Leadership Schisms

Awareness Is Key says Uzair Hassan, Three H Solutions, Dubai

OPINION PIECE

Uzair Hassan

11/11/20263 min read

How unsuspecting are we, of our actions, behaviors and approaches? More than we actually think.

Being unaware of one’s own unawareness is a thing. It’s more common than we know and it afflicts a vast majority of people. So how does it impact our lives you ask?

Leadership under pressure reacts very differently than if the situation was calm, they had the luxury of time to decide and take action and the situation was generally under control.

Leadership behavior schisms appear when:

ü Their beliefs are being questioned

ü Their authority is being challenged

ü Their competence is doubted

ü Their decisions are scrutinized

ü When they are expected to have all the answers

ü When their integrity is questioned

ü When someone junior outperforms them or comes up with the answers

ü When the choice of being liked or doing the right thing is put on them

ü When they have to admit their mistakes

ü When they lose control of a situation

ü When their success (past) becomes irrelevant in the new reality

ü When they must go back on their position publicly after defending it passionately

ü When the people they lead no longer see them as the most knowledgeable person in the room

ü When they feel threatened by someone else's success but are expected to celebrate it.

ü When they must make a decision that protects the organisation but damages their personal popularity. Etc. Etc.

It can manifest as defensiveness, micromanagement, aggression, silence, indecision, political pressure or resistance to change. It can blind you to obvious solutions. Distract you from the true nature of the situation. Disgruntle your people. Deny the possible.

Things that trigger or exacerbate the situation often emanate from within. Its less the situation, more the impact you feel it is having.

A leadership insight: Managing yourselves may be leaderships holy grail.

Your greatest challenge may not always be managing people, markets or strategy.

Managing yourselves. Now that’s something worth aiming for.

I pose this provocative question to you:

“When you feel threatened as a leader, do you become more curious, or more controlling?”

The answer can reveal more about someone's leadership maturity than a conventional competency assessment.

Pressure doesn’t reveal your leadership skills. It exposes your insecurities.

When authority is challenged, the leader interrupts. When competence is questioned, they start proving how clever they are. When control slips, they micromanage. When a younger colleague shines, they diminish them. When they are wrong, they move the goalposts. When fear takes over, they demand more reports, more meetings, more approvals — confusing control with leadership.

Look at the real world: a CEO humbles a manager in a meeting, so the manager stops speaking up. A senior executive kills a dissenting opinion, so the entire team starts agreeing with bad decisions. A leader terrified of failure refuses to experiment, and the business slowly becomes irrelevant.

The most dangerous thing about pressure is that it can make a leader's worst behaviour feel justified.

The ultimate test of leadership isn't how you behave when you are in charge. It's who you become when your authority, ego, reputation or certainty is under attack.

Under pressure, do you become the leader the situation needs — or the person your insecurities demand?

Uzair Hassan

CEO, Three H Solutions

Uzair.hassan@3hsolutions.biz

https://www.linkedin.com/in/uzair-hassan-6451024/

In today’s high-pressure business environment across the UAE and wider GCC, performance is often framed as a mindset challenge. Leaders are encouraged to think differently, act decisively, and push through uncertainty.

But neuroscience tells us a different story.

Performance doesn’t start with mindset.
It starts with the nervous system.

The concept of the Polyvagal Ladder, developed by Stephen Porges, explains how we move through three core physiological states each day:

Ventral Vagal (top): calm, connected, clear thinking
Sympathetic (middle): stressed, reactive, fight-or-flight
Dorsal Vagal (bottom): shut down, disengaged, overwhelmed

We don’t think our way into these states, we feel our way into them and from each state, our ability to lead, communicate, and make decisions shifts dramatically.

Why this matters for leaders in the GCC

Across the region, the data is clear. According to the latest Cigna Healthcare Vitality Study, 89% of people in the UAE report experiencing stress, and 99% report at least one symptom of burnout. In fast-growing economies where leaders are navigating constant change, this has direct implications for performance.

When teams operate from:

Ventral (safe & connected) → higher creativity, collaboration, and cognitive clarity
Sympathetic (stress response) → urgency, reactivity, short-term thinking
Dorsal (shutdown) → disengagement, low energy, reduced productivity