Ep#226 The Fatal Mistake Of Being Too Reliable

[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:23] Welcome to the podcast today, and we're going to talk about the fatal mistake of being too reliable, because the future isn't going to belong to the busiest leaders. It'll belong to leaders who can protect their clear thinking while everyone else is emotionally flooding. I bet you already know what I'm talking about there.

[00:00:44] Is that going to be you? I think that's the main question. Because if you got to your position today as the fixer, the stabilizer, the go-to person, but now it's gone too far, and you're just exhausted, resentful, disconnected, carrying whole teams on your back, then today's episode is your chance to find the path forward so you can emerge and shine.

[00:01:11] Listen on for your new secret weapon, the one that's going to allow you to rise above the pack, breathe, declare your calm authority, your true position and value, and show people what you're really made of.

[00:01:27] So gains, I think, if this is you, are still on the table for you.

[00:01:32] Bigger wins in your current work endeavors, whatever they are.

[00:01:36] More visibility and kudos.

[00:01:39] Stronger positioning as an A player.

[00:01:42] Access to hidden career opportunities.

[00:01:46] And a return to passion and success instead of exhaustion and stress.

[00:01:53] And this process I'm going to talk about, it's worked for a CEO lifting his company quickly out of the doldrums and tripling revenue.

[00:02:03] It's worked for a big tech leader awarded a second team to run after his own team's huge gains. It's worked for a producer winning two prestigious awards, raising his minimum project price, and knocking video views out of the park. It's worked for a CTO enduring his fourth consecutive company takeover and then shifting gear into his new dream job.

[00:02:29] It's worked for a professor launching a project that is the culmination of his life's work. It's worked for a physician repositioning himself to land his dream job.

[00:02:40] And I give you those examples because most people come to me and they think it isn't going to work for them. My experience has been that it does work.

[00:02:48] And so that's really why I'm telling you all of that because I don't like to waste time, mine or yours. I only share things that are genuinely going to be helpful to you.

[00:02:59] You might not agree, of course, but listen on today, just bring your skepticism with you and just listen for a minute and see if it works for you or see if you think that there's something in it for you.

[00:03:13] Okay, and I'm starting from the working premise today that you're an educated, skilled, talented, and hardworking professional.

[00:03:22] By nature, that's probably who you are. Indeed, at one time, you'd probably scale any mountain at work just to see what's on top. Am I right? Am I close? I do know that's not how you're feeling right now if you're here. But let's shed new light back on your virtues today so that you can release the web of ropes that's tethering you to the ground and take flight again as you are designed to, because that's still possible for you.

[00:03:55] Work doesn't have to be this hard. Because looking around you, are you seeing a lot of frazzled, angry, and probably slightly panicky people, upset people? People like you, determined to make the best of their work life, but somehow it's all getting away from them. It's harder and more frustrating than before.

[00:04:18] And they're probably intelligent and driven like you, but the problem here isn't brains, it's overload. Because their brain, like yours, is probably saturated with constant flood of inputs, urgency of everything, priority switches, an overload of pressure, office politics, fear of mistakes, impossible expectations, and too many decisions.

[00:04:50] Does that sound about right? And on top of all of that, zero recovery time, always in overwork.

[00:04:59] Eventually, when that's happening, even brilliant people start thinking like exhausted middle managers who are trying to put out spot fires with a garden hose. It's all too much. So if that's you, you're not alone. I would say you're in good company listening to this episode.

[00:05:14] But here's how it looks into the future. In the next decade particularly, clear thinking under pressure will become an even rarer and more valuable skill than technical knowledge. Because of course, AI can take care of much of the knowledge and the basic processes.

[00:05:36] Those people who can stay calm, focused, rational, and strategic will be the winners, especially if they can create collaborative team micro-cultures that support and multiply innovation.

