In my last blog I suggested that the when of leadership was key. I’d like to explore a little more what happens to leadership skills when leaders are under pressure.

Think about how you react under pressure. What happens to those around you? What do your team members do? Do any of these responses sound familiar?

• Does the charm adopt a nasty edge?
• Does being authoritative turn into bullying?
• Is there avoidance?
• An inauthentic acquiescence?

When faced with all sorts of pressures it seems that the instinctive human response often does not bring out our best features. The base “fight or flight@ instinct is strong and whilst in organisations this is usually (hopefully) a metaphorical expression this does not make the impact any less.

So what is happening to us, as leaders, when we are in this situation? When we feel so under pressure and threatened that we revert to our survival brain? The main response is that we stop listening. Sometimes almost literally our ability to hear is lost. And certainly our ability to do any critical analysis, to learn and to act on that learning.

And of course the irony is that in a pressure situation is when you need to most be aware of the learning around you, connected with your colleagues and team mates and pro-actively turning the learning and connections in action to move things forward.