We live in a fast-changing world. As leaders of other people, we need to keep up to date with new technologies and social trends, but we also have to be prepared to adapt, on the fly, when sudden problems or opportunities arise. Recall the famous quote by Rudyard Kipling: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…you'll be a Man, my son.”

How you cope with setbacks is one of the defining qualities of being an effective boss. Yet it isn't immediately obvious, when times are good, which individuals have the “right stuff” and which do not. Warren Buffett said that it's only when the tide goes out that you see who is swimming naked. His point was that all fund managers can make money in a bull market, but when the market turns down, you figure out which fund managers actually know what they are doing and which ones don't. And it's the same in the world of management. Most bosses appear competent when the company is doing well, but when a crisis or downturn hits, you get to see which bosses know what they're doing – and which ones are swimming naked.

As with all important attributes, some people seem to have an innate ability to respond in the right way when crisis strikes so that problems are averted and those around them feel reassured. But in reality, coping with change and stress is not something you are intrinsically born with. It is a skill that you develop over time, and it's an area where the true experts are the ones who have taken the trouble to learn from their experiences.

So, this chapter is all about how to develop the personal qualities and skills you need to manage adversity – how you stay on top of things, how you cope with your own concerns, and how you set the right tone for others. If we had to choose a single word to sum up the qualities you need in this volatile business world, it is resiliency – the capacity to respond quickly, or bounce back, when faced with adversity. The first part of the chapter explains how to increase your personal resiliency (#14). Then we describe a couple of specific tools for analyzing and eliminating stress (#15) and for managing negative emotions including anger (#16). We move on to examine the right level of pressure to produce optimum performance (#17) and look at how to overcome fears of failure or success (#18). Finally, we describe a general tool for learning from experience, Gibbs's reflective cycle (#19).

14. Develop Personal Resiliency, and Grow from Setbacks

We have all experienced tough times at work. Pressure can be intense, people get emotional, and sometimes things go wrong.

The way leaders react in these situations is important. If they react in a calm, clear-thinking way, they can bring their people together to work effectively and “weather the storm.” If they dither, lose focus, or get overwhelmed, the organization will react ineffectively, and serious problems can follow.

This is why resiliency is so important. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back and achieve positive outcomes in the face of adversity. It's a capability we need to develop as leaders so that we can offer the support and direction people need when times are hard.

Personal resiliency comes from a combination of clear goals, positive attitudes, well-developed skills and experience, self-confidence, and strong support from those around you. Resiliency comes from within, but it can be enhanced by working in a supportive environment where trust and teamwork flourish.

The good news is that if you've mastered the skills in Chapter 1, you're already well on your way to becoming a resilient boss who can perform well under pressure. To develop your resiliency further, here are steps to consider:

1. Understand the meaning of your work (#70) and have a clear view of your personal goals (#3). These “anchors” provide the sense of direction you need to make good decisions under pressure and help you develop self-confidence and self-efficacy (#4).
2. Develop the skills you need to cope well under pressure. First, you need to develop robust job- or profession-related skills so you are able to make the right decisions in difficult circumstances and develop the self-efficacy to work comfortably under pressure.

   Second, you need to work on your social and psychological skills, including thinking positively and managing negative thoughts (#6), managing stress well (#15), managing pressure (#17), solving problems effectively (Chapter 6), and increasing your emotional intelligence (#53). These techniques will help you overcome common stresses and disruptions in the workplace.

3. Build a strong support network at home and at work. When times are hard, it's incredibly important to be able to talk about issues with your partner, your boss, or your peers. They can provide emotional support – for example, by putting problems into perspective – and they can take practical actions to help you through difficult situations. (Of course, you won't be able to call on a network if you haven't nurtured it yourself beforehand – Chapters 16 and 18 will help you do this.)
4. Get the sleep, exercise, and nutrition you need to stay healthy. Exercise is particularly important as it helps to reduce stress, increases energy levels, and sharpens your ability to think and learn.

Finally, bear in mind the possibility that adversity can make us stronger. This “post-traumatic growth” occurs when something goes wrong for an individual and they make an honest, humble attempt to learn from what happened and what they might have done wrong, perhaps by talking things over with trusted people or by reflecting themselves (see #5). People can end up happier, wiser, and more successful as a result.

