Career advice for running a team for the first time - Stress Languages

Photo by Andrey Larionov on Unsplash

A friend of mine, dipping her toe into people management for the first time, was having a hard time.

She’d been working with a virtual assistant, and despite good intentions on both sides, it just hadn’t worked.

Tempers had flared. Assumptions were made. It was exasperation at dawn!

When she talked it through, she wasn’t asking how to be a better manager in a textbook sense. She was asking something much simpler: "What do I need to look for?"

That question comes up a lot with first-time leaders. We focus so much on doing the right things — setting goals, giving feedback, managing performance — that we miss the quieter, human signals happening underneath.

The shifts in tone.

The changes in behaviour.

The way stress leaks out sideways when pressure builds.

This is where the idea of stress language has been one of the most useful lenses for me and some genuinely useful career advice. Not as a diagnosis or a label, but as a way to notice what someone’s nervous system is asking for when work gets hard.

You don’t need years of leadership experience to spot these patterns. You just need to know what to look for — and how to respond with a bit more intention.

What to notice when stress shows up at work

Stress responses aren’t personality traits. They’re context-driven. The same person can look capable and calm one week, and overwhelmed or reactive the next, depending on workload, pressure, and how safe they feel.

Below are three common stress languages you’re likely to see when running a team — especially for the first time — and some simple, human ways to respond.

What is stress language?

Most of us are familiar with the idea of instinctive, animal-like stress responses;

Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.

These aren’t conscious choices. They’re automatic nervous-system reactions to perceived threat or overload. And importantly, the same person can show up very differently depending on context, pressure, and how safe they feel.

Below are three of the most common stress languages you’re likely to see at work — and how to support people when they appear.

Flight (My most common response)

How it shows up

• Working long hours without being asked

• Saying yes to everything

• Avoiding difficult conversations

• Staying “busy” to stay safe

  
  

Flight often looks like commitment and drive, which is why it’s so easy to miss.

Underneath, it’s a stress response rooted in avoidance and fear of letting people down.

How you can help

• Support clearer boundaries and realistic workloads

• Actively encourage rest and prioritisation

• Offer specific, grounded positive feedback

• Help them pause and recognise what they’ve already achieved

• Set up regular 1:1s with them and create a structure using the above points

  
  

Fight

How it shows up

• Short tempers or sharp responses

• Defensiveness in meetings

• Interrupting or talking over others

• A need to control decisions or “win” the argument

  
  

Fight tends to get labelled as difficult behaviour, but it’s often driven by fear and a need for control when things feel unsafe or unclear.

How you can help

• Slow the conversation down rather than shutting it down

• Acknowledge their concern before addressing behaviour

• Move heated discussions into private, one-to-one spaces

• Be clear and consistent — ambiguity fuels fight responses

When regulated, the energy behind fight can be incredibly valuable. The goal is not to suppress it, but to contain it safely.

Freeze

How it shows up

• Going quiet in meetings

• Delayed responses or avoidance of decisions

• Difficulty starting tasks, even familiar ones

• Appearing disengaged or “checked out”

  
  

Freeze is often mistaken for lack of confidence or motivation (or also Fawn, below). In reality, it’s what happens when the nervous system is overwhelmed and doesn’t see a clear or safe way forward. Nothing feels like the right move, so everything stalls.

You’ll often see freeze in people who care deeply about doing a good job, particularly when expectations are unclear or stakes feel high.

How you can help

• Reduce cognitive load by breaking work into smaller, clearer steps

• Clarify priorities and what “good enough” looks like

• Give reassurance before feedback, not just after

• Create space for thinking time rather than demanding immediate answers

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is remove pressure rather than add motivation.

Fawn

How it shows up

• People-pleasing and over-agreeing

• Struggling to say no

• Apologising excessively

• High stress when something is missed or someone is disappointed

  
  

Fawn responses are often praised at work because they look cooperative and easy. In reality, they can hide anxiety, resentment, and early burnout.

How you can help

• Explicitly give permission to disagree or push back

• Ask open questions instead of accepting quick agreement

• Reinforce that mistakes are data, not personal failures

• Praise honesty over harmony

  
  

Psychological safety is essential here. People who fawn need to see that relationships survive disappointment.

A final piece of career advice.....

Most people don’t live in just one stress response. You might see flight during busy periods, fight under scrutiny, and fawn with authority figures.

Stress language isn’t a label — it’s a signal.

When you’re new to leading people, it’s easy to assume that struggle means failure — yours or theirs. In reality, most of the time it’s just unrecognised stress playing out in different ways.

Good leadership, especially early on, isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about noticing sooner. Pausing before you react. And choosing responses that help people regulate rather than retreat, attack, or overextend themselves.

Stress language gives first-time leaders permission to lead like humans, not managers. To stay curious instead of judgmental. And to build working relationships that can cope with pressure, not collapse under it.

In the next posts, I’ll explore two more simple, human-led lenses — love languages and communication styles — and how noticing these can make work feel a little easier, safer, and more sustainable for everyone involved.

Also, if you're looking for ways to get your nervous system back on track, check out my previous post about managing stress.