The following is a guest post by Elise Zhu on the important topic of how founders can identify and manage stress, especially facing important decisions under conditions of high uncertainty.
Deciding Under Fire: What Stress Does to a Founder’s Brain (and How to Design Around It)
By Elise Zhu
Founders make decisions in uncertainty for a living:pricing, hiring, product scope, go-to-market bets, and pivots. When decision-making breaks down, it is tempting to blame discipline, intelligence, or strategy. In practice, many founder decision challenges are better explained by biology: sustained stress changes how the brain evaluates risk, processes information, and commits to action.
I’ll start with a composite example drawn from patterns I see repeatedly in founder work . A founder running a bootstrapped B2B company had strong product instincts and a viable customer pipeline. Under sustained pressure—cash-flow constraints, customer churn concerns, and an intense delivery schedule—decision quality became inconsistent. In some weeks, the founder moved fast and confidently. In others, decisions were either pushed too forcefully or delayed despite having sufficient information. From the team’s perspective, momentum felt unstable. What changed was not capability or commitment, but stress physiology.
How Stress Changes Founder Decision-Making
Under sustained stress, the brain tends to prioritize threat management over exploration. This shift can narrow attention and bias decisions toward short-term protection rather than long-term learning. Cortisol, a central stress hormone, plays an important role in this process.
Elevated cortisol has been associated with narrower attentional focus, reduced cognitive flexibility, and a greater tendency toward short-term, threat-oriented decision-making. In founder environments, this often shows up as difficulty holding multiple perspectives, increased reactivity, and a reduced tolerance for uncertainty.
A useful lens here is the “Dual-Hormone Hypothesis”, which examines how testosterone and cortisol interact. Research suggests that behaviors commonly associated with leadership and dominance—often linked to testosterone—are expressed differently depending on stress levels, as indexed by cortisol. When cortisol is elevated, the behavioral expression of testosterone appears to change, which may help explain why confidence, decisiveness, or risk-taking can become less effective under pressure.
Across founders of different genders, this stress biology tends to produce two common patterns. Some founders respond by pushing decisions more forcefully, substituting speed or intensity for clarity. Others respond by delaying decisions, narrowing scope, or avoiding commitment as a way to reduce discomfort and uncertainty. These are not character flaws; they are predictable responses of a nervous system under load.
Recognizing Stress Before It Derails Decisions
Founders often ask how to make better decisions under pressure. A better diagnostic question is how to recognize when a decision has shifted from deliberate to reactive.
Stress-driven decisions often share recognizable signals:
- urgency that feels physical rather than strategic
- repeated looping over the same options without new insight
- oscillation between overconfidence and self-doubt
- avoidance of decisions that were previously manageable
- increased defensiveness or isolation
In the composite example above, the founder began tracking what preceded “bad decision days.” Sleep debt, unresolved interpersonal tension, and extended periods without recovery were consistent predictors. Once this pattern became visible, decision inconsistency stopped being treated as a personal failing and started being addressed as a system design problem.
Practical Work Habits That Improve Decisions Under Pressure
Improving decision-making under stress is less about adding tools and more about designing work habits that respect human biology.
Over years of working with founders, senior leaders, and other high-performance professionals, the following practices have consistently proven effective in improving decision-making under pressure:
- Separate decision-making from peak stress
Decisions with strategic impact are intentionally moved out of moments of physiological overload. Instead of deciding reactively, founders schedule defined decision windows during lower-stress periods. Decisions tend to become faster and more consistent because fewer of them need to be revisited. - Pre-commit to decision criteria
Stress narrows thinking. To counter this, decision criteria are clarified in advance—before pressure peaks. This reduces second-guessing and limits the influence of momentary emotional states on judgment. - Reduce cognitive load before increasing output
Rather than pushing harder, weekly priorities are constrained to a small set of non-negotiables. This lowers background stress and restores a sense of control, supporting steadier execution and follow-through. - Design habits that activate safety, not threat
Human studies suggest that oxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding and stress regulation, is associated—particularly in the context of social support—with attenuated cortisol responses and reduced subjective stress during challenging situations. In practical terms, this points to the value of brief, authentic social connection under pressure—not as a morale exercise, but as a way to reduce physiological threat responses that impair cognition. Simple routines such as short team check-ins, walking meetings, or structured reflection help counterbalance stress responses, supporting clearer thinking and more stable decision-making over time.
Am I deciding or reacting?
A simple real-time self-check founders find useful is this question: am I deciding, or reacting?
Related reflections include:
- Would I make the same decision if I were calm?
- Am I optimizing for clarity or for immediate relief?
- Am I pushing or avoiding because it feels safer than thinking?
- Whom do I need to speak with briefly so I am not deciding alone inside a stress loop?
Stress is unavoidable in early-stage companies. Founders who understand how stress affects their cognitive and emotional systems are better positioned to design habits and decision processes that protect clarity when stakes are high.
About Elise Zhu
Elise Zhu works with startup founders, senior leaders, and elite athletes on decision-making, resilience, and performance under pressure. Her work draws on applied neuroscience and brain-based methods, including BrainWorking Recursive Therapy (BWRT), to help leaders reduce stress reactivity and operate with greater clarity in high-stakes environments.