Hi!
This week we’ve been exploring the impact that stress has on both you and your team and how Leading with Heart can help.
In the UK, Stress Awareness Week is from the 3rd to 7th November and National Stress Awareness Day, is on the 5th.
Both are run by the International Stress Management Association and are marked by workplaces focusing on wellbeing, resilience, and mental health.
It’s timely, because tomorrow Rox and Liz will be speaking at Reframe 2025, a DEI and wellbeing event hosted by the APA (Advertising Producers Association). Liz is taking part in a panel - Who’s Really Thriving in Your Workplace and Who’s Just Surviving? - and Rox will be facilitating a workshop - Leading with Heart: Stress & Leadership Management.
In Leading with Heart, we talk about leadership as a practice that brings together three essential pillars. Each pillar holds a polarity - two strengths that need to be in flow with each other. Stress often arises when that flow gets blocked. When we overplay one side or the other, it creates stress for us as leaders and also for the systems in which we operate.
Pillar 1 - Authenticity: leading with vulnerability and boundaries
When vulnerability is overplayed, leaders over share with the team creating uncertainty in the system. Or they may absorb the team’s anxiety and lose authority. When boundaries are overplayed, they shut down connection and consideration for our true humanity. In both cases, the system feels unsafe and stressed because it can’t read the emotional temperature.
Pillar 2 - Consciousness: leading with self-awareness and decisiveness
When self-awareness is overplayed, leaders slow down, navel gaze and second-guess. When decisiveness is overplayed, they act without reflection. Either way, the system experiences tension from uncertainty or reactivity instead of calm, confident direction.
Pillar 3 - Connection: leading with empathy, compassion and accountability.
When pressure rises, leaders often reach for what they know best. For some, that’s getting things done - we double down on accountability, tighten control, push harder. For others it's empathy - we sit with people’s struggle, absorb it, and reduce our demands accordingly. What happens in many systems is that we swing between the two - firstly taking on everyone’s stress, softening boundaries and absorbing emotion, then swinging to nailing accountability and being unforgiving around deadlines. Neither extreme is sustainable. And stress arises in a system when these polarities are not balanced.
When all these elements are out of balance, we either drown in care or drive people into burnout. The work isn’t to choose one or the other, it’s to notice how they feel in your body, your relationships, and your system.
A few reflection questions to deepen that awareness:
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When I’m under pressure, which side do I tend to overplay, e.g. empathy or accountability?
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What does that feel like in me? How does my team experience it?
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What are the early warning signs that I’m out of balance?
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What helps me return to the “AND” space where both can coexist?
We’ve been using movement, dialogue and reflection to help leaders feel these dynamics rather than simply discuss them. Because sustainable leadership isn’t about eliminating stress, it’s about recognising when we’ve tipped out of flow and finding our way back.
Here are our six takeaways for Leading with Heart under stress for you to bring to your workplace:
- Pause before you react. Ask, “What’s needed here? How can I bring empathy and accountability? Vulnerability and boundaries? Self-awareness and decisiveness?
- Listen without rescuing. When someone’s struggling, resist jumping straight to fixing. Offer support that builds ownership. Show belief in others’ ability to handle challenge.
- Hold people capable, not fragile. Combine belief with stretch. Perhaps this is “I know this is challenging, and I trust you can do it. What will help you get there?”
- Be clear about what success looks like. Unclear expectations fuel stress. Clarity is a form of care.
- Protect recovery time for you and your team. Recovery sustains performance. We're learning more and more about the cognitive demands of moving from intense focus on one activity to intense focus on another and the need to transition well, and to recover.
- Make stress discussable. Bring it into the open before it becomes burnout. This could be starting meetings with a quick “pressure check”, e.g. red/amber/green. Normalise talking about capacity and load early, not when people break.
Stress is a byproduct of modern working life, but it doesn’t have to lead to burnout. What are you doing in your organisation to lead with heart when it comes to managing stress?
Team THC x