Leadership Under Pressure

What is it that makes a good leader under pressure? A more important question is can one learn the traits required to lead under pressure? New York Times business writer Paul Sullivan, author of  Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t recounts a talk he gave at West Point on the subject.
All leaders under pressure display five traits, he said: focus, discipline, adaptability, being present, and fear and desire.

There are three things business leaders can learn that will help them be successful under pressure:

1. Focused on a goal. Everything they do prepares them for the pressure filled moment and they know the responsibilities and the risks. Do you know what your primary mission is at work?
2. Continuous improvement. They develop an organization that is continually striving to be better. When a mistake happens, they try not to let it happen a second time. Are you aligned with the right organization? Or if you’re leading that organization, are you prepared to change things that aren’t working, even if change could be hard or even a reversal of something you implemented?
3. Practice for success. They know they have to be able to perform a task perfectly under normal conditions before they can expect to do it in a stressful situation. Can you say the same thing? Are you able to do your job at a high level every day? If not, then you should not be surprised when you make the wrong decisions under pressure.”

Will following this advice make you can lead under pressure? Well, maybe not–some people are just hard-coded for success in tough situations. But working at focusing on the objective, adaptability to the environment and improvement of skills sure puts whatever natural abilities you have in the best position to succeed when the going gets tough.

Have you developed any traits that help you lead under pressure?