What Anxiety at Work Actually Looks Like
When people hear the word anxiety, they often imagine someone who is visibly distressed, perhaps having a panic attack, struggling to breathe, or unable to function.
But anxiety at work is often much quieter.
Sometimes, the employee experiencing anxiety is the person everyone describes as reliable, hardworking and committed.
They are the person who checks their work three times before submitting it.
The person who stays late because they are afraid they have not done enough.
The person who spends an hour preparing for a meeting that should have taken ten minutes.
The person who has a good idea but doesn't speak because they are worried about how others will perceive it.
Or the person who sends a message and then spends the next hour wondering whether they said the wrong thing.
Anxiety doesn't always look like anxiety.
It can look like perfectionism.
An employee may struggle to delegate because they believe that if they don't do something themselves, it will go wrong.
It can look like procrastination.
Not necessarily because the person is lazy, but because a task may trigger discomfort, fear of failure or uncertainty, making avoidance temporarily easier.
It can look like constant reassurance-seeking.
"Is this okay?"
"Are you sure this is what you wanted?"
"Did I do this correctly?"
It can look like over-preparation.
The employee who knows every possible question that could be asked in a presentation may not simply be exceptionally prepared. They may also be trying to reduce the possibility of making a mistake.
It can look like silence.
Someone may have valuable contributions but remain quiet in meetings because the perceived risk of being judged feels greater than the benefit of speaking.
And sometimes it looks like irritability, withdrawal or difficulty concentrating.
The important point is that anxiety does not have one outward presentation.
Some people respond to anxiety by avoiding.
Others respond by over-controlling.
Some become quieter.
Others become more demanding.
Some work harder.
Others struggle to start.
The behaviour can look very different even when anxiety is part of the underlying psychological process.
Sometimes anxiety gets rewarded at work.
This is where things become particularly interesting.
We praise the employee who never says no.
We praise the person who works late every evening.
We describe the perfectionist as having "high standards."
We call the person who constantly checks their work "thorough."
We may even promote the employee who appears to be coping exceptionally well, without ever asking what that performance is costing them.
But research suggests that perfectionism at work is more complicated than simply being "high performing."
A 2025 meta-analysis of 28 samples, 77 effect sizes and 9,560 participants found that both perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns were associated with working longer hours. Perfectionistic strivings had a small positive relationship with work performance, while perfectionistic concerns were not meaningfully related to performance. When the two dimensions were considered together, the overall relationship with performance remained relatively modest (Bellam & Curran, 2025).
In other words, working harder and longer does not automatically translate into substantially better performance.
This matters because some behaviours that organisations reward may also come with psychological costs.
So the question for leaders shouldn't simply be:
"Is this employee performing?"
It should sometimes be:
"What is this level of performance costing the person?"
And anxiety doesn't only affect employees.
This is an important part of the conversation that we often overlook.
Leaders experience anxiety too.
A leader may be worried about missing targets, losing control, disappointing senior management, making the wrong decision, or being perceived as incompetent.
And when anxiety is poorly regulated, it doesn't always remain inside the leader.
It can show up in leadership behaviour.
In my engagement with people, I have observed that anxiety does not always present as withdrawal or visible distress. In some leaders, particularly when they feel threatened or under pressure, it can present as defensiveness, increased control, irritability or lashing out.
A leader who feels threatened may become defensive.
A leader who feels out of control may become excessively controlling.
A leader who is worried about performance may become excessively critical.
A leader who feels challenged may interpret ordinary disagreement as disrespect.
And sometimes, what appears to be anger or a "difficult personality" may reflect a poorly regulated response to underlying stress, fear or perceived threat.
This does not mean that anxiety excuses harmful behaviour.
It doesn't.
Leaders remain responsible for how they behave.
But understanding the psychological processes involved can help organisations intervene earlier.
Research supports the idea that workplace conditions and anxiety can be connected to harmful leadership behaviour. Xi et al. (2022), for example, examined how high-performance work systems may contribute to leader anxiety and, under certain conditions, abusive supervision, particularly toward employees perceived as poor performers.
Similarly, Zheng and Zhang (2023) found that workplace anxiety helped explain the relationship between leaders' bottom-line mentality and abusive supervision. Their study involved 393 employees and 91 supervising managers and also examined the role of organisational rules climate.
These findings do not mean that anxiety inevitably causes abusive leadership.
They suggest something more nuanced:
Anxiety can influence how leaders respond to perceived threats, pressure and loss of control. Under certain conditions, this may contribute to defensive, hostile or abusive supervisory behaviour.
That distinction matters.
Understanding is not the same as excusing.
We need to be careful here.
If a leader is anxious, that may help us understand why they are behaving in a particular way.
