Social Anxiety in Leadership Positions

Jennifer (host) 

Welcome to More Mind Less Grind Mental Health Strategies for Busy Professionals. This podcast brings you evidence-based insights from licensed clinical psychologists at the Utah Center for Evidence-Based Treatment. It’s designed for busy professionals, managers, and business leaders who want to lead, perform, and grow without burning out. 

Tune in to discover practical tools for a workplace you can thrive in. 

Well, hello and welcome back to today’s episode, and today we’re gonna be talking about something that often goes unnoticed, especially in leadership positions, and that is social anxiety. And when we think of leaders, we often picture confident, outgoing individuals. But in reality, many leaders struggle with social anxiety. 

Which can impact the way that they connect with their teams and navigate professional relationships. So, to help us explore this topic, I am joined by Dr. Rachel Hopkins, a licensed clinical psychologist and the program director for UCEBT’s Anxiety and Mood Team. And Dr. Hopkins specializes in evidence-based treatments for anxiety, mood disorders, and social anxiety, helping individuals who develop skills to manage these challenges. 

So, let’s jump on in. What are some hidden ways that social anxiety can affect people in leadership positions? This is manager supervisors, any leadership position.  

Dr. Rachel Hopkins 

Yeah, I love this question because I think especially for people in leadership roles, it can be really sneaky. Like how people present externally might be really different than what they’re experiencing internally. 

Or people might not really notice or read what they’re seeing socially as anxiety. So, for social anxiety disorders, people either avoid really anxiety producing situations, social situations, or they endure them with really intense fear or anxiety. Still doing the thing. And so, I, I think that’s really common for people in these leadership positions.They’ve sort of built enough strategies or ways of coping that they still are able to get most of the day-to-day tasks done. Maybe that avoidance isn’t interfering as significantly or to the point where it’s impacting their job performance, but they’re really enduring the day-to-day with. Pretty intense physiological symptoms or cognitive symptoms, like those kind of invisible things that we can’t really see or observe in others. 

The really sneaky thing about that is that when we’re feeling anxious internally, it’s not always what we show on the outside. So sometimes if a person looks maybe more aloof or detached or maybe they look very stern or cold or serious or something like that, we don’t know. We can’t read their minds or know what their internal experiences, but that is a really common way that people with social anxiety present, so people perceive them really differently than what they are experiencing internally, which can be quite painful and uncomfortable.  

Jennifer (host) 

So, do these individuals that are experiencing social anxiety in these leadership positions, do they normally recognize that they are experiencing social anxiety or might they think that something else is happening? 

Dr. Hopkins 

Yeah, it could certainly be both. It kind of depends on the person. I think a lot of people with social anxiety have a pretty high degree of insight. They may not be aware of like every single way that social anxiety is manifesting, but they might, um, to a trusted person or if they went into therapy. They would probably be pretty likely to say like, I’m struggling with anxiety and social situations and have a pretty high degree of insight, but it can present in other ways. 

Maybe this is less relevant in the workplace, although it still shows up, but for kids in adolescents for example, it’s very common for anxiety to present as. Irritability or agitation. Mm-hmm. So that could certainly extend into adulthood as well, where a person is, maybe what they’re feeling on the surface is something more like anger or frustration or irritability, but really it’s some kind of anxiety or nervousness that’s really the cause of that or the, the underlying culprit or certainly, you know, there are very intense. 

Physiological symptoms associated with this. And so sometimes people might actually go the medical route first getting their like heart checked out or their breathing checked out, or think that they might have some kind of underlying medical condition. Other ones that fall into that category would be like sweaty palms or dizziness or shortness of breath or tightness in your chest, uh, shaky feeling, those kinds of things. And then there’s also cognitive symptoms. So, you know, it’s like a belief that I’m going to be judged negatively or I’m going to be embarrassed or do something that is embarrassing. Um, I like to call social anxiety disorder like a spotlight disorder. 

It kind of puts. The spotlight on us and makes us really hypervigilant toward anything that we may be doing when really people are paying far more attention to themselves than they are you or they are to other people. But we kind of over, um, overemphasize the degree to which people are. First paying attention to us and then secondly, judging or viewing what we’re doing as embarrassing. 

Those are some common thoughts that people tend to have. And could a social anxiety like this, could it happen all of a sudden? Or is it something that has grown over time? Or maybe like a person might always have kind of known in the back of their mind that they’ve had some struggles with. Yeah. So for most anxiety disorders we tend to think of it through a, a biosocial lens, which is that, um, we might have a family history or sort of biological predisposition but also learning from our environment. 

So, a pretty classic example is like, if I have an anxious parent, or even specifically a socially anxious parent, you know, one, I inherited their genes, but two, they’re the one who raised me. So, I observed how they acted in social situations, how they responded to other people, and then sort of had some of that learning that happened as well. 

So that changes how we, as we go through life and have different things happen, how we interpret those events. We all do things and have embarrassing experiences, but if we have modeling that’s more like, this is terrifying, rather than like, oh gosh, that was so embarrassing, and then whatever, you know, kind of move on to the next thing. 

You know, we interpret those same events in a different way than a person who either has a different biological predisposition, they’re just less predisposed to, to feel, be, or experience anxiety or less of that learning from their environment.  

Jennifer (host) 

Got it. And how would social anxiety hold leaders back from connecting with their team? 

