No matter what your role, as a leader you are expected to perform. I’ve had plenty of situations in my career where the stakes were high and I was expected to perform. Earlier in my career as a Business Development Manager, I remember my first contract negotiation where I casually showed up to represent our company while three seasoned corporate attorneys showed up for the customer. I was thoroughly underprepared and outclassed in every way for that meeting. Needless to say, I felt out of control and stressed.

So what can we do to stay in control and actually benefit from a stressful situation? There are four key things we can change: our resources, our beliefs, our actions, and our reactions.

1. Increase your resource levels with training or leverage others on your team

A simple definition of stress is when the demands placed on you (e.g. a major contract negotiation) are greater than your resources (e.g. zero experience with large contract negotiations). In my negotiation example, the demands of the situation required a greater level of experience and knowledge (resources) to perform well. I learned my lesson. In our next meeting with the customer I brought one of our corporate attorneys with me. My stress was definitely reduced.

2. Change your beliefs to see stress as your body’s positive response

A research study published in 2012 observed nearly 30,000 people for eight years. The focus was on major stressors and their perception of stress as either good or bad for their health. There was a strong correlation between those who thought stress was bad for their health and their higher likelihood of mortality. In other words, if we positively believe that what we feel on the inside during a stressful situation is actually our body preparing us to deal with the situation, we are more likely to benefit from the situation with better health.

3. Change the way you act by serving others

A research study done at the University of Buffalo followed 846 individuals who had experienced recent significant stressful situations. The subjects who spent more of their time helping others (service projects, charity, etc.) had a profoundly higher level of health after the stressful situation. “Our conclusion,” Michael Poulin, Assistant professor of psychology said, “is that helping others reduced mortality specifically by buffering the association between stress and mortality.”

You’ve probably heard the term “servant leadership” and now you have the science that shows you may actually be improving your health when you do that. Make time to assist and serve others and it will make a positive difference in their life and yours.

4. Change the way you react to stress by leveraging your support group

In her TED Talk, Social Psychologist Kelly McGonigal points out that during a stressful situation, one of the stress hormones released in the brain is Oxytocin. This hormone has been referred to as the “cuddle hormone” because it actually stimulates our brains to reach out to others for support. According to her meta-research, this hormone is also a repair hormone that will help repair the body and the heart after the stressful situation. While it may be a nostalgic metaphor to think of the leader as an eagle flying alone, don’t fight science by trying to do everything by yourself. Know who your support group is and reach out to them in your stressful situations. You can actually use stressful situations to develop your relationships.

Which of these four methods have you used?

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Best,

Russ