Pressure
There is something in the air— and I can tell you right now, it isn’t good.
The pressure of working at startups through an entire year of lockdowns, with ever-increasing expectations, is getting to people. You can see it in the tone of emails, the packed calendars, and sense it in off-the-cuff remarks.
This past weekend, it started to surface.
The NY Times summed it up - We Have All Hit a Wall.
Prolonged stress will do that to you, said Mike Yassa, professor of neuroscience and the director of the UCI Brain Initiative at the University of California, Irvine. “Stress is OK in small amounts, but when it extends over time it’s very dangerous,” he said.
“Malaise, burnout, depression and stress — all of those are up considerably,” said Todd Katz, executive vice president and head of group benefits at MetLife.
“People are saying they’re less productive, less engaged, that they don’t feel as successful,” Mr. Katz said.
Across the web, people reacted emotionally to a new commercial by Google.
Over at LinkedIn, they announced the entire company's workforce, over 15,000 people, will have the coming week off to help recover from burnout.
A survey by Microsoft shared that sixty-one percent of leaders described themselves as “thriving."
But their teams feel differently, only thirty-eight percent say they are “thriving.” Forty-one percent admitted they wanted to find a new employer.
You must lead your team through this. But there is a challenging truth— working at a startup means never letting your foot off the gas, despite a global pandemic. That's just how it is. Until you are profitable and have built a massive moat around your business— you are 6-12 months away from irrelevance. The pressure is always on.
As a leader, you are no doubt feeling the pressure. This pressure, if left unharnessed, will spread uncontrollably from one person to the next.
Pressure spreads like a virus, and it is your job as a leader to get vaccinated and stop the spread.
Great leaders don't let pressure control them like an invisible hand. Instead, they harness pressure and choose when to apply it and when to relieve it.
There is a time and a place for a leader to push their team harder, ask the tough questions, question their team's assumptions and grind for bigger results. But it is a sign of inexperience for a leader to default to this approach.
OK… but as a CEO or VP, you feel intense pressure to ensure the company succeeds. And, likely, you have always felt that pressure. You have spent the past X years getting the startup to where it is today. You never got a break. You had to grind every day to keep the startup going.
I get it. I've been there.
But leadership is not about what you feel. It is about how you make others feel and the results that follow.
You have to set aside your feelings, pause, reflect and think about the desired result, and how to lead your team towards it.
What do we need to do?
How are we going to do it?
What is the right tone the team needs to take to deliver?
How are they feeling now, and how do I get their heads screwed on straight so we can all perform?
It may mean applying pressure, but just as often, it means relieving pressure.
Suppose you have hired a great team— a team that works hard, believes in the mission and is self-motivated. It's more than likely they already put a ton of pressure on themselves.
This startup is their shot, their chance to make a name for themselves, get out of debt, and afford that downpayment on a house.
Does it make sense for you to instill fear by applying constant pressure?
No. Of course not.
Does it make sense to go easy on your team and let your foot off the gas?
Nope.
So what is the right balance?
This issue is more complex than what can be addressed in a blog post. But here are some places to start.
1) Remember that you as a leader have multiple "clubs in your golf bag," and influential leaders choose the right club (approach) based on the context, the specific situation, and the individual. Again, sometimes apply pressure, sometimes relieve it, and remember to mix up your approach. This classic HBR essay covers this topic in detail.
2) Remember to pause before reacting. Please do not take what is in your brain and deliver it unfiltered to your team. Your team is not you. They have a different context, different motivations, and a different relationship with the company than you. In fact, leaders are often most effective when taking the exact opposite approach to the existing vibe throughout the company.
If everyone is stressed and the pressure is on, they play it cool and remind people of the big picture. Suppose things are going great and everyone is cruising along, in that case, they apply pressure and remind them that only the paranoid survive.
In the end, the team takes the tone of the leader, and applying a little balance and perspective to the company is the responsibility of the leadership team.
3) Pressure can be effective when it is focused, tangible, and can be internalized. Pressure kills motivation, confidence, and productivity when all-encompassing, external, and when it feels insurmountable.
Given this, frequently, the most effective way to relieve the pressure is to a) provide context and b) break it down into parts.
Here is an example.
Let's say you run a sales team, and the company has been scaling quickly over the past year. However, there was a slowdown in the past quarter, deals fell through, sales cycles extended, and the team missed its number.
At this moment, the leader can blindly translate their stress and insecurities by pushing the team with blanket messaging such as "we have to do more" or "we can’t let this happen again in Q2," or "we need to work harder."
Who knows, that approach might work.
But a thoughtful leader, building for the long term, will instead choose to make the quarterly miss a learning moment. He/she will ask the team to reflect on how they feel, reflect on what went well and what didn't, reflect on what they would do differently if given a second chance. A true leader will encourage them to get perspective from someone they admire (a successful business leader, a family member or friend who inspires confidence) and ask them about their approach to recovering from failure, ask them to share their wisdom.
The leader will then challenge the team to respond in that moment. The leader will remind them that the way they perform in the next quarter, how they react to the previous quarter's miss will define the company's culture for years to come. If they respond with strength, confidence, and resolve, if they apply their reflections and learnings and use this as an opportunity to get better— they will remember this moment as a turning point for themselves in their career and a bridge to a place where the company is more mature and stronger than ever before.
Pressure can create diamonds, but only if it feels actionable— if it can be embraced by each individual and overcome through each other's support.
—
It is easier said than done.
But even when it feels impossible, when the pressure is just too much to bear. The leader has one more card to pull out of their pocket. They can look their team in the eye, and as long as they genuinely believe it, they can say:
"I know this hard. I feel it too. And I don't have all the answers. I don't know exactly what to do from here, but I’m sure we can overcome this. And most of all, what I do know is I believe in this company, I believe in myself, and I believe in you. I need you to shake this off. Tomorrow is another day. We will get through this together, and one day we'll look back at it and smile.
I believe in you, so I am asking you to believe in yourself.
Let's get back to work."