Excessive-pressure conditions at work, like an necessary assembly, are sometimes the backdrop for our most reactive skilled moments. In 2025 practically two-thirds (60%) of staff who spent greater than 15 hours every week in conferences reported experiencing extreme stress ranges, in line with a Wiley Workplace Intelligence report.
When battle arises, our our bodies typically react earlier than our brains. You would possibly lose your mood, lose your phrases, or end up anxiously agreeing to one thing that you just don’t even have capability to do. It could actually really feel deeply irritating, and even shameful, when your responses really feel impulsive and out of your management.
However is it the anxious assembly itself that causes our reactivity, or are we bringing it into the room earlier than the assembly has even began?
In in the present day’s “infinite workday” (the time period coined by Microsoft of their 2025 Work Trend Index) of fixed emails, conferences, and notifications, employees are already pressured and on the again foot. On this reactive state, you’re anticipating the worst—listening out for annoyances, slights, and irritations. In my expertise as an govt coach, our reactivity can go even deeper than that. It’s a survival response laid down lengthy earlier than you bought your present job title.
What does reactivity appear like?
Reactivity in excessive strain conferences manifests as freeze, combat, or fawn. Freezing doesn’t all the time appear like paralysis. It’s going quiet when you will have one thing to say. Combating doesn’t all the time appear like aggression. It’s a sharpness in your voice that you just catch a beat too late. And fawning is agreeing if you don’t, accommodating if you’re seething, making your self smaller in a room the place you will have each proper to take up area. What begins as occasional reactivity can turn into reflexive, which means that your physique has realized this response as the trail of least resistance.
There’s a spot between what high-achieving leaders anticipate of themselves and what they really have accessible when it counts.
What I’ve observed in practically 20 years of teaching senior leaders is that those who describe themselves as reactive in conferences are literally “pre-reactive.” In different phrases, the assembly isn’t the place the story begins; it’s the place it surfaces.
Excessive performers don’t all the time really feel depleted and that’s the issue. You’ve recalibrated so step by step to psychological strain that the state you’re in feels regular. It’s not. You’re interested by work if you’re nominally off, checking messages the second you get up and biking via tomorrow’s agenda at midnight. This state is commonly described as conscientiousness nevertheless it ends in a nervous system that by no means absolutely stands down.
Superficially you would possibly really feel okay, however within the assembly room when the strain spikes, you uncover there’s nothing left within the tank. You’ve obtained no capability to control your feelings and determine react.
According to the neuroscientist Nicole Vignola, when our brains are “all the time on” it turns into a lot more durable to shift away from a state of vigilance. This state is more and more turning into the norm when, in line with a 2026 study of over 1,000 organizations, artificial intelligence is including to workloads slightly than redistributing them.
Why reactive moments aren’t actually about what triggers you. . .
Reactivity is much less about what’s triggering you and may be extra about how previous the response feels. The reply would possibly reveal that the present agenda merchandise isn’t actually the issue. That’s as a result of our most reactive moments typically really feel youthful than us. All of a sudden you’re not the 50-year-old within the room however somebody earlier. Somebody for whom being challenged in entrance of others carried a price, lengthy earlier than this assembly existed.
When a colleague says one thing slicing, when somebody takes credit score on your thought, when the dialog shifts in a route you didn’t anticipate—your physique responds earlier than your mind catches up. That doesn’t imply you’re insufficiently senior or skilled. It means your nervous system is working software program significantly older than your job title.
Freeze, combat, and fawn aren’t grownup responses. They’re survival responses—circuits that have been laid down earlier than you had a management crew or a P&L. In a high-stakes assembly, these circuits don’t distinguish between an actual risk and a passive-aggressive peer. They simply hearth.
A 4-step system to scale back your reactivity in conferences
Right here’s the 4-step system I take advantage of with senior leaders earlier than they go right into a difficult assembly, particularly in the event that they’re not at optimum energetic capability. It creates a shift that lets you be extra intentional and thought of.
At all times keep in mind that your response isn’t being generated by the assembly. It’s been activated by it. It was already there. That recognition—even partial, even mid-meeting—creates a pause that gives sufficient time to decide on otherwise and have a second of authorship over what occurs subsequent.
1. Earlier than the assembly: reset BEFORE you stroll in
Previous to the assembly, your goal is to get to a impartial place from which you’ll be able to reply as an alternative of react. There are three steps: First, title your present state (it is perhaps “tense,” “rushed,” “defensive”). Then take a look at one thing within the distance to widen your focus. Lastly, do a number of rounds of baseline respiratory, which is the title I’ve given to the physiological sigh. Inhale deeply, then, with out exhaling, take a top-up breath and maintain for a beat earlier than an extended, sluggish exhale.
2. Earlier than the assembly: determine in your sample override
Underneath strain, you’ll default to previous patterns until you’ve consciously chosen and rehearsed an alternate. For example, if you comply with issues too shortly, your sample override is perhaps to say, “Could I get again to you?” On this case, your purpose is to keep away from committing to one thing within the assembly itself. You may revisit a thought of reply nevertheless it’s more durable to undo a reflexive one.
3. Throughout the assembly: sluggish your self down
Reactivity loves velocity. Management strikes in a extra thought of approach. Gradual your self down by anchoring into your physique. Really feel your ft in your footwear, the place they make contact with the ground. Really feel the pen in your hand. Apply talking at a slower tempo, and in a decrease tone. In the event you want area within the warmth of the second, go sluggish and low. Say “Let me take into consideration that.” Or use a phrase like, “Are you able to say extra about that?” In the event you say one thing that felt reactive, having a phrase at your fingertips that you just’ve rehearsed is useful—for example, “That got here out extra strongly than I meant. Let me reset.”
4. After the assembly: clear the residue
Resetting after the assembly is an influence transfer. First seize any actions to attenuate open loops in your thoughts. Then clear the whiteboard of your mind— ideally by doing one thing completely different for a short while to shift psychological gears. Stroll across the constructing. Seize a espresso. Do one thing away out of your display. As you’re doing this, say to your self, “That’s executed now.”
Each time potential, construction a buffer between conferences to attenuate one name bleeding into the subsequent, with no likelihood to reset. Attempt reserving 25- or 55-minute conferences and also you’ll be stunned how little pushback you get.
Changing into much less reactive doesn’t imply you need to cease reacting altogether. It means recognizing it earlier, understanding your individual patterns and designing a system that higher serves you.
The assembly doesn’t create the reactivity. In all probability, you introduced it with you. That data is extra liberating than you assume.