Dr. Rachel Hopkins 

Yeah, I, you know, when somebody’s in a leadership position, like the rapport that you have with your team, with your coworkers, what those working relationships are like, make a really big difference. And there are a lot of things related to social anxiety that could get in the way of that. So everything from really formal things like difficulty giving or receiving feedback, difficulty delegating. 

Tasks or difficulty communicating really clearly because avoidance is a common feature. People will engage, uh, will engage in avoidance around anything that has to do with social things. So maybe they would be more inclined to put off sending a difficult email or having a difficult conversation if they were feeling particularly anxious. 

But also really informal ways, like many workplaces have kind of informal bonding experiences or places where you could interact with your coworkers in a less structured or less formal setting. And for a person with social anxiety, those settings are usually very difficult. So maybe they don’t, they don’t go to team bonding events or social events. 

Or if they do go, they kind of are more, you know, off in the corner or only talking with like a one coworker that they already feel comfortable with, rather than putting themselves out there. That’s all internally, but certainly all of that would be true externally too for networking or building a presence in the community or building new connections. 

So I think there’s, you know, likely a lot of ways. That leaders or managers or supervisors would specifically be impacted by this. So what are some examples of situations that might bring up or, or even trigger like a social anxiety in someone in a leadership position? I would say the, the probably biggest category would have to do with things that are uncertain or novel or are a little less, you know, structured where the kind of quote, putting air quotes around this social rules. 

Are less clear or less established. Um, anxiety loves to feed on uncertainty. And sometimes people with social anxiety will really like over prepare for situations that they know will be challenging for them, which can be really, it could, you know, some preparation can be really beneficial, but when there’s something that’s very uncertain coming up that is a lot harder to prepare for, and the story that people with social anxiety have in their head is like, I can’t manage it, or I don’t know what to do, or I won’t be able to navigate that. 

And that’s really ripen those uncertain. Situations, but there could be lots of trigger triggers, especially depending on what’s required of the job. Certainly anything where you are kind of in that spotlight position, if you’re public speaking or giving a presentation or, mm-hmm oh, I don’t know, recording a podcast maybe. 

Um, things like that could certainly cue social anxiety. Also just, you know, high pressure, high stakes situations in general, or, um, even like being asked to your personal opinion on something. So something where there isn’t a very clear objective answer, but like, what is your, what is your judgment or your opinion? 

You kind of have to go out on a limb, put yourself out there a little bit. Or even like I mentioned before, performance reviews. If you are giving feedback to other people or receiving feedback as a, as a leader or manager or supervisor, I think I ask you this probably. In every episode that we do together. 

But I think it’s, it’s important to to think about, because sometimes when you’re talking, it makes me think of like the classic WebMD situation, you know? Mm-hmm. Where something happens and you go online and you’re like, well, I have it. I have all of it. Yeah. Because a lot of these things that you’re talking about, these scenarios, you’re like, well, I don’t feel comfortable giving this. 

Presentation or I’m not super comfy doing that. Does that mean I have social anxiety? You know? So how would you describe the difference between. Just, you know, I don’t wanna say just, but being uncomfortable in a certain situation and having actual social anxiety.  

Jennifer (host) 

Yeah, ’cause anxiety in social situations is really normal. 

Dr. Hopkins 

It’s a very normal thing. It’s kind of goes back to the like old school cave person. You stay as a part of the tribe or you get eaten by the. Lion or whatever is out there trying to, um, so it really is one of those like survival mechanisms that’s in the very old part of our brain that we all have to some degree and serves a really important function. 

But as you’ve heard me say before, the, the two main things for any mental health diagnosis are how much is it interfering with your life, important domains of your life. So, socially with family or friends, with job or school, with how you engage in hobbies or interests or like doing things that you want to be doing? 

Is it getting in the way of an important part of your life? Like my boss keeps asking me to do a presentation and I keep flaking on it Would. It could potentially get in the way of your job, and then how intense it is. So specifically with social anxiety, the fear is pretty persistent, meaning it sticks around for a long period of time and it’s also very intense. 

And specifically it’s out of proportion with the situation. So it’s normal to feel nervous before giving a presentation that is a. Just a normal human reaction to have. Certainly there are some people who. Experience, very minimal anxiety, but then it’s more like, what does your mind say when you have that anxiety? 

Is it like, I can’t handle this. This is gonna be disastrous. I gotta get out of this in any way I can. Um, versus somebody who maybe wouldn’t meet criteria is like, oh gosh, I feel kind of nervous about this. Um, but they’re able to, to do it. They’re kind of able to let that anxiety. Pass on its own pretty naturally. 

They don’t let it get in the way of things that are important to them in their lives, and it’s probably a little less intense overall.  

Jennifer (host) 

Got it. That makes sense. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you. And actually I think that wraps up today’s episode on how social anxiety manifests in leadership positions. So Dr.Hopkins, thank you as always for breaking this down for us.  

Dr. Hopkins 

Thanks so much, Jen. My pleasure.  

Jennifer (host) 

And to our listeners, we hope that this has helped you to understand social anxiety potentially in your life, or just recognizing that it might be affecting others around you as well. 

Thanks for joining us on More Mind Less Grind. If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it with a colleague. For more strategies from our licensed clinical psychologist at the Utah Center for Evidence-Based Treatment, be sure to subscribe or visit our website ucebt.com. Until next time, we hope you’re inspired to lead well, live well, and support mental health in your workplace.