Change is confusing and makes us anxious. It is also ubiquitous. The world of work has been transformed by rapid and disruptive technological development, issues of equality and race, and political upheavals such as Brexit. And then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which has only accelerated change and deepened uncertainty.

Even if such changes are positive, they can feel overwhelming. Suddenly people are forced to make cognitive and behavioural adjustments to entrenched habits and ways of thinking, and are forced out of their comfort zone.

And change, of course, always involves loss. Leaving one’s area of expertise, saying goodbye to trusted colleagues and losing the admiration of clients are just some of the losses for individuals. Transitioning to a new role can also leave one feeling inadequate, isolated and fearful of not being up to the job.

One example comes from a solicitor in her thirties who sought my help after moving from London to another city to be close to her family. She was recruited by a firm that wished to expand its services in her area of law. When she began the job, she was shocked to discover her new colleagues had little interest in her expertise and the firm’s management offered inadequate resources. Her confidence plummeted to the extent she could no longer think clearly.

“It felt as if I had gone from being a respected player to being a curiosity on the sidelines,” she explains. “Everyone was nice, but rarely sought my opinion nor listened if I volunteered it. I had the ‘that’s not the way we do things round here’ response more than once.”

To counter this, we are exploring how she might assert her role and express her concerns and needs to the firm more forcefully.

For people switching employers, having to work from home during the pandemic has magnified such difficulties. And even for those staying put, I have clients who have felt disorientated because changes in personnel and leadership occurred “online”. They only felt the impact of these changes when they returned to the office.

I felt I was moving backwards and consumed with things not going right. The only way that I was getting any break was in drinking and trying to forget things.

Because of the Great Resignation and global staff shortages, people are being asked to take positions for which they lack training or experience. Consequently they can suffer extreme imposter syndrome, blaming themselves for failings when in fact their organisation is setting unrealistic expectations and/or not providing adequate resources.

Although many managers believe in maximising staff autonomy, for those struggling in changed roles this can mean being left to fend for themselves. New staff in particular are sometimes short changed in necessary instruction and guidance. Supporting such employees as their manager requires asking questions and having regular conversations — and not just when things go wrong.

Even when transitions are positive, such as a promotion, individuals can suffer raised anxiety as they leave behind their areas of expertise and discover that what is required is more to do with managing relationships. Not only had their technical skills served them professionally, often the same traits had helped them manage their emotional lives.

This was the case for a 36-year-old man who came to me for work psychotherapy following a depressive breakdown.

He had been promoted to chief marketing officer by his employer, which required more strategic thinking. His chief executive, who was preoccupied by other objectives, assumed my client would know what was required. Adding to his stress, he also had to perform his old role as well for an initial period.

This created a mental conflict between having to think strategically and executing operational tasks.

“I felt I was moving backwards and consumed with things not going right. The only way that I was getting any break was in drinking and trying to forget things. Your chest is tight and you want to cry, sometimes you do cry, and feel you’re oversensitive to everything,” he says.

During our sessions he told me that during childhood he found learning had helped him overcome feelings of inadequacy, ease his feelings of isolation and become socially confident.

He took this strategy into his career, studying what was necessary and becoming expert. As a result he prided himself on accepting fresh challenges. But when faced with the reality that he could not possibly absorb all that was required for his new job, he panicked.

“That caused me to have more doubts, to drink more, become less focused and then spiral downwards until a point where I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Instead, he had to learn to ask others for help, and accept that the strategy that had served him well in the past was now obstructing his ability to adapt.

It was difficult because when stressed or anxious one is likely to double-down on what is familiar and comfortable, rather than recognise what needs to change. Being confused and overwhelmed are triggers to stop and think, “hang on, what’s going on?”

As my client says: “The crazy thing is I’ve been on management courses [where] you learn at a superficial level, but then there are things inside you which short-circuit the right thing to do and you don’t do it. This is where our conversations helped.”

Recognising the opportunity for new possibilities and personal development in times of uncertainty can motivate individuals to face change. Seeking help, finding the courage to experiment and allowing for failures are crucial. Most difficult is tolerating the uncomfortable feelings that will arise.

This era of rapid and profound change puts a tremendous onus on business leaders. Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and managing principal of New York’s Boswell Group, a consultancy that advises leaders, says that as change brings greater complexity the leader’s essential role is the ability to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty, rather than offering certainty and clarity that is quickly exposed as false.