15. Analyze and Manage Sources of Stress (Stress Diaries)

Stress is what we experience when we feel out of control and when we sense that the demands on us – emotional pressure, workload, or the complexity of what we're doing – are greater than our ability to deal with them. Even highly resilient people can suffer from stress. And needless to say, a high level of stress is dangerous – it can make us ill, it dampens our creativity, and it can make us difficult and volatile to work with. This can lead to even more stress as those around us often withdraw their cooperation and support, resulting in things getting even worse.

So, if you're experiencing stress, what can you do about it? The starting point is to understand where it's coming from, and a good way of doing this is to keep a stress diary.

This is a log of the stress events in your life, kept for a short period – maybe one or two weeks. You can record events when they happen, or you can set a timer on your smartphone to go off, say every two hours, so that you can record the stress events that have occurred in the previous two hours. (You can download a stress diary template using the URL on the following page.)

In your stress diary, record the following:

• The date and time of the stress event
• A brief description of the event
• How intense the stress you experienced was and how it left you feeling
• What you think caused the event.

Once you've collected data for a few weeks, you can analyze it by highlighting the most common sources of stress and also the most unpleasant events. These are the ones you should address first. See below to find out how to manage the different types of stress you've identified – you'll need to use different approaches for different situations.

16. Manage Negative Emotions at Work (The STOP Method for Anger Management)

Just as we feel stressed when situations get out of control, we can also find ourselves getting angry. Anger is a primitive, natural reaction that we all experience when we think that we, or people important to us, are under threat.

In survival situations, this can be useful – anger primes our bodies for fast, vigorous action, and this can help us survive. In the workplace, however, anger damages the relationships that are necessary for success and leaves people looking foolish and out of control. It also hinders our ability to build a good team: Who wants to work with someone – particularly a boss – who shouts and can't control their temper?

So how can we control the natural anger we experience when we feel threatened, when we're thwarted, or when we experience or see injustice? The STOP technique for anger management is one useful approach. It stands for stop, think, be objective, and plan.

• Stop – Reflect on the triggers, people, and things that cause you to become angry, and become aware of the warning signs– perhaps your breathing gets heavier or more rapid, your muscles tighten, your heart starts to race, or your voice gets louder. (If you're keeping a journal (#5), note these things in it to help you build up a picture of what's going on.)
• Be alert to these signs of impending anger. When you find yourself starting to experience them, tell yourself: Stop! Sit down, take 10 deep breaths, and relax your body. (You can learn some useful relaxation techniques using the URL below.)
• Think – Use a similar approach to the cognitive restructuring tool we looked at in #6 to reflect on the beliefs that led you to become angry. Write down a description of the situation, along with the “hot thoughts” you are experiencing. Then, examine rationally whether the threat is real and whether you are right to be getting angry. For example, if you're getting cross because a personal belief is being challenged, does your belief stand up to fair, balanced scrutiny?
• Be objective – This is where you need to come to a clear, dispassionate view of the situation. Identify what is really going on: Is there a problem you need to solve, and if so, what is it?
• Plan – If there is a problem, then you need to create a plan to solve it. Chapters 6 and 14 of this book will help you do this in highly effective ways, including giving you techniques for handling the tricky conversations that may be involved.

Source: Adapted from Nay 2014. Reproduced with permission of Guilford Press.

17. Manage the Impact of Pressure on Performance (The Inverted-U Model)

We've seen that we need to develop resiliency and manage our stress levels to perform effectively at work. We also need to manage the amount of pressure we experience so that we can work in a “sweet spot” where there's enough to motivate us to do a good job but not so much that we lose focus.

Research suggests that there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between pressure and performance (see Figure 3.1), an idea that has helped athletes, businesspeople, and high achievers in many areas deliver exceptional performance.

The concept is straightforward. The area to the left of the graph is an area of poor performance – where people feel no pressure to perform, and struggle to motivate themselves. The area to the right of the graph is another area of poor performance – where people are overloaded, anxious, and so swamped by unhappy mental chatter that they can't focus. In-between is the sweet spot – where people can enter the state of flow we mentioned in #12 – the enjoyable and highly productive state of mind where nothing distracts them, their mind is completely focused on the work they're doing, and time flies by.

When you're working on something important, you can manage the pressure you're experiencing to move into this area of peak performance. If the pressure is low, you can remind yourself of the importance of the task and set challenges to generate interest and a buzz of achievement. If pressure is too high, you can calm yourself with deep breathing, use relaxation techniques, address negative thinking (see #6) and put the situation in context – few situations are genuinely as catastrophic as they seem when you're under pressure; there's often “another day.”

