15 Tips For Business Leaders To Rein In Stress

Expert Panel, Forbes Coaches Council

Top business and career coaches from Forbes Coaches Council offer firsthand insights on leadership development & careers.

People often feed off the energy of others. If you’re hanging out with a friend who’s down in the dumps, you might feel more pessimistic than you typically would. This is a common issue in the workplace as well. Team members who work together can pick up on and be influenced by each other’s mental and emotional states.

This can be detrimental in a business whose leader is constantly stressed or anxious. As a manager, it’s your job to prevent your emotions from impacting your employees. Here’s how 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council recommend keeping your stress in check.

Members of Forbes Coaches Council offer advice to help business leaders keep their own stress from impacting their employees.

1. Wait For A Better Frame Of Mind Before You Address The Issue

As a business leader, you may find yourself feeling stressed. It’s an important reminder that your team looks to you for guidance and that your mental and emotional state can influence others. When feeling stressed, take a deep breath and acknowledge the cause of the stressful feelings, and make a mental note to address the issue when you are in a more calm and relaxed state. Get up and walk. - Jean Kristensen, J Kristensen Associates

2. Adopt A Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness helps manage stress, makes one less reactionary, keeps you calmer during challenges and adversity, and increases focus. If they’re feeling stressed, I recommend to my clients to shut the door to their office and take 10 minutes, using an app like Headspace to relieve the stress they are feeling. Before leaving their office, they move from a negative mindset to a positive one. - Melinda Fouts, Ph.D., Success Starts With You

3. Learn Your Stress Triggers

Our moods, both positive and negative, really do rub off on the people around us. Self-examination to identify stress triggers is a good start, and equally important is having strategies for stress reduction and self-care. Sometimes you just need to get some physical distance—take a walk out of the office or find a place where you can close the door and decompress. - Kathy Bernhard, KFB Leadership Solutions

4. Check Your Baggage at the Door

The emotional pulse of the team will often mirror the emotional pulse of its leader. Check your stress baggage at the door and do not bring it into the office. Stress is often the result of what you are currently focusing on. Focus on more productive thoughts like the effort of your team, the task or the outcome at hand. Remember you can always pick up your stress at baggage claim later. - Carl Gould, 7 Stage Advisors

5. Name Your Emotion

It may seem counterintuitive, but when stressed or experiencing strong emotions, simply call it out. Let others know and tell them how they can best support you. When we don’t name the elephant in the room, it can undermine the success (and reputation) of individuals and, ultimately, the teams they work with. - Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam

6. Recognize The Physiological Signs Of Stress Buildup

Under stress, we sometimes misfire, saying things we later regret. Leaders who recognize the early, often physiological, signals of stress building can become intentional in how they manage themselves through it. Training yourself to pause before responding gives you essential “breathing time” in which you can reset and, often, refresh your thought process. Even five seconds can make a difference. - Karyn Gallant, Gallant Consulting Group

7. Ask Yourself These Three Questions

Stress is simply “the gap between demand and capacity.” I ask my clients to pay attention to themselves and their surroundings. Three questions they can ask themselves are: Am I stressed? What is causing the stress? Are others noticing it? Based on their answers, they can practice coping techniques to reframe stress that start with taking some deep breaths. - Evan Roth, Roth Consultancy International, LLC.

8. Define, Prevent, Repair

Tim Ferriss developed a system called “Fear Setting” based on the principles of stoicism. He describes it as “an operating system for thriving in high-stress environments.” The steps are Define: What is the worst possible outcome? Prevent: How do I prevent this? Repair: In the worst-case scenario, what would I do to fix it? The results are powerful, and leaders have an immediate sense of clarity. - Leanne Wong, True Talent Advisory

9. Create The Space For Stress

Stress, like conflict, is a normal part of life that should be managed productively rather than avoided. Unproductive feelings that arise in times of stress are largely due to our resistance to stressful situations. If we can accept situations and learn how to work the problem rather than wishing it away, we create the space for healthy stress to exist and quicken our ability to let it go. - Carolina Caro

10. Ask Trusted Teammates For Feedback And Help

Even the most self-aware leaders don’t have a totally clear lens to understand how their mental or emotional state is being manifested on others. Make sure you have a trusted teammate to give you feedback in real time when they sense that you’re impacting others in an undesirable fashion. Then deploy your favorite coping mechanism. That could be meditation, taking a walk, getting in a workout, etc. - David Galowich, Terra Firma Leadership LLC

11. Pause, Think, Execute

Pause. Think. Execute. It sounds terribly simple, but you would not believe how well this works, especially in difficult or high-anxiety situations. The “pause” really makes the issue much smaller. The “think” helps with perspective on how this thought pattern may adversely influence or affect others. “Execute” is what all thought leaders are hired to do, right? Mindfulness is key - Stephynie Malik, SMALIK Enterprises

12. Use The 10-Second Rule

In a business environment, stress on some level is inevitable. A great way for leaders to prevent their stress from impacting employees is to implement the 10-second rule in interactions and communications. Slowly count backward from 10 to 1 before speaking, responding or taking action. Taking time to collect your thoughts will prevent you from saying or doing something you may later regret. - Lori A. Manns, Quality Media Consultant Group LLC

13. Learn To Guide Your Thoughts In A Positive Direction

If you’re stressed, you’re thinking thoughts that are causing stress. Rather than ignoring it, soothe the stress by guiding your thoughts to ones that feel better. Don’t try to solve or jump into anything while feeling stressed; that only adds more stress to the situation. By caring about how you feel and choosing thoughts that feel better, you demonstrate leadership in the true sense of the word. - Christine Meyer, Christine Meyer Coaching

14. Own Your Stress And Ask For Help

Everyone feels stressed from time to time. You can be stressed—however, it doesn’t have to influence your team. Instead of showing you are stressed, overwhelmed or uninspired, ask your team to help. “What do you see as a possible solution?” is one way to break the ice. You will find by getting the discussion going that not only will your stress be reduced, you will discover your team to be resourceful. - Debora McLaughlin, The Renegade Leader Coaching & Consulting Group

15. Turn Fear Into Excitement

Emotionally savvy leaders know that the negative states they feel ripple out to others. Stress results from fear, and the body’s fear signals are similar to physical signs of excitement. Start telling yourself, “I’m excited” when you feel stress creeping up. Share statements such as, “I’m excited about (fill in what’s stressing you),” and thus begin to transform everyone’s stress into positive energy. - Laura Camacho, Mixonian Institute