“Never has there been a greater need for humility on the part of leaders — which is the opposite of arrogance and certainty,” he says.

“The leaders who are thriving are seeing this as a time that is really interesting — where their intellectual curiosity comes to the fore without feeling the need to fully understand and taking some pleasure in adapting to these rapidly changing circumstances.”

There are many ways of dealing with extreme stress at work: chatting around the water cooler with colleagues or sharing the odd drink after hours often does the trick.

The mind, however, also has its own unconscious methods of shutting out aspects of work that can otherwise lead to intolerable anxiety. This helps distance oneself from overwhelmingly bad feelings, such as jealousy, insecurity and anger. However, these coping methods can create more problems than they solve because to varying degrees they all depend on a distortion of reality.

These defence mechanisms might take an optimistic form, with someone rationalising that a situation is not as bad as it actually is. At the other end of the continuum are more destructive responses, such as denying the existence of a problem. Another common coping method is blaming others for problems rather than admitting to responsibility that could leave one feeling guilty or bad about oneself.

Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and founder of the Boswell Group, a New York business consultancy, says these are unconscious choices, determined by an individual’s psychology and the nature of the stress: “A problem with these defences is that ultimately they break down. They can’t last for ever and the longer they persist, the worse the consequences may be for the individual — because time is passing them by and opportunities for change may be lost.”

An example comes from a founding chief executive who is charismatic and effective in attracting business, but is unable to deal with the stress of making critical decisions about his staff. As a result he has a bloated team of high-paid people who do very little. He is in denial, not of the dire straits that his company is in, but of his role in its impending collapse. He does not see that his inability to make tough personnel decisions and ultimately hand over control to a new CEO is crippling the company. Instead, he projects the problems on to his antagonised board of directors and rids himself of responsibility.

His inability to hear any negative feedback is indicative of another defence mechanism, known as “splitting”, where people and the news they bring become factors that either make him feel good or bad about himself. While the “bad” are rejected, the “good” are rewarded with loyalty.

People such as this CEO cannot tolerate the tension and confusion arising from complexity. The danger is that they trash differing opinions and ignore essential information.

His team in turn employ coping methods for dealing with their conflicting feelings towards the CEO — of dependency and admiration on the one hand, and anger and contempt on the other. The healthy ones know this is a dying business and prepare to leave, while others rationalise why they should stay — “he does bring in business after all” — and the less aware deny that a problem exists.

Avoiding stress by distorting reality through such psychological defensive measures can also play a detrimental part in financial decision making. David Tuckett, a psychoanalyst and professor at University College London, and author of Minding the Markets: an Emotional Finance View Of Financial Instability, describes how this can lead to a failure to take in crucial information about a particular investment.

According to Prof Tuckett, people can become dismissive of inconvenient evidence because somewhere in their minds, beyond immediate awareness, they feel uncomfortable about the decision they are making but cannot bear to explore further.

He explains: “They try not to take in the information because the information is not just information, it creates feeling. It creates anxiety, it creates a sense of risk of loss, or guilt in case they get it wrong, so they try to get rid of it. The more they get rid of it, the more [it] potentially creates a bigger loss in future.”

These defence mechanisms originate in childhood and are often the only protection a child may have against the onslaught of perceived threats, such as being rejected or treated unfairly. People carry these unconscious strategies into their working lives, and even though they may be immature reactions to adult problems, they help people maintain a fantasy that life is predictable, benevolent and free from horrible feelings.

This was the case for one man in marketing and sales who came from a reserved, repressed family where strong emotions were never discussed, and self-confidence not encouraged. This left him dissociated from powerful feelings that he could not deal with, such as rivalry and resentment.

Although in many ways he became an ideal employee, never challenging authority or becoming a threat to colleagues, he missed out on his own career advancement and the satisfaction and sense of triumph that comes from such progression.

He reflects on his career: “I lived my working life in a state of numbness, drifting through it in a trancelike state, going through the motions and not really reacting to people. Because you’re shutting out your own feelings, you’re more cut off from colleagues and managers, and certainly you can’t read people as well.

“There’s a large amount of regret. Not so much that I didn’t climb the greasy pole enough, but that I ruled myself out from jobs and experiences that could have fulfilled my potential. But to be ambitious was to put me in line for disappointment and rivalry, feelings I couldn’t cope with.”

