Boomers are not too far behind in the stress model he says, as they are not retiring as fast as they thought while finding it difficult to claim executive positions.

FORBES: The Stress Trophy Should Not Just Go to Millennials

Chrysler Group President Thomas LaSorda said the recovery plan outlined Wednesday would solidify Chrysler's position in the North American market while laying the foundation for a new business model that would stress global growth and a shift to more fuel-efficient models.

FORBES: Chrysler For Sale?

However, such a model has placed tremendous stress on the supply chain and left companies with greater exposure to a range of unforeseen, disruptive risks.

FORBES: Ash In The Supply Chain

Both Hewlett-Packard 's (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) Utility Data Center model and Sun Microsystems ' (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) N1 approach stress filling computers with the heaviest possible workloads--a change from the standard model of buying new servers when they run at 30% of capacity, for fear of hitting the occasional spike in activity.

FORBES: IBM Does The On-Demand Dance

Among the desk decorations, the occasional conventional baby photo seems almost ridiculously un-ironic, amid other personal props like a horde of model dinosaurs riding motorcycles, cuddly toy gremlins with shocking pink fur and knobbly yellow stress balls.

BBC: A targeted message from Obama 2012

But some economists stress that the focus on consumption as a measure of economic growth can be misleading, arguing that a model that is not based on production cannot be sustainable.

CNN: Are one in three Africans really middle class?

Leaders who lose their cool during times of intense stress pose operational risk to the businesses they are entrusted to run, in large part because they establish the available model for how to behave when the chips are down.

FORBES: Jim Harbaugh's Super Bowl Histrionics Hurt All Leaders