Living with Pressure and Leading with Presence An Antidote for Working in an AI World

• Stress today is not a temporary visitor. It has become ambient. It seeps into daily routines through constant connectivity, blurred boundaries between work and personal life and the unspoken expectation to always be available and responsive

In an era defined by rapid automation and artificial intelligence, the most significant challenge facing modern professionals isn’t technological displacement, but sustained psychological pressure. Drawing from classroom discussions and real-world academic exhaustion. 

Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura   
Last week, while teaching a group of first-year undergraduates the fundamentals of management, I encountered an answer I did not expect-though, in hindsight, perhaps I should have. One slide invited discussion on the challenges faced by modern-day managers. Usually, students point to familiar themes such as artificial intelligence, rapid technological change, global competition, crisis management, diversity and the need to act ethically.   
Instead, the room responded almost in unison with a different concern - stress. It wasn’t market volatility. It wasn’t automation. It wasn’t AI. It was simply and unmistakably -stress.   
Stress today is not a temporary visitor. It has become ambient. It seeps into daily routines through constant connectivity, blurred boundaries between work and personal life and the unspoken expectation to always be available and responsive. In such a state, people often move through their days on autopilot mode. Functioning efficiently, achieving targets, meeting obligations, yet rarely pausing to register the experience of living itself. Unfortunately (or fortunately) many are alive, yet remain disconnected from the simple fact of being alive.   
This is where the students’ insight becomes especially instructive. They were not framing stress as weakness, nor as something to be eliminated entirely. Instead, they recognised it as a defining condition of modern organisational life. One that must be observed, understood and actively managed, not denied. Modern psychology calls this awareness metacognition. The ability to notice your own mental and emotional states without being swept away by them. In Buddhist terms, this resembles cultivating sati(mindful awareness) and upekkhā(equanimity) - not clinging to fleeting thoughts and emotions as permanent realities.   
Feelings and emotions, after all, are not fixed states. They arise and pass, much like clouds moving across a windy sky. Trouble begins when temporary emotional states are mistaken for permanent realities and allowed to dictate decisions, behaviour and self-worth. By recognising these patterns through attentional discipline, reflective practice or mindful observation, individuals can respond more deliberately rather than react impulsively, preserving clarity, judgment and inner balance.   
Later that same day, a brief encounter at the university gave physical form to what the students had articulated in the classroom.   
Shortly before a 5.30 p.m. lecture with final year students on sustainability management, I stopped by the department to collect some printed materials for the class. As the lift doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor, made gloomier by the evening weather, I noticed a figure approaching slowly. From a distance, I could not recognise who it was, but the posture immediately caught my attention. The person walked with visible exhaustion. Shoulders lowered, movements heavy as though fatigue had settled into the body.   
As the figure came closer, I realised it was a close colleague. Almost without conscious intent, I asked whether she was feeling unwell. She sighed and replied, “Aiyo… miss, now it’s enough.” I recalled the same colleague from a year or two ago, full of life and radiating energy, moving with effortless vitality after completing her PhD abroad. Seeing her now, weighed down and exhausted, made the effects of sustained mental load strikingly clear. What followed was not a description of a single crisis, but a familiar litany of academic life in Sri Lanka. Paper marking, supervising research chapters, preparing lectures, conference obligations and the constant uncertainty of what must be done now and what will have to wait.   
From a managerial perspective, this moment brings into focus how the students’ insight about pressure is mirrored in real world experience of professionals like my colleague. Whether born into an AI saturated world, like the students or adapting to it later, like my colleague, the experience of mental fatigue is the same. What makes this especially revealing is that there was no sudden emergency, no acute breakdown and no visible loss of competence. Deadlines were being met, work was continuing, but the body and posture told a different story. What many call “stress” in this context is not a response to immediate overload, but the cumulative effect of sustained cognitive and emotional occupation without recovery. Organisational psychologists describe this as chronic cognitive load or resource depletion rather than episodic stress. The exhaustion comes not from too much work in one moment, but from too little mental disengagement over time. At its core the real challenge is attentional discipline. Being fully present, physically and mentally , managing focus wisely and allowing the mind space to recover.   
Such scenes are increasingly common in universities and workplaces alike. Capable, committed professionals continue to function, yet carry their fatigue physically and emotionally. When this state is labelled simply as “stress”, its deeper causes remain unexamined. What erodes well-being is not pressure or technology alone, but an organisational rhythm that allows little space for pause, reflection or deliberate engagement. Without the ability to step back, let go and consciously manage attention, exhaustion accumulates invisibly, undermining judgment, decision making, and effectiveness.   
Closely related to this is the inability to let go. Much of what weighs people down is not the workload alone, but what they carry internally. Anger over past interactions, anxiety about uncertain outcomes, or an excessive need to control every detail can quietly drain mental energy and limit the capacity to respond calmly and clearly in the present. Letting go creates freedom. Freedom to think clearly, adapt and choose wisely. People burdened by unresolved emotions often struggle not because they lack competence, but because they are internally overcrowded.   
The students’ insight, reinforced by the corridor encounter, suggests that the real test for future leaders will not be fluency in AI or analytics. It will be the ability to remain present under pressure, to lead without losing oneself to comparison or distraction and to cultivate attentional discipline in themselves and others. Pressure is not the enemy; inattentiveness is.   
This, of course, is only one way of seeing these moments and others may view them differently. Yet the convergence of a classroom discussion and a quiet encounter in a corridor suggests something worth pausing over. As a close friend once remarked, artificial intelligence may replace many functions, but it cannot replace the inner capacities that make us human. In this context, it refers to the psychological presence of humans. The ability to remain attentive, reflective and grounded amid constant demand. AI can accelerate decisions, optimise systems and extend capability. What it cannot do is restore depleted inner resources, help people recognise when they are functioning without truly being present or cultivate the calm attentional discipline that underpins sustained presence and performance. That responsibility remains within the human, and more than ever, it is a task that only humans can perform.   
Writer can be contacted at [email protected]