Most companies treat anxiety as a problem to solve. When employees feel stressed, they are offered meditation apps, mental-health days, and employee-assistance programs. These can be valuable resources. But they carry an underlying message: Anxiety is an obstacle to performance, and the goal is to make it disappear.

I saw this mindset clearly during a recent consultation with the CEO of a midsize company. I asked what comes to mind when an employee says they are experiencing anxiety. Her discomfort was immediate, as though merely hearing the word “anxiety” activated her own.

She then named three concerns: the employee might need accommodations, benefits costs may rise, and the company could face legal exposure. Her managers, she explained, were trained not to ask too many questions about anxiety. Instead, they were supposed to document the interaction, direct employees toward support, and avoid saying anything that could create additional risk.

That may be prudent from a legal perspective, but it also reveals a problem. Corporate America is getting anxiety all wrong.

I don’t fault the C-suite for thinking this way. For much of my career as a clinical psychologist, I made a similar mistake. I was trained to regard all anxiety as a symptom to reduce, manage, or eliminate.

In reality, the word “anxiety” is used to describe two very different experiences.

On the one hand, clinical anxiety is persistent, excessive, and disruptive. In professional nomenclature, these conditions are known as anxiety disorders. They interfere with work, sleep, relationships, and everyday functioning. Clinical anxiety........

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