All around the world the stress levels of business leaders shot up last year, whether economic activity in their country was picking up or slowing down. Thailand was no exception, with business leaders increasing their stress levels to find opportunities in the current economic climate and also worrying about future political and environmental factors.

Last year the Swiss business leaders we asked placed the country 56th overall on a world scale and it actually dropped to 79th this year. There was a tangible higher sense of pessimism.

The link between stress and vacation levels is interesting. Do the results mean that executives who take longer vacations feel less stressed? Or is it that the less stressed they feel, the more vacation they are able to take? Either way, the differences in holiday patterns around the world are huge, with Thailand's business leaders taking an extremely low number of vacation days compared to many others.

America is a country of entrepreneurship and great business leaders.

The world is so big, getting the attention of business leaders is difficult.

Business leaders cannot be bystanders.