It does not make harmful behaviour acceptable.
A leader can be under enormous pressure and still be expected to regulate how they speak to people.
A psychologically informed workplace should be compassionate and accountable.
Both matter.
Anxiety can create a cycle.
Consider this:
 |
| Anxiety Cycle |
A leader becomes anxious about performance.
↓
They become increasingly controlling.
↓
Employees become afraid to make mistakes.
↓
Employees stop speaking up.
↓
The leader receives less honest information.
↓
Problems remain hidden.
↓
Performance deteriorates.
↓
The leader becomes even more anxious.
And the cycle continues.
This is one reason psychological safety matters.
When people are afraid to speak, ask questions or admit mistakes, leaders may receive less accurate information about what is actually happening in the organisation.
In this sense, behaviour intended to regain control can sometimes create an environment that makes effective leadership even more difficult.
What can leaders do?
Managers don't need to diagnose anxiety.
That's not their role.
But they can become more psychologically informed.
1. Clarify expectations.
Uncertainty can increase stress.
Employees should understand what is expected, what good performance looks like and which priorities matter most.
Clarity does not eliminate anxiety, but unnecessary ambiguity can make workplace stress harder to manage.
2. Create psychological safety.
People should be able to ask questions, admit mistakes and raise concerns without fear of humiliation or retaliation.
A psychologically safe workplace is not one where standards disappear.
It is one where people can meet standards without being afraid to speak honestly.
3. Notice changes in behaviour.
Withdrawal, irritability, difficulty concentrating, excessive checking, absenteeism or changes in performance may warrant a supportive conversation.
The goal is not to diagnose the employee.
The goal is to notice when something may have changed and respond with curiosity rather than immediate judgement.
4. Don't automatically reward overwork.
Someone consistently working late is not necessarily demonstrating healthy commitment.
Sometimes they are demonstrating fear.
The employee who stays until midnight may be highly committed.
They may also be struggling to tolerate the possibility that their work is "good enough."
The behaviour alone doesn't tell us the whole story.
5. Pay attention to your own emotional state as a leader.
Before responding to an employee, ask yourself:
"Am I responding to the actual problem, or to the anxiety I'm experiencing about the problem?"
That pause can change a conversation.
It can create enough psychological distance to distinguish between a genuine performance issue and the emotional urgency surrounding it.
6. Don't confuse psychological understanding with reduced accountability.
Understanding why someone lashes out does not mean accepting the lashing out.
Understanding anxiety does not mean removing boundaries.
And supporting someone's mental health does not mean abandoning performance expectations.
Healthy workplaces need both compassion and accountability.
Employees also have a role to play.
If you constantly feel that you have to get everything right...
If you find yourself unable to switch off after work...
If you repeatedly avoid tasks because you are afraid of failing...
If you spend significant amounts of time worrying about how colleagues perceive you...
Or if your mind is constantly running through "What if..." scenarios...
It may be worth paying attention to that pattern.
You don't have to wait until you are completely overwhelmed before seeking support.
Sometimes the first step is simply recognising that a coping strategy that once helped you function may now be costing you more than you realise.
Anxiety is not a character flaw.
It isn't necessarily a lack of confidence.
It isn't laziness.
And it isn't simply something people should "get over."
Anxiety is a psychological response that can influence how we think, feel and behave.
At work, those effects can become particularly difficult to recognise because they can sometimes look like high performance.
And for leaders, anxiety may manifest differently, not as withdrawal, but as control, defensiveness, irritability, excessive criticism or difficulty tolerating uncertainty.
The goal isn't to label every difficult employee or manager as anxious.
The goal is to become better at recognising the psychological processes that can influence behaviour.
As leaders, HR professionals and colleagues, we should learn to look beyond the behaviour.
And as employees, we should become more willing to recognise when our coping strategies are beginning to cost us our wellbeing.
Because sometimes the employee who looks like they are coping the best is the person who has become the best at hiding how much effort coping actually takes.
And sometimes the leader who appears the most forceful is struggling with uncertainty and a perceived loss of control.
Mental health at work isn't just about helping people when they break down.
It is also about understanding the psychology behind how people think, behave, lead, communicate and perform every day.
Perhaps the question we should be asking more often is not simply:
"What's wrong with this person?"
But:
"What might be happening psychologically beneath what I'm seeing?"
That question doesn't remove accountability.
It creates the possibility of responding more intelligently.
Author: Hama Marandure, Clinical Psychologist and Human Performance Specialist
hello@hamahub.org | +263781997785 | www.hamahub.org
For organisations seeking employee wellness programmes, workplace mental health support, psychological services, stress and burnout interventions, or employee wellbeing solutions in Zimbabwe, get in touch with HamaHub.
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