Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1306 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.
Preamble
This blogpost takes insights from a recent INSEAD article. Link to the article at the end.
Leading in an Age of Anxiety: Why the Best Leaders Learn to Manage Themselves First
We live in an age of extraordinary possibility, and extraordinary anxiety.
Technology is transforming industries at unprecedented speed. Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work. Social media constantly exposes us to conflict, crisis and alarming information. Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and rapid social change make the future increasingly difficult to predict.
For leaders, the challenge is even greater. They are expected to provide certainty when circumstances are uncertain, make decisions when information is incomplete, remain composed when others are anxious and inspire confidence when they themselves may have serious doubts. In such an environment, conventional leadership tools are no longer enough.
Strategic frameworks, digital transformation plans, agile methodologies and sophisticated analytics remain valuable. But they cannot answer every question confronting leaders today. When the problem itself is ambiguous, when competing values are involved and when emotions influence judgement, leadership requires something deeper: self-knowledge, psychological resilience and practical wisdom.
A recent INSEAD Knowledge article by Graham Ward and Anindo Bhattacharjee argues that mindful leadership offers an important response to this challenge. They identify three essential pillars: deep self-awareness, developing a healthier relationship with one’s own mind, and having the courage to act according to authentic values even when doing so carries a cost. These ideas deserve serious attention because the most difficult leadership problems are rarely solved by technical competence alone.
The Anxious Leader Can Create an Anxious Organization
Leadership is never purely external. A leader’s internal state inevitably influences the organization around them.
An anxious leader may become excessively controlling. A fearful leader may avoid difficult decisions. An insecure leader may surround themselves with people who rarely challenge them. An angry leader may create a culture in which employees hide problems rather than report them. The danger is that these behaviors can become organizational norms.
When employees sense that a leader cannot tolerate uncertainty, they learn to disguise uncertainty. When mistakes are punished harshly, people stop experimenting. When disagreement is interpreted as disloyalty, constructive challenge disappears. The result is an organization that looks stable on the surface but becomes increasingly fragile underneath.
This is why leadership development cannot focus exclusively on external skills. The quality of the organization is partly a reflection of the quality of attention, emotional regulation and self-awareness at the top.
The first leadership question, therefore, should not always be, “How do I manage my people?” It may be: “What is happening inside me—and how might it be affecting the people I lead?”
Radical Self-Awareness: Know What Is Driving You
The first pillar is self-awareness. Most leaders would probably describe themselves as self-aware. But genuine self-awareness is much more demanding than knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses. It means understanding the hidden assumptions, emotional triggers, fears, attachments and need for approval that influence our behavior.
INSEAD’s article draws attention to the idea that many adults remain heavily influenced by external expectations. They may define themselves through status, recognition, approval or other people’s perceptions. In turbulent circumstances, this can become particularly problematic because uncertainty threatens the identity they have constructed. Self-awareness therefore creates freedom from automatic behavior.
Befriend Your Mind Instead of Fighting It
The second pillar is particularly relevant in a high-pressure workplace. Leaders often believe they must control their minds in the same way they control budgets, strategies and operations. But thoughts and emotions do not always respond well to force.
The INSEAD article uses the image of muddy water: when the water is continually disturbed, the sediment remains suspended. When the water is allowed to settle, clarity gradually returns. The same principle can apply to an anxious or overloaded mind.
This does not mean ignoring problems. It means learning to observe your mental reactions without immediately obeying them. Research on cognitive biases has shown that high-pressure situations favor fast, associative and emotionally driven thinking. Leadership under uncertainty
The Power of the Pause
One of the simplest leadership practices is also one of the most difficult: Pause before responding. Before replying to an emotionally charged email, wait. Before interrupting someone, listen for another ten seconds. Before rejecting an uncomfortable proposal, ask one more question. Before announcing a major decision, ask yourself whether you are acting from evidence or emotion.
A pause does not make a leader indecisive. It can make a leader less reactive and more deliberate. And that distinction becomes increasingly important as the speed of communication accelerates.
Authenticity Requires Courage
The third pillar is authenticity.Authenticity is often misunderstood as “being yourself.”Leadership authenticity is more demanding.It means aligning what you genuinely believe with what you actually do.
A leader may publicly talk about integrity while quietly rewarding behavior that violates it. A company may proclaim that people are its greatest asset while treating employees as disposable resources. A manager may encourage open communication while punishing people who disagree. Such inconsistencies eventually become visible. Employees are remarkably sensitive to the gap between what leaders say and what leaders do.
The INSEAD article connects authentic leadership with the idea of an internal “true north”: a stable set of values that guides behavior when circumstances become difficult.
Leadership in an Age of Generational Change
Authenticity is becoming even more important as younger generations enter leadership pipelines and workplaces. Many younger employees want more than salary and career progression. They increasingly want to understand what an organization stands for and whether its leaders genuinely embody those values. INSEAD notes that Generation Z has contributed to changing expectations about leadership and organizational purpose.
This does not mean younger employees reject performance, discipline or accountability. It means that the psychological contract between employee and organization is changing. Increasingly, leaders must earn followership through credibility, competence, consistency and character.
Mindful Leadership Is a Daily Practice
Perhaps the most important point in the INSEAD article is that mindful leadership cannot be installed through a one-day workshop. It is not a corporate wellness program. It is not another leadership competency to add to a performance appraisal form. It is a daily practice.
It means noticing your reactions, examining your assumptions, pausing before responding, and listening without immediately defending yourself.
Sum Up
The leaders of the coming decade will operate in an environment where uncertainty is not an occasional disruption but a permanent condition. Technology will continue to accelerate. Information will continue to multiply. Organizations will continue to change. Employees will continue to expect greater authenticity. And many important problems will remain too complex for simple solutions. In such a world, leadership cannot be reduced to having the best strategy.
The central lesson is simple but profound: You cannot always control what happens around you, but you can develop greater control over how you meet it. And a resilient leader creates enough psychological space to think clearly when everyone else is rushing to react.
In an age of anxiety, perhaps the greatest leadership advantage is not speed, authority or even intelligence. It is inner steadiness.
Concluded.
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For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and duly recognized immediately.
Reference:
https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/leading-age-anxiety
