Steve Cuss has spent years helping leaders manage their anxiety. In this interview, he talks about how to handle the elevated anxiety you’re feeling in leadership during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Steve identifies some surprising signs of anxiety many leaders miss and outlines some practical ways to tame your fears during crisis.
Welcome to Episode 337 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Plus, in this episode’s What I’m Thinking About segment, Carey gives his latest thoughts on the COVID-19 crisis and how to respond as leaders.
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Episode Links
The Ascent Leader
Do you have a transition coming up in your future, even five to ten years out? I transitioned out of the senior leadership role at our church about five years ago. Succession is a significant moment in your life. My friend, Sean Morgan, at CDF Capital curates custom-built co-horts for senior leaders that you can apply to be part of at The Ascent Leader.
It’s a unique, living room style set of gatherings where you’ll have some really transparent conversations on the sensitive nature of leadership succession. This next co-hort will be three days in Palm Desert, California, and features Kenton and Laurie Beshore, long time senior pastor of Mariners Church. You will get personal mentorship from Kenton and Laurie and advice from high level peers. I highly recommend it.
Spots are limited, so apply now at
TheAscentLeader.org
Generis
One of the things that’s happened in this crisis is that so many people, almost every organization’s budget, has been blown up. And what do you do if you’re a church and your whole giving plan is off? Our friends at Generis have a brand new resource called Your Budget Just Blew Up…Now What? In this eBook, Generis Principal, Jim Sheppard shares some very practical advice on how to strengthen your church right now to weather the current storm and actually thrive in the months ahead.
Generis is making this new resource available exclusively to Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast listeners before they release it to everyone else. And, there’s a bonus chapter just for you. They’re also providing a support hotline during this time. They’ve got you completely covered.
Check out Your 2020 Budget Just Blew Up…Now What?, and get a free bonus chapter by going to
Generis.com/carey2020
CONVERSATION LINKS
Text CRISIS to 33777 to get access to Carey’s How to Lead Through Crisis online course
Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss
A Failure of Nerve by Edwin H. Friedman
Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs Podcast
3 INSIGHTS FROM STEVE
1. Anxiety can be managed when you identify the “chronic need” fueling it
Chronic anxiety shows up when you don’t get what you think you need. For Steve, he has a “chronic need” to please strangers. This created a problem for him as a chaplain, as he was torn between pleasing the medical staff who needed him to work fast and pleasing the grieving family members who simply needed time.
Steve has learned to manage these moments of anxiety by “taking his own pulse before helping others” and becoming vulnerable by showing his humanness to the people he is trying to please. When he does this, he is accepting that he doesn’t actually need them to like him for him to survive and do his job.
2. If you want to stop the spread of anxiety, what you say is less important than how you say it
Anxiety spreads in a similar way to a virus. It’s invisible, spreads rapidly from person to person, and affects everyone differently. As a leader, it’s your job to make sure your team isn’t “transmitting” anxiety to each other in staff meetings, the office, or during private conversations.
You can ensure this by paying more attention to the “process” or the way people talk rather than the “content” of what they are actually saying. Steve explained that you, as the leader, can decrease the anxiety in the room by saying things in a way that doesn’t spread anxiety. Lead with clarity, confidence and understanding, and your team will be less anxious.
3. Audit your motivations in this crisis
You may have noticed that once this crisis hit, your inbox blew up with free and reduced price offerings from every organization who had your email. A lot of that is good, because it is helping the world in a dark time. But, Steve predicts that a lot of the motivation behind those free offers is a leader’s need to respond to their own anxiety about the crisis.
A leader’s initial instinct of pivoting is really good in this crazy time. But you’re in danger if you let a habit of anxiety-driven decision-making take over your life. When you begin to feel yourself become driven by your anxiety, name it. When you name those motivations, you become more self-aware, and that heightened self-awareness will increase your productivity.
Quotes from Episode 337
Anxiety spreads the way a virus spreads. It's highly contagious, and the only antidote is a leader who is able to walk into an anxious situation with calm presence. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet Chronic anxiety shows up when you don't get what you think you need that you don't really need. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet Most leaders are prone to action, so when we're anxious, we act more. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet Ambiguity is always a source of anxiety. And for most type A leaders, not knowing what to do, particularly if people are asking you to do something, you're going to be more anxious. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet All leadership is some form of vulnerable experience. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet Anxiety is always contagious in any group. And the most anxious person in the room has the most power. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet A true non-anxious presence is the ability and the skill to not let others' anxiety and affect you. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet we can easily be in the grip of chronic anxiety or we can be in the grip of the unconditional love of God. It is very difficult to be in the grip of both. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet The antidote to grief is radical acceptance. @stevecusswords Click To Tweet Crisis is a cradle for innovation and the future belongs to innovators. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet The future almost always belongs to agile leaders who adopt and change. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet In an uncertain world, online is a lifeline and agility is a superpower. @cnieuwhof Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 337
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NEXT EPISODE: SEAN MORGAN
Sean Morgan shares crisis leadership insights he gained from serving in the military in the Middle East and combines them with insights he’s learned from working with high capacity leaders in growing churches to give advice on leading through unpredictability, crisis and offer thoughts on what the new normal for churches and culture will look like.
Subscribe for free now so you won’t miss Episode 338.
