“I’m so stressed out! Can you help me?”

I get that a lot, particularly when people hear that one of my areas of expertise is helping people produce under pressure. It’s a fair question, but an off-target one. Fair, because stress and pressure are similar. Off-target, because they’re not the same.

Here’s the difference. Stress is a condition. You have a tough job, or an unhappy marriage, or unruly kids. These can all cause stress. Pressure, however, is an event. You have ...

I burned the broccolini last night.

As world crises go, this was pretty minor. Still, it served as a useful metaphor for producing under pressure. (Hey, it was useless as a side dish, so I had to do something with it!) Follow me along on this, step-by-step, and you’ll see what I mean.

1. There’s always more pressure when we’re doing something unfamiliar (all other things being equal). A cardiac surgeon feels more pressure during her first open-heart surgery ...

My favorite quotation (and yes, the word is “quotation;” “quote” is a verb, thank you) from Harry S Truman (and no, there’s no period after the “S,” because it’s not an abbreviation; “S” was his entire middle name — my goodness, I’m being irritatingly picky today!) is this one:

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

But my second favorite quotation from Harry S Truman is this one:

“Not all readers are leaders…but all leaders are ...

Like you, I often hear people say, “Oh, I’m under so much pressure!”

When I hear this, I generally ask them what’s going on. And often the answer is something like, “Oh, nothing specific. Politics, paying the bills, this cold I can’t seem to shake. You know, just general stuff.”

What they’re actually feeling is stress, not pressure. Let’s look at the difference.

Stress is like the gray, overcast sky; it’s a state of being. Pressure is like the sudden, violent thunderstorm; it’s ...

So there was that time when I told 500 geniuses to stop being so mentally lazy.

I was the opening keynoter for the annual convention of Mensa, the high IQ society. [Full disclosure: I’m also a member. I’m pretty sure I got in under some sort of Affirmative Action program.]

The reaction was, shall we say, mixed.

But I stand by my statement.

Now let’s be clear: I wasn’t accusing these people of not having brainpower. I was accusing them of not ...

Leadership is, at times, an honor, a burden, a privilege, a headache, a riddle, a mirror, a crisis, and a joy. Sometimes it’s two or more of these at the same time.

But leadership is first, foremost, and always, a responsibility.

A responsibility to whom? Ask any good leader, and they’ll tell you that they have, broadly speaking, three constituencies:

1. Their team

When a leader is responsible to the team, that leader:

• communicates a clear and compelling direction for the team;
• shares the credit with ...