Amygdala Hijack and Stress Control!

Hi...this is our second post and today I want to share about how stress controls our emotions if we do not control stress!

In my work with senior management I have not found a single soul whose behaviour has not been controlled by stress at one point or the other.

Hence every leadership guru emphasizes that the higher one goes in an organization, the more important is the role of emotional intelligence. It’s been found that managers with higher emotional intelligence are able to manage stress better.

For those in leadership positions, emotional intelligence skills account for close to 90 percent of what distinguishes outstanding leaders from those judged as average.

When reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, I came to know about Amygdala - the fascinating almond-sized-and-shaped brain structure. It is the centre of our emotional mind.

All incoming sensory data—sights, sounds, smells, sensations—pass through the amygdala where they are instantly analyzed for their emotional value before they go for further processing.

Amygdala, is rightly termed as Sentry and the Strategist of the brain. Too much stress “turns on” the amygdala creating an oversensitive heightened state of emotion.

Compounded stress buildup can make the amygdala a hair trigger, ready to hijack us into anger or panic at the least provocation. This situation is described by Daniel Goleman Amygdala Hijack’.

This explains how individuals and also quite a number of evolved leaders lose a significant amount of ability to “control” their emotions, thus becoming temporarily less emotionally intelligent!

Its interesting how understanding the physiology behind the psychological behaviour can help us attain better understanding of human behaviour hence leading to empathy and compassion.

Welcome

Hello everyone,

We are an enthusiastic and dynamic lot aiming to inspire and motivate people around us to achieve the best out of life. We at Purple Tree(a young training and coaching organisation) have had varied training/ coaching experience and conversations around HR with executives across leading MNCs.

And in our short journey, we have experienced organizations struggling to manage employees and vice versa, confused executives, bright individuals getting stuck on the way, leaders looking for help, entrepreneurs wanting to brain storm….. The list goes on…..

What do I want to do? Is this what I really want to do? How did I land in this job? Why is it so difficult to get work-life balance? Is there such a thing as work-life balance?

Life is challenging! How would I handle my new role? I want to be the most successful CEO of this organization! The new job sucks as much as the old one! I never knew this is what I actually wanted.

What happens when a star employee steps up the ladder to a leadership role? How does he or she handle this leap? How does this move affect them and their work? More questions, few answers...

Being an HR professional, I was privy to some of the biggest and toughest challenges executives faced in their personal and professional life. I would always think how best I could help them….

Was I able to help them? Sometimes, sometimes not. Were they able to help themselves?...sometimes…sometimes not. Was the organization able to help them?... ????????. Was the family able to help them? ????? Did they seek help? Do we seek help easily and comfortably?

‘What separates those who achieve from those who don’t, is in direct proportion to ones ability to ask for help’ – says Donald Keough, Dir. Coca Cola Company

I nurtured my passion and ability to connect with people and decided to be a Coach. It’s been a year of an exciting journey as an Executive coach.

Executive Coaching is a development tool which helps executives to introspect and question themselves. It leads to success by Design and not by Accident. Today, Executive coaching is becoming a virtual prerequisite for anyone who aspires to be anyone.

Why? Because under the right circumstances, one-on-one interaction with an objective third party can provide a focus that other forms of organizational support simply cannot.

Watch out for the next posts…..we have a lot to share!