I spent nearly two decades in banking, an industry where risk is measured with extraordinary discipline. Portfolios are stress-tested, credit assumptions are challenged, liquidity shocks are modeled, and exposures are monitored against clearly defined limits.

What is too often overlooked is the condition of the person interpreting that data and making decisions based on it.

«The problem is not a lack of intelligence. The problem is reduced access to that intelligence.»

Every analyst knows the principle: Models consist of variables and constants. In practice, the decision-maker is treated as a constant: rational, stable, and reliable.

We measure performance, outcomes, and technical capabilities. Clarity, emotional self-regulation, and the ability to recover under pressure, by contrast, often remain invisible until they fail.You cannot stress-test a portfolio with an un-stresstested mind running the test. 

What pressure does to decision-making

When the brain registers a threat, the amygdala, which plays a central role in processing emotions and detecting danger, can react before the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain critical to complex decision-making – has fully processed the situation. Attention narrows, the sense of urgency increases, and the impulse to defend, attack, avoid, or shut down becomes stronger.

The expertise has not disappeared. But accessing it becomes more difficult.

Pressure itself is not the problem. The Yerkes-Dodson curve describes what many high performers know intuitively: Too little pressure reduces alertness, the right amount sharpens focus, and too much impairs performance.

Closely related is the concept of the «window of tolerance»: the range within which we can still think clearly, weigh risks, and listen to dissenting views without immediately becoming defensive.

Sustained pressure narrows this window: Feedback is perceived as criticism, and urgency displaces judgment. A curt response can throw a negotiation off course, and so on.

The problem is not a lack of intelligence. The problem is reduced access to that intelligence.

When the mind distorts information

Pressure also changes the way we process information.

Negativity bias causes us to give greater weight to a potential loss than to a comparable opportunity.

Chris Argyris, a professor of administrative science at Yale, co-founder of the field of organizational development, and a pioneer in organizational learning and action science, described this mechanism through the «Ladder of Inference.» We observe data, select certain information, assign meaning to it, make assumptions, draw conclusions, and ultimately act on them. Thoughts are not facts. 

The critical question, therefore, is not simply: «What do I think?» It is: «What did I actually observe, what did I merely assume, and what else could it mean?» 

Seniority offers no protection

This is by no means a problem confined to the lower levels of an organization.

According to a report by U.S. analytics and polling company Gallup, global employee engagement has fallen to 20 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022. Gallup estimates the resulting loss in productivity at around $10 trillion in its 2026 report – close to 9 percent of global GDP.

Much of that decline is concentrated in middle management. Manager engagement fell by 5 percentage points in just one year, from 27 percent in 2024 to 22 percent in 2025 – its largest annual decline to date.

«A leader under sustained pressure affects the entire team.»

At the most senior levels, the pressure manifests itself differently. Executives report higher levels of engagement, yet they are also significantly more likely to say that they experience periods of intense stress, anger, sadness, and loneliness.

Another component of decision-making capacity is also under pressure: emotional intelligence. A 2025 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, involving 28,000 adults across 166 countries, found that emotional intelligence declined between 2019 and 2024.

This is particularly relevant for the financial industry. Alongside technical expertise, precisely these human capabilities are becoming increasingly important.

When individual risk becomes institutional risk

The consequences are not confined to the individual.

A leader under sustained pressure affects the entire team. Hierarchies amplify this effect: The more senior the position, the greater the impact.

A personal variable therefore becomes an institutional one.

Poor decisions at the leadership level can directly affect the bottom line, increase stress within teams, and drive employees away. It can reach the point where decisions are accepted without challenge, mistakes are not acknowledged before the client discovers them, and employees become less willing to flag risks.

Performance capacity belongs on the business agenda

Resilience and cognitive performance therefore belong on the performance agenda – alongside all the other factors that determine the quality of business decisions.

Too often, these issues are categorized as «wellbeing,» delegated to an employee assistance program or an app, and treated as an employee benefit.

That does not go far enough.

«The consequences are measured. The underlying variable usually is not.»

No financial institution would allow an untested model to value a position. Yet institutions rely every day on human judgment without systematically considering the condition of the people making those decisions.

The resulting costs rarely appear under their true name on an income statement, because there is no line item titled “low emotional intelligence” or “dysregulated nervous system”. 

The consequences such as turnover among the people you most wanted to keep or the deal that went quietly wrong are measured. The underlying variable usually is not.

A risk that can be managed

This risk differs from many others in one crucial respect: It can be influenced.

That is why I founded Health is Wealth: to systematically train the foundations of lasting performance before they become a vulnerability. Emotional self-regulation, resilience, and mental performance can all be strengthened through consistent training.

This is not about turning a bank into a wellness organization.

It is about applying a familiar principle of risk management to the people making the decisions: The quality and capacity of the decision-maker should be taken as seriously as the quality of the decisions they make.

We assume that we act rationally. Yet that assumption is rarely tested, priced in, or even named.

It is time to change that.

Patricia Ordody is the founder of Health is Wealth in Zurich and a certified executive coach. After nearly two decades in banking, she works with executives, finance leaders and organizations on the mental fitness, capacity and emotional intelligence that lasting performance depends on.