Certain situations, however, are so stressful as to break through any psychological defences, leaving the person overwhelmed with anxiety and unable to make sense of, or manage, the onslaught of confusing events. A sense of worthlessness and loss of confidence prevail, and confirm the worst fears one has of oneself.

This was the case for a woman in banking who found herself confused and unable to think rationally when faced with repeated accusations and threats from a bullying boss. She says: “The most difficult bit was that I could never get it right. I focused on trying to please him and his requests just to protect myself from the explosions and confrontations. This erased any spark and energy I had. I started to doubt my­self, which eventually affected my per­f­ormance, my self-esteem and health.”

With guidance, she was able to reconnect with her better qualities and positive attitude. “Looking back, I am astounded to reflect on my situation and how badly I was affected,” she says. “It seems like a bad dream, I’m sure I will carry a scar for all my life, but it is good. It will remind me to protect myself better in future.”

The writer is a psychotherapist and this article is based partly on her clinical experience. To contribute to her forthcoming piece on the effects of business travel on workers and their families, please contact businesslife@ft.com

By Naomi Shragai

Narcissism has received a bad business press over the years. The self-obsessed chief executive with a volatile temper who both charms and intimidates staff, takes all the credit for success while shifting the blame for failure on to others, has been a recurring character in corporate dramas.

Compelling, charismatic, colourful, such people can initially draw people under their spell until difficulties and discord arise, when their deeper, darker personality begins to emerge.

Such individuals tend to be at the extreme end of narcissism, which is best understood as a personality trait along a wide continuum, rather than a pathological state. These people have an insatiable appetite for control, status and praise, which explains why many strive for and gain the top jobs.

But it is also true that such people bring qualities that are essential to the growth and success of a business. These include ambition, optimism, visionary thinking, a willingness to take risks and an ability to convince others to follow their lead. Their intelligence, aspiration and drive can be a huge asset that needs to be accompanied by a capacity for self-reflection, some ability to manage their selfish needs and a knowledge of when to seek advice.

If a person is at the extreme end of the narcissistic spectrum, however, and particularly if market circumstances become unfavourable, his or her thinking can become so irrational as to cause immeasurable damage.

Mark Stein, professor of leadership and management at Leicester university in the UK, has studied the benefits and drawbacks of narcissism to companies. He cites Dick Fuld, who was head of Lehman Brothers at the time of its collapse, as an example — someone whose character at first brought success but then allowed catastrophe to strike.

“Lehman had been a fraught and highly fractured place to work, and when Fuld was appointed, he set about — in a somewhat militaristic and brutal manner — stamping out the dissent and pulling people together,” Prof Stein says.

Approaching the financial crisis, Mr Fuld’s narcissistic traits “became entrenched in a persecutory view of the world according to which the organisation’s problems were entirely attributable to others”, he adds.

“Finally, the only way out was for Lehman to be sold off, but Fuld’s overinflated view of the worth of the company prevented him from doing this. The catastrophic collapse of Lehman, that levered us into the global credit crisis, resulted from this.”

New chief executives may find themselves in a bind as the commendable narcissistic traits — such as self-confidence, fierce ambition, a grand vision and compelling personality — that enabled them to reach the pinnacle suddenly have the potential to become a liability. Can they put their selfish impulses aside and put the company’s interests first?

Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and founder of the Boswell Group, a New York business consultancy, thinks this is a tall order and says: “In my experience, the narcissism — healthy or otherwise — that drives some executives to achieve positions of leadership remains on display once they reach the top. Try as they might to suppress these traits, it doesn’t work.”

One example of this was a chief executive who was highly ingratiating, paid false compliments and charmed people with his good looks, smooth delivery and an ability to make everyone feel they had a special relationship with him. He was extremely religious and often began senior team meetings with a prayer.

When he became CEO, the share price of the company soared, in part because initially he changed and developed the business, but also because he worked his charm on Wall Street analysts. Eventually, though, his colleagues began to see his disingenuous and manipulative side. By that time, however, the company’s performance had begun to dip, he had sold most of his shares and then proceeded with a planned retirement from the company while leaving his successor to inherit a mess.

Prof Stein explains how this comes about. “One of the biggest problems with narcissistic managers is their extreme feelings of omnipotence and their deluded thinking that they can shift the market and know the future. As a consequence, and in the face of clear and stark warnings from others, they may take on extreme and unnecessary risks that endanger the future of the organisation.”

