Book Club: Managing Leadership Anxiety, Yours and Theirs

By Steve Cuss

Good morning! I spent too long trying to put together a debrief on our last book. We’ll have to figure it out as we go along.

Our next book is Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss.

I’m so excited to see what transformation this starts for you. This book has been pivotal for me.

This book has 10 chapters and we are in the busy time of year, so let’s do a chapter a week. This book would help you with holiday anxiety. It won’t make it go away, but as you start to understand how anxiety shows up for you, you will see it in others and have the opportunity to act accordingly.

If you want to get the full benefit of the book club, download the app. We will have an ongoing chat each week.

So, let’s get started.

Chapter 1

Chapter One is an intro to the author and subject. I’m curious what jumps out to you. Here is a key passage I highlight:

Leadership is almost always intuitive because leadership situations are fluid and dynamic. Most of the time we don’t exactly know what to do. We end up with a gap between not knowing what to do and needing to do something. The gap is one of the most uncomfortable places to live because a leader feels immense internal and external pressure to do something. In that gap all kinds of interesting things emerge: a bubbling cauldron of anxiety, fear, childhood trauma, the stories we tell ourselves, idols, and more. All of these show up in leadership environments. So as a leader lives in the gap, she is faced with three options: (1) run from it and give up leading because it is too uncomfortable; (2) fake it and pretend she knows what she is doing and thus build a chasm of hypocrisy; or (3) develop a capacity to “mind the gap.” (Pg 5 according to Kindle)

That gap can be as long as a breath. One of the greatest things I’ve been learning is to give myself a couple more seconds and choose my action instead of being forced into reaction by anxiety.

Now it’s your turn. What jumps out to you? Respond below or join the conversation in chat.