What is Your Stress Management Style? How Does this Impact Your Ability to Scale Your Business?
Everyone manages stress differently. Some get angry, talk it out, eat sweets, run away, or curl up into a ball. Did you know your default stress management style has a direct effect on your performance and output? As business owners, your stress style directly impacts your ability to manage your business growth.
How are stress style and business growth related?
The stress style you use typically has underlying belief systems that limit and hold you back from optimizing your focus, decision-making process, communication style, and problem-solving skills.
Virginia Satir was a highly respected psychotherapist who developed a system for assessing and resolving conflict using five communication styles. In this widely adopted system, five types of behavior are used to describe how one manages conflict and stress.
The results from her study were so powerful they were used to help create NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). NLP is an approach to personal development and communication style that focuses on how one organizes feelings, thoughts, and language. It has been widely used to treat depression, anxiety, and stress, among other symptoms. It's a popular tool referenced by powerhouse mindset leaders like Tony Robbins, John Assaraf, and others.
The five Stair communication categories are Distracting, Blaming, Placating, Rationalizing, and Leveling.
If you want to learn your stress management style before reading further, take the quiz here.
Let's go through how each relates to stress management and how this response impacts your business growth and leadership performance.
1.The Leveler or Level-Headed
The leveler has emotional balance and the ability to manage stress. At their core, they are adept and interested in problem-solving. They are assertive and have a positive intention behind everything they do. This stress management style finds ways to balance stress and reduce it.
If You’re The Leveler
How this can impact your performance and success:
Levelers are always looking for solutions so they tend to excel as business owners and leaders. They come across as level-headed and centered so people gravitate to their ideas and strategies. They can easily influence and make decisions by seeing both sides of the coin.
How to modify your style for increased success:
(1) Recognize your style is powerful and influential. Use this knowledge to help guide your company and team in the direction that aligns with your broader goals.
(2) Do some form of physical activity daily to keep your strength and stamina up so your performance doesn’t waiver. Consider an activity you can perform regularly (e.g., running, jogging, hiking, or yoga).
2.The Rationalizer or ‘Computer’
The Rationalizer can be a perfectionist who uses logic, rather than emotion, to deal with stress. This stress management style keeps stress to themselves on the inside and appear cool, calm, and collected on the outside.
If You’re The Rationalizer
How this can impact your performance and success:
Rationalizers can come across as rigid and cold. They can put coworkers off without meaning to because they are focused on facts. Typically they are not open to solutions coming from unexpected places, can lack flexibility, and can be seen as critical and only focusing on the bottom line.
How to modify your style for increased success:
(1) Meditate 15 minutes daily using an affirmative mantra that you repeat. This process reprograms your thought patterns about perfectionism and rigidity. Here is one example you can use: I am open to allowing opportunities to come from known and unknown sources.
(2) You can continue to expect excellence, but taking time out to physically relax will help soften your hold on making sure things happen in a certain way. A Yin yoga practice would be good to explore because it's structured and slow.
3.The Avoider or Distractor
This stress management style avoids, ignores, or distracts from feeling stressed. The Avoider underlying belief is: If I ignore this problem or stress, it does not exist.
If You’re The Avoider
How this can impact your performance and success:
You tend to procrastinate and not see the facts and figures of your business for how they are.
How to modify your style for increased success:
(1) Start addressing issues as they arise and meet them head-on. Recognize there is power in dealing with issues and benefit in taking time out to relax and unwind. Start one weekly ritual that is devoted to taking care of yourself. This will create the habit of managing stress.
(2) Find a relaxing breathwork exercise (use an app) to practice weekly to calm your central nervous system.
4.The Martyr or Placater
The Martyr is out to please because their main concern is how other people perceive them. They tend to be less assertive, agreeable and seeking approval. They avoid conflict and blame themselves for the stress they feel. This stress management style thinks they’ve done something wrong and worries about what others might think.
If You’re The Martyr
How this can impact your performance and success:
Pleasing others over all else will prevent you from making decisions in your business that benefit your business or your bottom line. Avoiding conflict or issues can lead to you feeling stressed out. Running a company requires assertiveness. It is a skill you can develop and practice just like any other.
How to modify your style for improved success:
(1) Make a list of decisions or conflicts that should be dealt with at the start of the week. Then write down the desired outcome. In the middle, outline the best path, ideas, resources, or actions needed to achieve the desired outcome. Don't give any thought to what someone else might think.
(2) Make a list of all your accomplishments and success in business. This can be in your current position or at another company. Make sure you are bragging about yourself. Use this list as a reminder of what you are capable of and how you have been successful. Read this list once a day, and add to it weekly.
5.The Blamer
The Blamer finds fault — rarely accepting responsibility themselves, blaming someone or something else when problems and stress arise. This style is to hide feelings of stress behind a tough and complacent mask and blame others for the cause.
If You’re The Blamer
How this can impact your performance and success:
Blamers are more likely to initiate conflict over solutions. This makes it hard to connect a solution-driven approach to solving day-to-day business problems.
How to modify your style for improved success:
(1) Create a daily self-awareness tracker. Each evening at the end of your work day, write down five things that you're feeling (i.e., tired, productive, frustrated, proud). Then, write down three positive things you did well that day (i.e., led a productive meeting, completed the marketing presentation, interviewed a solid candidate).
(2) Explore guided meditation to unplug for 15-20 minutes a day. This will help you become aware of your body, breath, thoughts, and space around you.
What’s your stress management style? Take the quiz here.