The constant craving for affirmation and drive for perfection is best understood as a psychological defence. Behind this veneer is a person struggling to protect himself against deep feelings of inadequacy, insecurity and vulnerability.

The need for affirmation may be driven by an unconscious attempt to repair earlier traumatic experiences where he may have been neglected or hurt badly in some way. Children often internalise these experiences, so instead of feeling angry at their parents, they see the fault in themselves. Criticism, and indeed any unpleasant feelings, become intolerable.

It is difficult to change such leaders. Those with enough capacity to listen and learn can be helped by a good coach or a trusted colleague. But for those with deeper emotional damage, the process can be lengthy and difficult even with professional help.

This was the case for one successful entrepreneur who sought help because of personal relationship problems. His early childhood was marked by neglect. When he was six his father left, leaving him with a depressed mother.

He survived his own feelings of loss by escaping into his vivid imagination. There he created exciting stories that provided an alternative to the grim atmosphere at home. People became immensely attracted to him and his tales, and thereby began his subsequent business career of convincing people with his visionary thinking.

Yet beneath this success was a man who was insecure and unable to sustain intimate relationships. In-depth therapy helped him make the links between his extreme need for affirmation at work and his childhood.

He came to understand that the attention his success had brought helped distance him from a sad childhood and attain the praise he desperately missed from his father. Once he understood this, he was able to work more collaboratively with his staff and learn to tolerate his own experiences and feelings.

Research by Donald Hambrick, professor of management at Penn State University, has found that companies led by more narcissistic CEOs have more extreme fluctuations in terms of results.

“Narcissistic CEOs, who tend to pursue dynamic and grandiose strategies, also tend to generate more extreme performance — more big wins and big losses — than their less narcissistic counterparts,” he says.

“They do not generate systematically better or worse performance. In particular, they engage in substantial strategic change and considerable acquisition behaviour.”

Prof Hambrick also believes that narcissistic leaders are more beneficial in dynamic industries, citing entertainment, high tech and cosmetics as sectors that are more suited to such characters.

Perhaps the most useful conclusion to draw is that narcissism needs to be both understood and managed. We tend to condemn narcissism in others while failing to see it in ourselves. The writer Gore Vidal put it succinctly when he defined a narcissist as “someone who is better looking than you are”.

How to accommodate a narcissist
Try this

• Find out what their agenda is and go along with it — if you cannot, you may need to leave
• Appreciate that narcissistic leaders can be brilliant and inspiring too
• Realise that it is all about their success, not your achievement
• Begin feedback with praise — they only hear what they want to hear
• They will blame you if things goes wrong, so keep everything on record

Don’t try this

• Do not expect acknowledgment or thanks — nor any empathy or interest in you
• Do not take any criticism they direct your way personally
• Do not ignore them — give them the attention they demand
• Do not confront them, it could make them paranoid and vindictive
• That said, if their behaviour becomes abusive, do not tolerate it

The writer is a psychotherapist and this article is based partly on her clinical experience.

By Naomi Shragai

A young chief executive who founded a thriving company appears to be at the peak of his success. But instead of enjoying his achievement, he is stress­ed and overwhelmed with responsibility. His problem is a failure to delegate work.

“The company is a triangle and I feel at the bottom of it, holding everything up,” is how he expresses his dilemma. Although he envies managers who are able to delegate, he feels unable to, believing that the company is an extension of himself and his personality.

He adds: “I make these emotional connections and I believe that what I do is about the relationships I make with people. I never wanted to delegate for fear of losing my clients.”

Although most executives would agree that delegating is crucial to a business’s success, many still micromanage in such a way that they continue to control most aspects of the work.

For many, the skill of delegating can be learnt. But when an executive fails to do so even if it is essential to the growth and functioning of the business, the problem may be more deep-rooted. Beliefs that I have come across in my psychotherapy practice, such as “this business is all about me”; “no one can do it as well as me”; or “people are likely to let me down”, are all justifications that sabotage delegation.

One consequence of these beliefs is that staff being managed can feel undermined or undervalued, and may soon lose interest in their jobs. The harm to the company can be twofold, according to Jeannie Hodder, a business coach who works at London Business School. First, micromanaged staff cease thinking for themselves, and without imaginative input the company is deprived of innovative ideas and can stagnate. Second, overly hands-on executives can be left feeling overburdened and stressed, and without time to devise strategy.