[00:05:52] Because AI commoditizes information, of course it has automation for handling processes, and speed is everywhere. But discernment, judgment, emotional regulation, perspective, strategic patience, stable presence, and pattern recognition, all of those become premium leadership abilities, because the calm mind sees what the stressed mind cannot.

[00:06:26] And the tragic part of this for me is that most leaders don't realize that they're no longer thinking clearly.

[00:06:34] They're reacting quickly, speaking quickly, deciding quickly, working constantly, but not actually thinking very well. Pressure doesn't automatically create performance. Sometimes it just makes urgency and a bit of tunnel vision and thereafter expensive decisions.

[00:06:58] So if that's the territory we're looking at today, what are the telltale signs?

[00:07:02] How would you know?

[00:07:05] For instance: reacting instead of responding, having a shorter temper, defensive style of communication, urgency addiction, an inability to prioritize, constant context switching, micromanagement, impulsive decisions, avoiding difficult conversations, catastrophizing even small problems, losing creativity and this kind of binary on/off thinking and emotional reasoning disguised as logic, because a stressed brain mistakes speed for effectiveness.

[00:07:47] Can't really blame you if that's happening for you. You have a lot to do under pressure. Seems like everything needs to happen fast. But the trouble is, under chronic stress, cortisol rises, threat detection increases, long-term thinking drops, creativity narrows, nuance gets a bit lost, emotional reactivity rises, and working memory, importantly, declines.

[00:08:19] So even when you feel like you're pushing harder, maybe your actual decision quality is still deteriorating. And under the hood, a lot of high performers are working like this. It's almost endemic to our work culture these days to go at breakneck speed and feel like that's the right thing to do. 'Cause modern work culture really contributes to this.

[00:08:44] It makes it worse. You'll do what you're rewarded for, especially if your boss is also in a very stressed state. So you might be rewarded for being available, being responsive, acquiescing and agreeing, being speedy, physically busy, never offline, and putting out all the fires you can.

[00:09:07] So if you're rewarded for all of those, then really that is the pathway to downgrading the quality of your decisions. And in this environment, it's not your fault. Leaders are consuming more information than the human nervous system was designed to process. That's just a physical thing. Our brain architecture hasn't evolved to the speed of AI. And of course, overfunctioning is the norm at work, but that doesn't make it sustainable or even better.

[00:09:43] With this silent erosion of mental capacity under sustained pressure, communication deteriorates, teams lose confidence and cohesion, trust drops, politics escalate, emotional safety disappears, good staff disengage, actually for the same reason that leaders do.

[00:10:05] Innovation energy drops away, and people become reactive and self-protective, which means they appear argumentative, resentful, withdrawn, controlling, or entitled. A leader who is overwhelmed and dysregulated by this can't help but create a dysregulated team, no matter how technically competent they are.

[00:10:33] Really I'm talking about Type A leaders here, who've typically built a career and an identity around being highly proficient and capable, solving problems, producing quality under pressure, rising fast, and being dependable.

[00:10:50] Type A's are quite simply brilliant. If you're one, you've worked hard for it and you've served well.

[00:10:57] But there's a tendency to overwork that in current environments tips Type A's over the top of the performance bell curve into decline. It's when the realization dawns on them that they can't solve every problem. That really panic-inducing moment.

[00:11:16] I'm having a flashback to my own experiences there. So the panic-inducing moment where they can't solve every problem, and that really, their MO is to solve every problem, so all they can do now is work harder to overcome and succeed in this moment. So on top of chronic stress and brain overload, as you can imagine, that drags them further downhill, robbing more energy, degrading thinking, and compounding the mess. This is often where insomnia sets in.

[00:11:49] If we're honest, when we look at this whole scenario, wouldn't we observe it as one of the leading causes of today's global burnout epidemic? But anyway, let's not dwell on that. We've covered the start point.

[00:12:05] So now let's look at the strategic reframe, the upside. What happens next, by choice?

[00:12:12] Because this is where your repositioning can become very, very powerful.

[00:12:18] In the words of Rudyard Kipling in 1895, "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too." It goes on for a while.

