Can YOU Handle Stress with Clarity, Poise, and Precision?
A Primer on Increasing Your Hardiness and Resilience
Here’s a helpful distinction: STRESS does not automatically cause STRAIN, the physical, mental, and emotional toll caused by stress.
True, STRESS may be uncomfortable, but STRAIN is what drastically reduces one’s agility.So while stressful situations are what they are, leaders under STRESS don’t necessarily have to let it turn into STRAIN.
Per the research of Salvatore R. Maddi and Suzanne C. Kobasa (The Hardy Executive: Health Under Stress,, 1977), strain-PROTECTION, or executive hardiness as they called it, directly results from three ESSENTIAL components:
- Control » that is, actively managing what you CAN control, but not making yourself crazy trying to control what you CANNOT;
- Challenge » focusing on finding a bridge across the water, if you will, rather than allowing yourself to be taken by the raging tide; and
- Commitment » truly believing that what you’re working on is of meaning, relevance, and resonance.
“People with hardiness work hard because they enjoy it, rather than because they are compulsively driven,” say the researchers. “They make decisions and implement them because they view life as something constructed, rather than given. And they are enthusiastic about the future because the changes it will bring seem potentially worthwhile. Despite the anxieties and risks they encounter, these people find their lifestyles generally exciting and satisfying, in part because it is strenuous.”
“The high hardy person is not impervious to stress, but is strongly resilient in responding to a range of stressful conditions.”
The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
Hardy executives know HOW to create and sustain a heightened sense of control, challenge, and commitment:
If you, or your direct reports, are feeling more like the Stress-and-Strained … if you, or your direct reports, are feeling decidedly NON-agile with all that’s going on in your world … LeadershipTraction can help you develop greater HARDINESS and RESILIENCY that you COULD, SHOULD, and – N-E-E-D – NEED to have.
Assess Your Hardiness and Resilience
To find out how hardy and resilient you and your direct reports really are, LeadershipTraction offers the Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS-15), a 15-question self-assessment created, tested, and validated by Hardiness Resilience researcher, author, and Maddi and Kobasa protégé , Paul T. Bartone, Ph.D..
Per Bartone: “The hardy style includes a strong sense of Commitment, Control, and Challenge. Commitment is the tendency to see the world as interesting and meaningful. Control is the belief in one’s own ability to control or influence events. Challenge involves seeing change and new experiences as exciting opportunities to learn and develop.
“The hardy style person is also courageous in dealing with new experiences as well as disappointments, and tends to be highly competent. The high hardy person is not impervious to stress, but is strongly resilient in responding to a range of stressful conditions. Recent studies have shown that persons high in hardiness not only remain healthy, but also perform better under stress.”
If you think a brief conversation about your leadership development needs – or those of others in your organization – could be useful, call or connect to coordinate calendars.