Conversely, executives to whom delegation comes more easily say it has been crucial to their business’s success. “Empowering people is the absolute key to it,” says Charles Wace, founder and chief executive of Twofour Group, the UK independent television production company behind such programmes as Educating Essex, Happy Families and Alex Polizzi — The Fixer. His approach has been to work with clever people and enthuse them: “If you manage to employ people who are brighter and more talented than you, then you’re doing very well. It makes good sense to hire brilliant people and give them their head, rather than hire mediocre people and make yourself look good.”

Matthew Stone, a business coach who heads The Stone Partnership, has extensive experience of the problem of delegation. “Such executives have negative assumptions about what their staff can do, and the result is that people tend to replicate these low expectations,” he says. “The manager may hold a rigid belief that his or her approach is the only one. This attitude does not allow people to develop their own ways of working, which in turn leads to staff trying to second- guess what the manager wants rather than developing their own process.”

One CEO told me that when he finally forced himself to delegate, he suffered withdrawal symptoms. For him the “kick” from being the one to, in effect, “pull the deal off” was almost addictive. “When you delegate there is a loss of excitement of meeting the target, and suddenly you have to share it,” he says.

He admits that he prefers to retain work where there is praise to be had. “It’s very important for me to get praise and recognition. One of the reasons I’ve been more successful is my insecurity combined with drive. I bel­ieve insecurity makes people driven.”

In my experience as a psychotherapist, some men who crave recognition may have had absent fathers or ones that ignored them. As a result they may tend to withhold praise from others in the way that their fathers withheld it from them or because they want it for themselves.

There are other potential emotional wounds from delegating. By drawing back from their team and letting them get on with it, managers feel less involved and more isolated. There is also the acknowledgment that others can do the job as well, and in some cases better, which can be a bitter pill to swallow.

“Delegation can be difficult because it always involves dependency on others, and [some] people cannot bear depending on anyone, no matter how capable they might be,” says Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and founder of Boswell Group, a New York consultancy that specialises in advising chief executives on the psychological aspects of their work. “Dependency may make them feel weak and vulnerable, repeating some early life experience in which they were dependent on someone who failed or hurt them.”

This applies to another CEO I spoke to, who manages a financial services company. He felt guilty if he was not available to micromanage his team, constantly worrying that he was letting them down.

He was convinced it was his role to solve everyone’s problems and would not allow his staff to find their own solutions. Consequently, contrary to feeling supported, they felt he did not trust them.

Digging into his background, it became clear that the origin of this lay in his childhood, when he had the responsibility of looking after his depressed mother once his father had left the family. Because he had no adult figure he could rely on, he came to believe that no one was trustworthy. Once he understood this link to his childhood, he was better equipped to make informed choices at work.

Mr Wace believes that trusting people is not enough — you also have to take risks and let them make mistakes. He adds that a further benefit for his company is that, by allowing others to manage its day-to-day running, he is free to see the bigger picture and plan for the future.

Another CEO who successfully made the transition from micromanaging to delegating says: “I found in the end that I could get a ‘kick’ by seeing my team come together successfully and that wonderful sense of achievement when you see others doing it as well or better. You can get a warm glow from successful delegation that can balance all the losses from letting go of work.”

Warning signs: Checklist to test your reluctance to delegate

1. Staffing
   – Your staff are not bringing you their ideas and concerns. This may indicate that they find you unapproachable and closed-minded.
   – There is a high turnover of staff.
2. Teamwork
   – You treat everyone the same, implying that you have failed to see the unique differences in the team.
   – You take all the successes and failures of the business as your own.
3. Trust
   – You cannot trust others to do the job as well as you, and have low expectations for your staff’s performance.
4. Control
   – You believe it is up to you to solve all the company’s problems.
   – When the business fails to thrive, your response is to control more of the work.
5. Mood
   – Your mood is low or you may have become depressed and/or anxious.
   – You feel overwhelmed with responsibility
6. Home life
   – You cannot switch off from work and it disrupts your relationships at home.
7. Support
   – You have difficulties asking for help.
   – Your dominant character trait is self-sufficiency.

The writer is a psychotherapist and this article is partly based on her clinical experience. None of the individuals named is her client.

By Naomi Shragai