Leaders are expected to stay composed under pressure, persevere through setbacks, make difficult decisions and keep going when others lose confidence. In most contexts, these qualities are invaluable. We admire the entrepreneur who kept going despite initial obstacles, the executive who steadied a company through a crisis and the manager who persevered to success when a project seemed to be failing. Determination and strength of will help to build, recover, adapt and make progress under adverse conditions.
But when it comes to anxiety, the same qualities can become a trap.
Most leaders are used to solving problems through effort. If something is difficult, they work harder. If a situation is uncomfortable, they push through it. That approach can be highly effective when the problem is practical, strategic or operational. But anxiety is different. You cannot force an anxious thought to disappear through sheer determination. In fact, the harder you try to suppress, resist or overpower anxiety, the more power you give to it.
Anxiety is impervious to force
Anxiety in leaders rarely manifests itself as weakness. In fact, it can masquerade as good leadership founded on professional discipline: working late to think through all possibilities, replaying a difficult conversation, forcing yourself to “be rational,” or telling yourself to “just stop worrying and get on with it.” Using willpower in this way seems logical. Anxiety is distressing and distracting, so the natural response is to try to make it stop. But anxiety does not respond to force. The attempt to overpower it usually keeps you locked in the very struggle you are trying to escape.
One way this happens is suppression: the attempt to push an anxious thought out of your mind. Let’s say that you receive a vague message from the board, have a difficult conversation coming up, or start to wonder whether a recent decision was correct. The instinct is to shut the thought down: don’t think about it, focus, get on with the day. But suppression keeps the mind attached to the very thought it is trying to avoid. To check whether you have stopped thinking about something, your mind has to keep returning to it. The result is that the anxious thought becomes more persistent, not less.
This happens because the unconscious brain treats attention as a signal of importance. If your conscious brain keeps checking whether a thought has gone, or keeps wrestling with it, your unconscious brain does not register, “This is irrelevant.” It registers, “This must matter, because we are spending so much energy on it.” The more conscious effort you put into getting rid of the anxious thought, the more your unconscious is encouraged to keep bringing it back.
Resistance is futile
The other pattern is resistance: trying to argue anxiety into submission. You tell yourself, “This is irrational,” “Stop being ridiculous,” or “Think logically.” For leaders, this can be especially seductive because it involves analysis. You are used to interrogating problems, stress-testing decisions and identifying risk. But an anxious thought is not the same as a strategic problem. When you treat it like one, you give it status. The more you apply discipline, the more your brain reads the struggle as confirmation that there is something important going on. The anxious thought is no longer just a thought; it becomes a problem, a warning, a threat, causing the unpleasant emotion of fear. And fearful emotions do not fade when you wrestle with them. They become more urgent, pulling you into endless internal debate.
This creates a paradox. The more disciplined you are, the longer you stay in the fight. You keep pushing, analyzing, reasoning and trying to regain control because that has worked for you elsewhere. But with anxiety, persistence keeps you stuck. You are not failing because you are weak. You are exhausting yourself because you are strong-willed enough to keep fighting a battle that cannot be won that way.
Change your relationship with anxiety
So, what should you do instead? The answer is not to “power through” your anxiety, but to change your relationship with it. When an anxious thought appears, notice it without turning it into an emergency. You could think, “This is an anxious thought,” or “My mind is trying to protect me from a possible future threat.” That small act of recognition matters. It creates distance between you and the thought. You are no longer inside the argument; you are observing it.
A practical way to do this is to separate the thought from the task. The thought might be, “What if the board has lost confidence in me?” The task might be, “Clarify the agenda for the meeting.” The thought might be, “What if this conversation goes badly?” The task might be, “Prepare the key point I need to communicate.” Anxiety wants you to solve the imagined future. Leadership requires identifying what you need to do next.
Once you have separated the thought from the task, return to the next useful action. If there is a real issue to address, address it: prepare for the meeting, make the call, check the facts, speak to the person or write down the decision. But do not confuse action with mental struggle. Anxiety can easily disguise itself as responsibility, especially for leaders. You may tell yourself that you are being thorough, strategic or realistic. Sometimes that will be true. But replaying the same conversation for the tenth time is not preparation. Arguing with a thought at midnight is not leadership. Trying to force yourself to stop worrying is still worrying. If what you are doing helps you act, it is useful. If it keeps you trapped in the struggle, more willpower is not the solution. Stepping out of the fight is.
Naming anxiety
This does not mean leaders should become passive, careless or less resilient. It means recognizing that you cannot erase uncertainty and that not every issue is solved by greater effort. Anxiety is not asking you for a better strategy; it is asking you to join a fight. The more you wrestle with it, the more central it becomes. The stronger, smarter move is not to push harder, but to stop giving the anxious thought the battle it is seeking by refusing to engage with it. Notice it. Name it. “This is anxiety.” “This is my mind trying to predict danger.” Then refuse to turn it into a crisis that must be solved before you can continue. You do not need to suppress the thought, argue with it or prove it wrong. You simply need to stop treating it with importance. From there, return to what actually needs doing: the call, the decision, the conversation, the next concrete step.
Anxiety traps us by offering false solutions. While willpower is a strength in most areas of life, it keeps you stuck when it comes to anxiety. The way out is not to fight harder; it is to stop fighting altogether.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
____________________________________
Take advantage of SmartBrief’s FREE email newsletters on leadership and business transformation, among the company’s more than 250 industry-focused newsletters.