Being in control of the business is a golden rule, but what happens when an external factor like new legislation sweeps in and pulls the rug from under us? The experience of a peer made me see that we are not in control, and we have to acknowledge our vulnerability around that in order to get past it.

Feeling in control of one’s life is one of the most important factors in good mental health. This is something I’ve read about, and I’ve experienced it too – or I thought I had. I certainly told myself I was in control of my life. I always considered myself a positive, can-do person and I felt I could handle most problems that were thrown at me.

That was until I was facilitating a forum of business leaders back in May 2024. One of them outlined to her peers a significant challenge that was impacting both the morale of the senior management team and the future performance of the company. This leader described how new legislation was having a negative impact on the company’s major export market and how it was causing her and her senior managers huge stress. She was also concerned that the measures they now needed to take could set them back years in their plans and budgets.

As she described the stress she and her team had been experiencing since the announcement of legislative change, I realised that for much of my life I experienced low-grade stress, only I didn’t register it as such. I thought it was how my life was meant to be; it was the stress of pretending I was in control of everything. To admit to myself, not to mind anybody else, that I wasn’t in control would have blown out of the water my carefully cultivated public persona of a person with a positive outlook on life.

A new sense of freedom

Rather than feeling knocked out by this newfound awareness, I felt relieved and had a new sense of freedom. But the real benefit came from a much deeper understanding and acceptance of this as a fact of life: none of us is in control of our lives.

Throughout the rest of the session, the CEO’s peers helped her process this issue. Many of them had had similar challenges and, over the day, the group gradually developed insights and strategies to deal with them while also deepening their leadership wisdom. She seemed a lot lighter and calmer when she left.

I’m not a complete Polyanna

As I reflected further on what her experience brought up for me, I came to understand that intellectually I always knew I was not in control of what was thrown at me, but I was able to respond to each situation and this stopped me from feeling hopeless or overwhelmed. However, I never let myself admit to or acknowledge how I felt when things did not work out the way I wanted them to. I never acknowledged my feelings of frustration and anxiety. What has really blown my mind is that you can only deal with a problem when you truly acknowledge its existence and how you feel about it. My old modus operandi was a kind of ‘stiff upper lip’ response.

The following are the key insights and action commitments the members took from that day.

• Stop taking sole responsibility for solving problems. Accept that you are not in control; you can only do the best you can in any situation. One forum member said he needed to resign ‘as general manager of the universe’.
• Share issues and the responsibility for solving them with others close to you. You get much better and more enriched perspectives on a problem when you share it and when you let go of the sole responsibility for dealing with it.
• Don’t try to over analyse each situation. Sit with the problem and get in touch with how you are feeling about it, honestly. Once you have done this exercise, your mind will be better at processing the information as you gain clarity from having focused on your feelings.
• If you have frustrations around how others are contributing to a situation then you need to express these. Leadership is lonely enough without bottling up all the emotions that challenging situations can elicit.
• Become aware of the beliefs that are causing you stress or frustration. There is no frustration in the issue or challenge. The frustration arises from your beliefs and expectations about how life should be and the effect this challenge will have on your expectations.
• When you share the challenge with your key managers don’t assume everyone gets it. Give others time to process the situation and the implications for them and the company. The feedback and the subsequent conversations will tell you the extent to which others understand the true nature of the challenge as well as their investment in responding to it. The quality of the dialogue is the ultimate foundation on which to develop new perspectives leading to a coherent strategy.
• Don’t sugar coat or exaggerate the potential impact of any challenge. Just be as honest as you can. Be factual as well as emotional. Encourage others to express how they feel about the new information.

Our CEO has since reported back that while the situation created a lot of anxiety, it has also strengthened the bond within the team and increased motivation and teamwork. She puts this down to sharing her fears and frustration as well as her joy and gratitude in the face of their help and engagement. She said she now has a deeper personal understanding of the wisdom behind the expression ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’.