Fight, flight, freeze – the moment your brain blocks
As leaders, we often face many major challenges at the same time. We have a lot on our plate and the impact of every decision seems significant. Stress increases and cortisol and adrenaline levels therefore rise sky-high.
As a result, I see many leaders freeze, no longer able to think clearly and no longer able to make any decisions. Stress has a negative impact on cognitive functions such as concentration, memory and problem-solving ability, and can lead to tunnel vision. As a result, you end up in reactive ad hoc mode and no longer get to a moment of reflection or your own work.
In freeze mode, you also cannot learn, the literature tells us. Only your brainstem and emotional brain are active then, and they cannot think. By recognizing that, you can learn a great deal about your fear and stress mechanism and learn to adjust it. You can learn to manage your emotions and keep your thinking brain in action. You can make a choice: take action, make decisions or remain blocked.
At first, I only saw the big gap I was going to jump into; in the air I was only focused on the landing field or the instructor’s voice. By realizing that, focusing on the here and now, then learning to feel my body again and naming my sensations, my stress level dropped.
That way, I added one extra focus with each new flight and gradually learned to broaden my field of vision. I was able to process more information and therefore made better decisions.
Keep moving, responding, growing and moving forward, making decisions, even when you are under stress and the risks are high.
In my life, I have more than once been amazed by leaders who can do this. They bring calm and clarity at times when others are no longer capable of doing so. It also means they earn the trust of their employees. I learned the following tips from them:
- Practice being in the moment & acceptance: Both leadership and paragliding are training in being here and now, in staying in the moment. Being able to distinguish between what you can and cannot influence. Relaxing and surrendering to the situation while at the same time remaining aware of the influence you do have. Breathing and observing before making decisions.
- Trust your experience and intuition: Start from your knowledge and expertise, your training, and trust your gut feeling. You have probably had previous experiences under stress in which you made good decisions, or learned from wrong decisions. These insights are invaluable. It can help to keep a list of successes so that you can remind yourself of them when things get difficult.
- Practice rapid information analysis: In stressful situations, it is essential to gather and analyze information quickly. As a leader, you must be able to identify relevant facts and data, evaluate them quickly and translate them into usable insights. Knowing in advance what your most important information parameters are and training on them outside stressful situations can help enormously. Make a list of those parameters for when stress levels rise so high that you can hardly think anymore.
- Train flexibility and adaptability: Circumstances can change quickly. Flexibility and the ability to adapt quickly to new information or situations are therefore an advantage as a leader. The ability to switch quickly and consider alternative solutions can make the difference between an effective decision and failure.
- Learn to set priorities: Stressful situations can be hectic and overwhelming, making it important for leaders to set priorities effectively. By identifying urgent and important tasks, you as a leader can focus your attention on the decisions that have the greatest impact on the situation.
Peers as stress reduction
Finally: you are not alone. Belonging somewhere, being able to share your challenges with people you can count on and with whom you can vent is invaluable for keeping your stress level low. Learning to delegate tasks and building trust within the team before the pressure becomes high can give you more mental space to make important decisions under pressure. After all, I would never have learned to fly without an instructor assisting me over the walkie-talkie and fellow paragliders in the air to coordinate with. You too need someone to coordinate with.
In addition to training these skills, we also build that necessary network in our leadership training.
Will we see you there? Discover the leadership training.
