The Hindu Business Line : ‘Healthy anxiety’ positive force for growth

Nervousness, worry, concern, unease, apprehension, disquiet, fretfulness, nervousness and angst. These are all synonyms of ‘anxiety’, a word that has its origin in Latin anxius, meaning ‘uneasy, troubled in mind,’ from ang(u)ere ‘choke, cause distress,’ as www.etymonline.com informs.

Despite its not-so-welcome nature, anxiety can be your ally if it is in the right measure, says Robert H. Rosen. “If you let it overwhelm you, it will turn to panic. If you deny or run from it, you will become complacent,” he writes in Just Enough Anxiety ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

Let go of your desire for stability, it’s time to embrace change, uncertainty and anxiety as facts of life, invites Rosen. Lest it sound painful, he reassures that ‘healthy anxiety’ can be a positive force for growth, helping you deal with the ups and downs of life. JEA or ‘just enough anxiety’ is the key to living and leading in our complex world, the author avers. The right level of anxiety, he explains, is what drives you forward without causing you to resist, give up, or try to control what happens.

Delving deep Rosen finds that anxiety originates from the gap in our minds, the difference between how we currently see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves. Life in the gap is complex, non-linear, and ever changing, he observes. The gap is where we ‘go’ in our minds when we sense things are changing, Rosen describes. “We enter the gap every time we stretch ourselves or solve problems. It is our personal laboratory for change, where anxiety lives and flourishes.” Anxiety is like a rubber band: Repress anxiety, and you hold at bay all the energy you need and lose momentum; have too much of anxiety, you spin out of control and create chaos.

The non-JEA leader can be a TLA (too little anxiety) or a TMA (too much anxiety) one. TLA leaders tend to live in a bubble, rues Rosen. Being detached, over-pleasing, cautious and idealistic, they “stay stuck in old ways of doing things or reach for quick fixes.”

The opposite, that is, the TMA leader, is suspicious, perfectionistic, volatile and egotistical. Overly attached to success, the TMA leader thinks he has to be exact and right, powerful, or in control, and all the while his obsessions create ‘unhealthy energy’ around, bemoans Rosen. Behind the TMA leader’s attachments is fear – ‘the fear of inadequacy, failure, insignificance, or being taken advantage of.’

Aim to become, therefore, the JEA leader, but that involves a mastery over three paradoxes, viz. being optimistic and realistic, constructive and impatient, and humble and confident. Resolving the first paradox involves being in the present and the future simultaneously, and being open and honest about what exists even while envisioning and articulating what’s possible, the author guides.

With constructive impatience, you can exemplify grace under pressure, and balance urgency with patience, notes Rosen. The third paradox, ‘confident humility,’ is the most challenging, he says, because it is born from a positive self-image and compassionate respect for others. “A leader with confident humility can walk into an intense, politically-charged boardroom, hold his own with confidence and grace, and then walk into a factory or a cafeteria, sit down with an average worker, and have an honest, open conversation – one human being to another.”

Of special interest should be the final chapter titled ‘Putting JEA at work’ that opens with the story of Kumar Mangalam Birla as a model of success.

Immensely insightful.

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‘Healthy anxiety’ positive force for growth