[00:12:39] Here's the ending: "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and, which is more, you'll be a man, my son." (With apologies, of course, to female listeners.)

[00:13:00] Working with your current situation isn't throwing in the towel. It's not fighting back.

[00:13:07] It's quietly upgrading your leadership capacity to meet conditions.

[00:13:12] It's making, for your shattered mind, enough space to generate calm resourcefulness, and that is just a process. Because then rested brains see patterns faster. Spacious thinking improves judgment. Calm leaders communicate and connect better.

[00:13:35] Emotionally regulated leaders make stronger decisions. Energized leaders regain their creative streak.

[00:13:44] It's simply a competitive advantage to learn how to protect your assets better and to do this with just a few skills you can learn and then embed as new habits.

[00:13:56] It's going to radically change your experience at work, so you can perform as you are capable.

[00:14:04] So having said that, you wonder what those skills are.

[00:14:06] I'm going to tell you. Won't be new to you, I warn you that.

[00:14:11] Number one, reduce unnecessary cognitive load. Not everything deserves your attention. Offload the things that don't. And at the elite level, this is a really ruthless exercise that returns a great deal of energy to you. Of course, it is a challenge to let go of this understory of work you wanted to keep an eye on.

[00:14:35] But you can, and you must do this, if you want to regain mastery, and I can teach you how.

[00:14:44] Number two, stop making every problem urgent because really urgency sits on the back of anxiety. And again, we can work on this together, at the same time generating a deeper self-assurance and confidence, that gives you a buffer against the incoming tide of demands.

[00:15:03] A lot of executives unknowingly run on adrenaline dependency, and then everything seems urgent. That's not going to support growth.

[00:15:15] Number three, protect uninterrupted thinking time. This is the goal once you've made a bit of time up for yourself. Most leaders rarely or never think deeply anymore. They react continuously.

[00:15:30] However, if you want to upgrade the quality of your thinking and strategy, you need to give your brain more room to move. If you can't see the wood for the trees, landscaping is impossible. Instinctively, most of us recognize this, as we race from one thing to another. Yet still, to pause is challenging, and I invite you to accept this challenge and learn to slow down.

[00:16:00] Your best work is still in you. It's just waiting to come up for air.

[00:16:08] Number four, learn to self-regulate before deciding. Another key skill, because a dysregulated nervous system distorts perception and effort. Stress, anxiety, fight or flight actually switches off our analytical executive decision-making brain.

[00:16:30] So don't make major decisions when you're overwhelmed, angry, exhausted, desperate, or emotionally reactive. Simply pause. You need to diffuse the stress bomb that is fueling your current state, and I can teach you how to do that. Then once you've done that, you can come back to a calm, resourced, ordered state that returns your cognitive powers to you, and you get to make good decisions again.

[00:17:03] Number five, build recovery time into your performance. Elite athletes understand this immediately. Why can't we, huh? Corporate culture still acts like needing a recovery phase is weakness. It's not, of course. It's how brain energy works to self-regulate at a structural level. Meanwhile, exhausted leaders are making multimillion-dollar decisions while cognitively impaired. Spectacular. Do not be one of them.

[00:17:36] So that was pretty simple, right? I've just outlined five common sense habits that you already know about. The question is, are you using them? Perhaps not, and if you're not, you might want to argue with me about why they're not possible for you. If you want to keep being over-reliable and drowning in work, then argue away.

[00:18:02] But for the rest of you, choose to learn some straightforward new skills and habits that will uplift your contribution, support your career, status, success, and actually your enjoyment at work. And if you do that, you'll have one of the rarest and most valuable skill sets in modern leadership. If that's something you're interested in, talk to me at leadership.dexrandall.com.

[00:18:33] Also, please share this podcast with anyone you know who needs to hear it, anyone else who's an over-fixer and is struggling with stress, overwhelm, fatigue, irritation, etc. Thank you so much for listening. All the best until next time