The Upside of Stress: How to Lead and Live with Resilience
- Kim Levings
- Nov 5, 2025
- 4 min read
Stress: The Hidden Catalyst for Growth
We often talk about stress as something to avoid — a warning light that tells us we’re overloaded, stretched too thin, or out of balance.
But what if the right kind of stress is actually essential for our growth?
The truth is, stress is not the enemy. It’s an inevitable part of life and leadership. When managed through self awareness and regulation, it can become a powerful catalyst for strength, focus, and transformation.
The key lies not in eliminating stress, but in learning how to understand it, harness it, and use it to grow.
The Reality of Stress — Designed for Growth
Stress is a biological fact of life. It’s the body’s built-in performance system, designed to help us adapt to challenge.
When faced with a demanding situation, our sympathetic nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol — sharpening focus, speeding reaction time, and mobilizing energy.
Think about it: without some degree of stress, we stagnate. Just as muscles grow stronger only after being stretched and strained, our minds and character develop resilience through manageable stress.
I once commented that learning new business skills is a bit like weights in the gym. When the rep's get easy, it's time to increase the load. We benefit from continually upping our game...
That’s the paradox — we need stress to grow.
A life with no challenge, no deadlines, and no expectations might sound peaceful, but it would soon become purposeless. Productive stress, known as eustress, keeps us alert, creative, and motivated.
Like a tree that grows deeper roots in strong wind, leaders grow stronger when facing pressure — provided they know how to stay grounded in the storm.
When Stress Turns Toxic — From Growth to Erosion
Not all stress is healthy. The same biological system that fuels growth can also, when over-activated, begin to erode our energy, health, and relationships.
The turning point lies in where stress originates.
Productive stress comes from challenge — stretching toward something meaningful.
Destructive stress comes from fear — fear of failing, disappointing others, or not measuring up.
This reactive form of stress lives in the limbic brain, the emotional center that triggers fight, flight, or freeze, or appease. (As referenced in the powerful work of the late David Emerald.]
Leaders are especially vulnerable here. The pressure to perform, to please, or to control outcomes can easily push us into reactivity. When we lead from that space — from stress instead of strength — we unintentionally transmit tension to everyone around us.
Common patterns of negative stress include:
Worry that keeps you awake at 2 a.m.
Frustration from unmet expectations or over-commitment. (Short fuse?)
Guilt from feeling you should be doing more.
Anger from feeling unseen or unsupported.
Unchecked, these emotions become habitual — the quiet, chronic background noise of burnout.
The antidote is awareness. The moment you pause to notice what kind of stress you’re feeling, you’ve already shifted from reaction to reflection — from the limbic brain to your logical, thinking brain - your frontal cortex.
Leadership Reflection: Am I leading from stress or from strength? From fear or from purpose?
Diagnose and Manage Your Stress
Self-awareness is the foundation of resilience. That’s why I developed the Stress Diagnostic Tool — a simple yet powerful way to map your stress landscape and pinpoint what’s driving it.
This worksheet helps you examine your relationships, roles, and daily responsibilities to identify where your stress is productive and where it’s draining.
It’s built on three key steps:
Analyze: What "hats" do I wear and what are the expectations (real or imagined) for each.
Analyze: How often do I do it? (Active, Reactive, or Inactive)
Reflect: What emotion do I feel about it? (Positive, Indifferent, or Negative)
When you code your answers and plot them, patterns begin to emerge. You’ll quickly see which activities fuel you (green zone), which drain you (red zone), and which have little impact (gray zone).
This awareness gives you agency. You can begin to make intentional choices about how to spend your energy — to re-negotiate expectations, say “no” more often, delegate, or refocus on what matters most.
Map your stress patterns and take the first step toward leading and living with calm, clarity, and confidence. A simple yet revealing tool to help you recalibrate your relationship with stress and regain a sense of control. It also includes an AI version, so your favorite AI can help you work through the analysis and help you with techniques to managing your stress.
Your Stress Reset Reflection
Once you’ve completed the exercise, spend a few moments journaling around these prompts:
What do I want more of?
What do I want less of?
What do I need to eliminate?
What do I want to add back into my life?
Small shifts in these areas can create major changes in your energy, focus, and relationships.
Final Thoughts: Stress as a Leadership Strength
Leading yourself well means learning to use stress as fuel, not friction. When you reframe stress as feedback — not failure — you gain power over how you respond.
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