vulnerable.

Key Concept: Anxiety Triangles

At the center of our systems web, we sit with our challenges and opportunities. Sometimes we can manage the pressure as we negotiate the space in between. Other times we seek relief. A common challenge at the individual level is managing anxiety. Feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, and frustration—among others—can take us farther from gaining a feel for our work.

In low-stress situations, talented leaders with low anxiety meet most challenges well and can accomplish two primary aspects of leadership: 1) take clear stands on issues, while at the same time 2) remaining connected to the people who report to them. This looks something like the diagram below.

When pressures intensify, and the leader’s reactivity to the challenge escalates, more internal tension is created. Anxiety reaches a level where the person is flooded with emotion (frustration, fear, anger, irritation, boredom, disappointment, sadness, etc.).

When someone is flooded, their normal responses are overwhelmed, reducing their ability to take clear positions, make thoughtful decisions, stay connected to the team, or both. Anxiety looks something like this diagram.

Now we have a distinction between a “clear” connection with challenge, and a connection that contains some level of “static.” How do we determine if Brian is falling into reactivity versus a response? There is a strong cocktail of thoughts, feelings, and desires that sound something like:

“I don’t know what to do now.”
“Can’t he just do what I need him to do.”
“I can no longer determine what I need to do first, when it comes to this particular issue.”
“If he knew what I was really up against, he’d stop being so difficult.”
“I’m looking for a single-answer solution (move him out of the group, fire him, etc.).”
“I’m alone in this.”
“I’ve been let down. How did this person make it this far in the organization? Why do I always have to step up and take care of things?”

These sentiments are a few of many examples of someone in the throes of reactive thinking. When we are overwhelmed, we lose connection to our inner resolve and resilience. These kinds of statements hint at a client’s disconnection from themselves (due to overwhelm).

Triangles: Who owns the anxiety?

Anxiety, like any feeling, is comprised of energy. It can move through us and around a room faster than a brush fire. When we face anxiety our first response is to seek an outlet to relieve ourselves of this feeling. There are healthy, constructive triangles and there are unhealthy, unconstructive triangles. Seeking guidance from a manager, mentor or coach is constructive. Gossiping to peers is unconstructive.

Here are a few examples of triangles we have likely experienced in our lives:

Individuals form triangles under stress. And, we scan for stress every five seconds. So, we are always in a triangle for some reason or other. Brian, the senior director is anxious because he feels challenged by Chuck, an engineer he has inherited as part of a reorganization. Chuck was against the reorg and believes himself to be Brian’s peer. Chuck is engaging in toxic gossip to undermine Brian, and not doing his work. Brian is disturbed about the relationship he has with Chuck and the new demands of his role. To relieve his anxiety, Brian turns to his manager who recommends he speak with a coach.

Brian could triangle others into his relationship with Chuck constructively and unconstructively. Some possibilities include:

Brian could vent to one of his directs about Chuck. He might leave a meeting shaking his head: “Can you believe the lack of accountability Chuck had in that meeting? He thinks he has a shot at getting promoted!”
Brian could create an alliance with a peer by turning them against Chuck. He says to his peer: “I worked with Chuck in the past and never experienced the kind of attitude and lack of responsibility he’s displayed in this role. He’s smart, but in the long run, I’m not sure this environment is the best fit for him.”
Brian could go to human resources (HR) and to help Chuck become more effective working with others and being more effective in his role: “Chuck lacks accountability needed at his level in the organization. Can you help him find a coaching resource so he can benefit from feedback from others in his group as well as his stakeholders? We’ve gone back and forth on this issue and we’re not getting anywhere.”

Sound familiar? The first two examples illustrate how we can react to anxiety and try to cast it off onto someone else, get rid of it, pass it on to someone else to process, or even hide from it. Not very effective. The anxiety is still present and unresolved. The real challenge is finding the courage to confront the situation directly and discover what is required from him as a leader, align it to the business’s needs and determine a considered response.

Distraction by Triangle

When leaders react, it causes ripples of reaction in other parts of the organization. Reactivity can show up in requests, rules, policies, demands, or gossip. Reactions tend to drain a system of energy and creative problem-solving. Here is what happens with Brian.

Before speaking with his coach, Brian, vents within his directs team. Chuck has already been spreading gossip so some of this venting feels like it’s attempting to tap down small fires. Brian eludes to Chuck as challenging to hold to account—something everyone feels (triangle 1). Brian’s team has also seen this behavior and is generally upset about the reorg; they didn’t want this team in the first place and feels like the group is growing too quickly. They sympathize with Brian and acknowledge several challenges Brian is facing given his visibility to the CEO. After the meeting, the different groups engage in the gossip grapevine. It feeds the team’s anxiety about their own sense of job security. Gossip also ignites resentment about having to change technology platforms and increases speculation that Brian could do more to toe the line with Chuck (and potentially others).

How a Coach Can Help

A coach’s primary goal in helping Brian is to engage in forming a healthy triangle. Giving Brian’s anxiety a no-consequence area to hang out while he thinks through what to do helps Brian understand and confront his own reactions. With space to untangle himself from his circumstances, he can get back to a neutral equilibrium and engage his innate creativity in thinking through solutions.