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When business leaders take steps to manage stress, they are usually focused on their professional activities. They practice time blocking. They learn to prioritize and delegate. They minimize multitasking, committing instead to focusing on one task at a time so they can gain efficiency and reduce mental clutter.
However, professional stress is not the only stress that impacts a leader’s performance. The personal struggles business executives bring to the office also affect their ability to drive success. To provide healthy leadership to their organizations, business leaders must address personal as well as professional sources of stress.
“I made the connection between personal growth and business success after working with countless CEOs who struggled with execution, decision-making, and leadership despite having strong business models and financial resources,” says Armando Soto, Creator of Break 2 Success. “Over time, I realized those leaders’ biggest obstacles weren’t strategy or operations, but weaknesses stemming from deep-rooted personal patterns, limiting beliefs, and unresolved past experiences that influenced how they led their companies.”
Armando Soto is an entrepreneur, investor, and business advisor with over 15 years of experience in strategy and business development. He helps business leaders transform companies by improving operations through integrating business strategy with personal optimization, ensuring leaders operate at their highest level — both personally and professionally. His work with executives tackling complex challenges has included facilitating more than $1 billion in transactions and financings.
Soto has found that many executives operate with unexamined childhood experiences, traumas, or belief systems that impact their confidence, communication, and leadership style. Yet, few make the connection between their personal stress and business struggles, believing instead that business challenges exist in a vacuum and are separate from their personal lives.
“Many think business problems can be solved with spreadsheets and strategy alone,” Soto says. “In reality, however, the way they react under pressure, manage conflict, or take risks is a direct reflection of their past conditioning. Until they address these internal factors, they will keep encountering the same roadblocks, whether it’s difficulty trusting their team, avoidance of difficult decisions, or the constant feeling that they need to prove themselves.”
How personal stress impacts business performance
When business leaders show up at the office feeling stressed, they operate at a disadvantage. Stress clouds the thought process, robbing leaders of the clarity they need for decision-making. The personal issues they struggle with distract them from carrying out strategic plans.
“Chronic stress leads to reactive leadership,” Soto explains. “Leaders who operate in fight-or-flight mode make impulsive, fear-based decisions rather than strategic ones, often resulting in costly mistakes and mismanaged risk.”
The stress leaders bring to the office can also have a ripple effect throughout their organizations. Rather than being contained in the corner office, it is caught by other employees, leading to a high-stress culture.
“Teams often mirror the energy and mindset of the people leading them,” Soto says. “If a leader is exhausted, disconnected, or overwhelmed, that energy spreads. But when a leader is present, focused, and grounded, it gives employees permission to slow down, refocus, and breathe again.”
A recent Inc. CEO survey found that employee burnout is the biggest problem today’s business leaders face. Employee well-being programs are often implemented to address burnout and improve morale at work, but to maximize the impact of those programs, leaders must also embrace well-being.
“When leaders take care of themselves, they show that well-being is a priority and create a culture where rest is respected, not punished,” Soto explains. “A healthy leader creates the conditions for a healthy team.”
How executives can transform their leadership
Embracing self-awareness is the first step leaders must take to reduce the impact of personal stress. Until they recognize how their personal patterns affect their performance, leaders will continue to exhibit behaviors that limit their company’s success.
“Once leaders uncover their patterns, they can start rebuilding their mindset and leadership approach from the ground up,” Soto says. “The process includes shifting limiting beliefs, developing emotional resilience, and restructuring how they make decisions. Old practices are replaced with high-performance habits that empower them to lead with clarity, confidence, and control.”
Today’s business leaders are facing complex new challenges that are pushing stress to unprecedented levels. To drive business success, they must avoid burnout by embracing practices that lead to greater focus and resilience. Understanding the true source of their stress and how to address it is paramount.
“The most successful leaders operate from a state of alignment, energy, and balance,” Soto says. “When they remove personal limitations and create an optimized mindset, they achieve more while working smarter, not harder.”
Also read:
Nikolay Fartushnyak and Vladimir Fartushnyak: The Secrets of Leadership
Building a Resilient Leadership Team: Tips for Executive-Level Talent Acquisition and Development
Image source: elements.envato.com
