Stress tolerance in detail

Positive examples

• Maintain calm appearance and respond positively under pressure when busy or opposed
• Relaxed before and/or during key events
• Bounce back from disappointments

Negative examples

• Appear tense or anxious before and during important event
• Give less effective performance and/or panic under pressure
• Look and sound anxious when opposed

Developing stress tolerance

• Review situations where you have felt stressed and consider how to handle differently if they reoccur
• Practise and rehearse potentially difficult situations and ask for input on how to approach
• Seek to simulate situations that are most stressful in low risk situations

Developing stress tolerance in others

• Review situations where signs of stress have been shown, and discuss how this can be controlled effectively
• When an individual fails, ask him/her to list opportunities which have arisen from the situation
• Practise and rehearse potentially difficult situations and provide feedback on how to approach
• At short notice give an opportunity to practice situations which the individual finds stressful
• Simulate those elements that are most stressful in low risk situations
• Give the individual progressively more complex tasks in which success is possible
• Ask the individual to lead a working group where conflict is likely to occur, providing support as required