Just as you can do these things for yourself, you can do them for members of your team. Try to gauge the level of pressure they are experiencing, and look for ways to fine tune it – for example, by reducing or lengthening the deadline for completing a task.

18. Overcome Fears of Failure or Success

Being resilient, managing pressure and stress, and controlling anger are all obvious skills that we need to master to be effective managers. In addition, many of the people who answered our survey highlighted the subtler skills of overcoming fear of failure and fear of success.

Fear of failure occurs when people who are able to achieve something challenging withdraw from it because, rather than risk falling short, they'd prefer to not make the attempt. People who fear failure don't stretch themselves and generally live a much less fulfilled life than they otherwise would. It's often observed in people who, in childhood, were punished seriously for failure and received little encouragement for success.

Fear of success is different, and it comes when people underachieve, often because they fear rejection from people who are important to them if they were to stand out from the crowd. It's something that's quite common in people who doubt themselves or for whom having a lot of friends is more important than achievement.

When you reflect on your own career to date, have fears of failure or success held you back from achieving something significant? And if so, what can you do about it?

Start by reflecting on the situations where you have felt these things, write them down, and then make a note about what your thoughts and worries were for each. Use cognitive restructuring (#6) to challenge the thoughts that went with them.

When you review these situations in a balanced way, some of your concerns will just not stand up to rational scrutiny, and they'll drop away. But you may also highlight genuine issues and risks, and you'll need to deal with these in a calm, measured way. Make appropriate plans to deal with them – perhaps you'll need to learn new skills or build new connections that will move you forward.

When addressing fear of failure, it's usually enough to ask yourself: What is the worst that will happen if you fail? Usually, it is not a genuine catastrophe. And the risks of failure diminish when you take a “portfolio approach” to the things you do and the projects you run. You may not succeed at the first few things you try, but as long as you keep taking on new projects and giving them your best shot, some will succeed, and you can keep building on these to reach greater success.

When addressing fear of success, it is genuinely possible that the people around you may reject you if you succeed. But ask yourself if these are the people you should be spending time with. How much better would it be if you spent time with people who supported you in your success and who encouraged you and helped you get ahead?

19. Learn from Your Experience in a Systematic Way (Gibbs's Reflective Cycle)

So far in this chapter, we've looked at specific issues – resiliency, stress, anger, pressure, and fears of success and failure. But what about all of the broader emotional issues and situations that we experience at work?

It is very useful to learn how to make sense of these situations, and this is where Gibbs's reflective cycle can help. Not only does it help us get to the root of tricky emotional situations, but it's also useful for helping us learn from general experience. This is something we all claim to do, but few of us do it as effectively and systematically as we might think.

Developed by Professor Graham Gibbs in his book Learning by Doing, the reflective cycle is particularly useful for helping people learn from situations that they experience regularly, especially when they don't go well. It encourages people to analyze these situations systematically and to maximize the benefits of their learning. You can see the cycle in Figure 3.2.

To use the cycle, start with the situation you want to reflect on, and go through these steps (use the URL on the next page to download a worksheet that will help you with this):

1. Write a clear description of what happened. Don't make any judgments at this stage – just describe what happened in a clear, factual way.
2. Describe your feelings. Write down all the emotions you experienced in the situation to get them out of your head and onto paper. Again, don't analyze or interpret them at this stage.
3. Evaluate the experience. Using your intuition, write down your judgments about what was good or bad about the experience. What went well, what didn't go well, and what did you and other people do to contribute to this?
4. Analyze the experience. Now, switch from an emotional perspective into an analytical mindset, and think about what was really going on in the situation. (This is where a technique such as the five whys can help – see the URL on the next page for more on this.)
5. Draw general conclusions. Reflect on the previous steps, and start to think about things that could be done better and in a more positive way.
6. Draw specific conclusions. Then burrow into the detail of what you need to do to improve your ways of working, boost your skills, or change your situation for the better.
7. Make an action plan. Finally, turn your conclusions into specific actions you'll take, and add these to your to-do list or action program (see #10).

Other Techniques for Coping with Change and Stress

There was one particularly important tool – avoiding maladaptive perfectionism – that missed the cut in our survey. You can learn more about it here: http://mnd.tools/c3c.