Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Susan Washburn, Program Leader and Leadership Coach at MOR Associates. Susan may be reached at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.
In recent months, I’ve noticed something across many of the leaders and teams we work with: stress levels are high, and relationships are feeling the strain. Challenges that once felt manageable now seem heavier. Small frustrations become larger. Communication gets sharper or less generous. This is where emotional intelligence in leadership really matters. When pressure increases, our brains often interpret change and uncertainty as threats, and our emotional reactions can take over before our intentional leadership has a chance to step in.
Under Stress
Currently, I am observing that under stress, personalities seem to clash more often and what might have been minor annoyances previously are now frustrating. I believe that some of this is the result of David Rock’s work with the SCARF model of threats and rewards. Simply put, people get stressed when they feel threatened. In this model, threats can be from Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and/or Fairness. In my observation, the current environment offers all these opportunities for threats and when we feel threatened, we experience everything from fear to frustration to an amygdala hijack. When we experience any of these, they are typically expressed in our communication and, therefore, our relationships with others.
How Leaders Reduce Stress and Conflict- and Increase Connection
Rock advises reducing the threat and/or increasing the rewards. What rewards, you ask? “There’s no money.” “There’s a hiring freeze.” And so on. But you have some rewards to offer every day. You can show appreciation; you can thank people for going above and beyond. You can offer honest, positive feedback (reward what you want to see repeated), and you can talk openly about the situation with your colleagues. Identify the threat – is it Status? Do they feel “less than” for some reason? Is it Certainty? Are they lacking the information they need to understand? Is it Autonomy? Do they feel they have no choice in anything? Is it Relatedness? Are they feeling isolated with remote work or missing the relationships they had in a previous work environment? Is it Fairness? Do they feel they are being treated unfairly, or that a colleague is?
Once you recognize the source of the threat, pause and choose your response. This is where you can lead from where you are. Ask yourself: What small action could reduce the threat and increase a sense of safety or value for this person? For example, if the threat is Status, acknowledge their expertise or contribution. If it’s Certainty, offer clarity about what you know (and what remains unknown). If it’s Autonomy, provide meaningful choices. If it’s Relatedness, slow down and reconnect. If it’s Fairness, name the concern and commit to transparency.
Then, turn inward. Emotional intelligence in leadership begins with noticing your own internal state before it shapes your external behavior. What is being triggered in you? Where are you feeling depleted, defensive, or rushed? What would help you return to center? Sometimes the most impactful “reward” you can offer — to yourself or others — is simply space: a breath, a walk, a moment of genuine connection, or a reset of expectations. By tending to both sides of the relational dynamic, you build trust, preserve dignity, and strengthen your capacity to lead through challenge rather than react to it.
We hope you know you can always reach out to a MOR coach for a conversation. We are always invested in you and your success.
Emotional intelligence in leadership requires staying connected in deeper ways with peers and colleagues. What’s your observation of your colleagues’ level of stress in recent months compared to usual?
Last week, we asked which you could benefit from focusing on when considering taking on more.
- 36% said letting go of tasks that no longer fit their role
- 33% said negotiating what to postpone or offload
- 21% said understanding the relative importance of the new work
- 11% said clarifying whether the task is short-term or ongoing
For more than two out of every three of us, a key strategy to successfully taking on more is to determine we can stop doing. The key is maximizing the value of our individual and team contributions by focusing on the most valuable work for our organizations. This is how we Maximize Organizational Resources, a guiding principle of MOR Associates.