Pressure Just Entered the Room

A deal falls apart.

An employee challenges a decision in front of the team.

A client asks a question you did not expect.

Pressure just entered the room. What happens to you?

That is how I opened a recent speaking engagement. I did not ask the audience what a leader should do. I asked them what happens in the first instant after pressure hits.

The answers came quickly: butterflies. Sweating. Shaking. Anxiety. Loss for words.

We know those feelings. Yet when we talk about leadership under pressure, we often skip right past that first moment. We focus on the decision, the response, or the result. But something happens in between the event and the decision. That small space matters.

You can watch the speech here:

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What pressure can take

Imagine a quarterback throwing an interception. The crowd reacts. The cameras turn toward him. His teammates need him to lead the next drive.

He cannot go back and change the throw. But he still has a choice about what happens next.

The same thing is true in a boardroom. You might lose a deal you expected to close. You might learn that two executives disagree about a major change. You might have to tell your team something they will not want to hear.

In that first moment, you may feel your peace slip away. Your sense of power may follow. Then you may lose your presence—the ability to be with the people and the problem actually in front of you.

When that happens, it is harder to think clearly. You may rush to explain, defend, blame, or fix. You may make the next decision from the shock of the moment.

That is why I teach the pause.

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The pause is small, but it changes what is possible

A pause does not make the pressure disappear. Your heart may still race. Your hands may still shake. You may still feel disappointed or afraid.

The pause gives you a chance to notice those things before they make the decision for you.

My stomach is tight. I want to defend myself. I am assuming I know how this will end.

Now you have awareness. And awareness creates choice.

You can ask a question. You can take a breath. You can tell the room you need a moment. You can look at what is true before deciding what to do.

That may sound simple. Under pressure, it takes practice.

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Three principles I return to

In the speech, I share three principles that help me face pressure: non-attachment, radical responsibility, and courage.

Non-attachment means loosening my grip on the outcome I expected. Perhaps I counted on that deal. Perhaps I pictured the meeting going another way. I can care deeply about the result without letting one lost outcome close my mind to every other possibility.

Radical responsibility means taking responsibility for my next response. It does not mean taking the blame for everything that went wrong. I may have a part to own, and I need to see it clearly. But in this moment, my job is to choose how I will meet what has happened.

Courage means facing what is here, even if I feel uncomfortable. A leader may need to disappoint people, admit a mistake, or make a hard decision without knowing exactly how it will be received. Courage does not require the shaking to stop first.

These principles bring me back to the question at the heart of my work: What happens to people when pressure hits, and what becomes possible when we notice the pattern?

The next time pressure enters the room, pay attention to that first instant. What happens in your body? What story does your mind begin to tell? What do you feel pulled to do?

Then see if you can pause.

You may still have a hard decision to make. But you can meet it with more peace, more power, and more presence.

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Kathie Owen speaks on human patterns under pressure, leadership, and the choices people make when the stakes are high. To explore a speaking engagement, visit my speaking page.

#HumanPatternsUnderPressure #LeadershipUnderPressure #ExecutivePresence #DecisionMaking

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Read More Articles from Kathie

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Transcript

 Pressure just entered the room. What happens to you? Think about that for a second. Think about a pressure situation that happened, and how did you respond in that immediate millisecond right after it happened? Let me hear some feedback on that. Nervousness. Nervousness. Stomach's feeling butterflies. Stomach butterflies. Anxiety. Loss for words. Sweating. Sweating. Shaking. Shaking. In- I can't- In those milliseconds, yes, it happens to all of us. We all get these pressure situations. But today, I want you to think about what happens to us when pressure hits, and I wanna introduce you to a new response, and that is called the pause. Because when you pause the second that pressure hits- Mm-hmm ... something different happens. It creates awareness, and awareness creates choice Think about pressure when it hits. We lose, first of all, we probably lose our peace. That's one of the first things we lose. Then we lose our power. Mm-hmm. And the next thing we lose is our presence. And presence, once that's gone, who knows? I study human patterns under pressure. What happens when pressure hits? One of my favorite things to study is professional athletes because they are under immense pressure on national television, and when-- how they handle that makes a difference. So think about maybe your favorite quarterback, your favorite basketball player, your favorite baseball player, and how they've handled a pressure situation Come back? Do they come back strong? Do they come back with a vengeance? Do they come back with anger? Do they come back with frustration? Did they lose their peace? Did they lose their power? Did they lose their presence? Because when those three things are gone, you can't make clear decisions. This is what I teach leaders. Second pressure hits, we can't make clear decisions. However, if we pause in that millisecond after the pressure hits, our bodies are gonna, our nervous systems are going to give us dysregulation. Mm-hmm. Nervous system regulation is talked about all the time now. It's a popular subject, but that's exactly what I'm talking about right now. How do we regulate our nervous systems in that pause? Because if you can regulate that, you can make clear decisions. Mm-hmm. You can think better, you can feel better, you can act more confidently, even though you're under high pressure. This is what these professional athletes have sports psychologists for, and this is something that I study, and this is something that I teach. Mm-hmm. So there's three things that I instill in people, three principles that I personally live by when pressure hits. Mm-hmm. Number one is non-attachment. Let's let go of our expectations of how this was supposed to work out. How was that business deal supposed to go? Oh my goodness, I just lost a $200,000 business deal, and I was counting on that. Well, if we let go of that attachment, something else slips in the door and brings back our peace, and it could bring a possibility. Mm-hmm. Number two is radical responsibility. Radical responsibility doesn't mean you take responsibility for all the crap that happened in prior to that. Radical responsibility means you take responsibility for how you're going to face that pressure. Is it scary? I'm shaking, right? And this is not something that is easy to do. The third principle is courage. It's gonna take courage to face that disappointment, to face the fact that the fans are not gonna like me. My employees may get mad at me- Mm-hmm ... for that decision, and it's going to take courage to face that situation. So my call to action for you today is to think about pressure when it hits. What do we lose first? Our peace. Then we lose our path. Mm-hmm. Then we lose our presence. "But Kathie, how do we keep that?" Non-attachment, radical responsibility, and courage The next time you hit pressure, think about that. Pressure just entered the room Toastmasters.