Managing Fear For Yourself and Your Staff: The Hidden Reason We’re Afraid Right Now!

Managing Fear For Yourself and Your Staff: The Hidden Reason We’re Afraid Right Now!

FEAR RUN RAMPART:  Most of us are managing fear right now and for good reason. We are being stalked by an invisible assassin, we are worried about loved ones, lost jobs and a world economy in freefall. Yet there is another more hidden reason we are afraid.

A LONELY TIME:  Even if we are cooped up with a partner or a pair of teenagers who are driving us nuts, most of us are coping with a degree of social isolation that is far from our usual life. We can’t go to our usual workplace, the gym, church or temple, or even the park or coffee shop. If you are managing employees remotely, it is useful to remember that they are in this surprising and lonely headspace also.

THE NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY OF LONELINESS:  With rare exceptions, we are herd animals. We gather in packs for all kinds of good – and sometimes not so good – reasons. Our brains have developed over the millennium to remind us that we are safer with our tribe. We are wired to connect. Without our fellows, the deep and primitive parts of our brains react with fear. Psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, for example, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, reminds us that lacking social connections even puts us at greater health risk. One study, for example, pooled the evidence collected from 70 studies that followed a total of 3.4 million participants for an average of seven years and came up with a startling conclusion: those who are more socially connected live longer, irrespective of what other kinds of health issues they may have.

Researchers believe that loneliness evolved as a kind of early warning system that something is not right, prompting us to get back to the tribe in order to escape saber tooth tigers. That sense of threat can trigger inflammation in the body, leading to tissue breakdown and impairment of the immune system, increasing our susceptibility to conditions ranging from heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease.

After loneliness stimulates a white blood cell inflammatory response, that response feeds back to the brain and makes it irritable, suspicious, and prone to negative emotions, says Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo, Director of the Brain Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. People who are lonely live at such a heightened level of alarm that they even lose sleep, in addition to daytime bouts of anxiety and depression.

Significantly, researchers tell us that simply being with others will not cure the brain’s negative response. What we need is a shared sense of values and life experiences: we all want witnesses to our lives.

What Should You Do?

TALK ABOUT IT: For leaders who are busy zooming and phoning your staff, be honest about the challenges of isolation. Gently allow your associates to share their feelings and to come up with creative ways to connect, even if they can only do so remotely. Be a courageous model, appropriately sharing your own lonely feelings. And – as I wrote in my last two Monday Memos — prefer video platforms and phone calls over constant emails and texts.

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Remind people of shared values, goals and the witnessing that arises from being part of a team.

BEEF UP YOUR EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAM: Therapy can help with loneliness and the resulting negative emotions, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Many therapy groups are working during the pandemic, through phone or Zoom. Encourage your people to take advantage of their services.

CARE FOR YOURSELF: You cannot be an effective leader if your brain is being hijacked by loneliness. Recognize the issue and seek therapy if you need it. Take advantage of what connections you can, reach out of friends, family and colleagues that you haven’t spoken with in years, go through a walk in the neighborhood and smile and nod at your neighbors or chat through your mask at an appropriate distance.