Leadership & Mental Toughness

This is a “rework” of an article I published a few years ago.

Mental toughness has been getting a lot of press lately in terms of its importance in relation to leadership – some of the press has been positive and some negative.

Mental toughness often seems to be portrayed as something very masculine and all about having steely nerves, cold blooded calm and the emotions of plankton during the mating season!

So, is mental toughness a “good thing”? Should we have it? How much do we need? Is too much a bad thing? Here’s my take on the subject.

I first became interested in mental toughness about 12 years ago when I was having a major revisit of my leadership thinking; in fact, I became so interested in the subject that I became an accredited user of a mental toughness questionnaire (the MTQ48) and have been using it in my leadership development activities ever since.

There seems to be no common accepted definition of mental toughness in psychological terms; so a starting point to understand it could be to look at the “scientific” definition. Scientifically toughness is defined as the measure of the strength of a material to withstand stress and other conditions without breaking; interestingly resilience (often used in conjunction with mental toughness) is defined as elasticity of a material - the capacity of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed.

It would seem that in psychological terms we are talking about something that (assuming we have it) will help us to face up to and “better manage” difficult and/or stressful situations – it sounds like a good thing to have.

Although there is no common accepted definition of mental toughness here’s what some of the mental toughness “experts” have to say about the matter:

• According to Vince Lombardi the famous American football coach, “Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind – you could call it ‘character in action.’"
• Dr. Jim Loehr of the Human Performance Institute defines mental toughness as: "the ability to consistently perform towards the upper range of your talent and skill regardless of competitive circumstances."
• In his 1998 book “Ultimate Guide to Mental Toughness”, Daniel Teitelbaum defines mental toughness as “the ability to keep picking yourself up no matter what life hits you with – to keep marching steadily forward to achieve the specific victories you have made up your mind you are going to make happen.”
• David Yukelson, PhD., Sport Psychologist at Penn State University defines mental toughness as “being able to reframe negative thinking…and look at failure as a stepping stone for future achievement.”
• Professor Peter Clough of the Manchester Metropolitan University defines Mental Toughness as “A personality trait which determines, in some part, how individuals respond when exposed to stressors, pressure. opportunity and challenge – irrespective of the prevailing situation””

So, what exactly are the ingredients of mental toughness and, maybe more importantly, can they be developed? Again, there is no common agreement as to the “elements”, “competences”, “factors”, “components”, etc. that make up mental toughness; however, we (at least I am) are starting to see a certain convergence in thinking.

Some of the earliest research related to mental toughness was carried out in the mid-fifties by Julian B. Rotter and his work in on “Locus of control” (a person’s belief that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence or by chance or fate). In the late seventies Suzanne C. Kobasa was a major contributor when she was looking in to “hardiness” and the personality characteristics that distinguished managers and executives who remained healthy under life stress, as compared to those who developed health problems; she identified the elements of challenge, commitment and control as major contributing factors.

Yulkeson in his work identified self-belief, motivation, focus and composure as key psychological characteristics associated with mentally tough elite athletes.

S. Fourie & J.R. Potgieter writing on the nature of mental toughness in sport in the South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation identified 12 components of mental toughness; these included (amongst others) coping skills, confidence maintenance, goal-directedness, competitiveness and psychological hardiness.

Peter Clough’s work, when he was at the University of Hull, identified confidence as a contributing factor to mental toughness.

Some writers include resilience within mental toughness while others see mental toughness as resilience + or even resilience ++! Resilience and mental toughness are obviously not the same thing but they are at the same time not completely different.

Personally, I work with the model developed by Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk, which incorporates many of the above elements into a 4C model; I’m more than willing to accept that there may be in reality more than 4C’s and even other letters – but the 4C model seems to work and I am a great believer in keeping things “short & simple”.

The 4 C’s are, Challenge, Commitment, Control and Confidence:

Challenge is about willingness to seek challenge – move outside one’s comfort zone, take risks, face the unknown, etc. Some people see challenges, variety, problems & changes as opportunities - others see these as threats.

Commitment is about achieving the challenges undertaken – changing strategy, taking different approaches adopting different tactics, etc. Some people like working to clear measured goals & targets – others are more easily distracted or bored.

Control is about feeling to be in control of one’s life – having the feeling of impact, keeping anxieties under control, making conscious decisions, etc. Some people feel in control and have influence - others feel that things happen to them & they have little control.

Confidence is about believing in oneself – being assertive, openness to others, believing one’s abilities, etc. Some people have the self-belief to successfully complete tasks – others will be unsettled by setbacks & give in.

The 4 C’s approach provides, at least for me, both a quantifiable description of mental toughness and clear areas to work on to become mentally tougher.

So, are the 4 C’s relevant to leadership?

If there is no challenge there is no need for leadership; leadership is about taking people on a journey to somewhere that is significantly different from today. Leadership is not just about taking on challenges, it also about achieving them, being truly committed to the vision. Leaders are in control of themselves (they are aware of their dark side) and they know where they are going – they are not going somewhere by chance, they have made a conscious decision. Having confidence in others (as well as oneself) is essential in developing the relationships to deal with difficult people.

So, all-in-all mental toughness looks like a good thing and something we should have. According to research by Clough, we all in fact have a “certain amount” of mental toughness; some of us have a lot, some have a little and many have an “average” mental toughness – in fact his research shows that the “spread” of mental toughness follows a normal distribution curve.

How much mental toughness do we need? As for as leadership goes it sounds like the more we have the more likely we are to bounce back and succeed in our leadership challenges.

This leads me to the final question: Can we have too much mental toughness? I’ve yet to read any research that says too much mental toughness is a dangerous thing but I do have an inkling that there are limits; thinking that we can take on the world and win every time, that we are invincible, have all the answers, have no need for others, etc. sounds like a dangerous thing – makes me think of the terminator kind of leader: unstoppable, walks through walls, feels no pain, impervious to others, etc.

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