Is Stress Contagious? How Leaders Stop Passing It On
- Michelle Scott
- Aug 14
- 3 min read
Yes, stress is contagious. We all feel stress, anxiety, or overwhelm at times, and those emotions can rub off on the people around us — our families, our colleagues, our teams. As a leader, you want to show up calm even when the stakes are high.
Jane, a Vice President in the financial industry, has a demanding job — and an even more demanding boss and client base. She began noticing a pattern: when her clients or her boss were stressed and slipped into blame, she would turn around and do the same thing to her own team. Jane recognized that her stress and frantic behavior were keeping her team from doing their best work.
Jane built herself a simple tool: a “crisis checklist,” to use the moment she notices her stress or anxiety triggers firing. Here is what Jane came up with.
Jane's Crisis Checklist
1. Breathe. Jane uses the 5-by-5 breathing technique, which takes less than a minute: breathe in for a count of five, breathe out for a count of five, and repeat five times.
2. Identify three positive things. Name three things that are good or going well right now.
3. Step away. Step away from the computer, the room, or the phone. Stepping away offers a fresh perspective — and the physical movement helps ease the body's stress response, even something as simple as a brisk walk shortly after feeling stressed (Harvard Health).
4. Ask a series of cognitive questions. These questions move you out of fight-or-flight and into problem-solving mode:
• What is the real problem at hand, and what is the goal?
• What is in my control?
• What else is possible?
• What is another perspective?
5. And finally, the big question: How do I want to show up?
Jane keeps her list on a sticky note next to her computer — a visible reminder that when the stakes are high and the people around her are stressed or placing blame, she doesn’t have to pick it up herself. She now has the awareness, the tools, and the choice to decide how she shows up for her team, her boss, and her clients.
Build Your Own Crisis Checklist
We all have moments of crisis, stress, and negative emotion — but we don’t have to be captive to them, and we don’t have to pass them on like a common cold. Take a page from Jane’s experience. Consider your own triggers: recognize what they are, notice how they make you feel, and begin the work of self-awareness. Then build your own checklist for shifting out of reactive, negative, crisis mode and into a creative, problem-solving leader — one who leads with calm confidence, collaboration, and cognitive agility.
Shifting from reactive to creative takes effort and practice. The Conscious Leadership Group calls this “above the line” leadership — operating from openness, curiosity, and a commitment to learning rather than defensiveness — and it is a discipline any leader can build.
Northridge Executive Partners helps senior leaders build the self-awareness and operating habits that keep their teams performing under pressure.
About the Author: Michelle Scott, MCC, ACTC, NBC-HWC
Michelle Scott is the CEO/President of Northridge Executive Partners, providing Executive/Leadership Coaching, Consulting, Facilitation, Team/Board Effectiveness, Well-Being Coaching, and customized solutions and workshops. She is a Master Certified Executive Coach (MCC), an Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC), and a National Board-Certified Health & Wellbeing Coach (NBC-HWC). She is sought after as a keynote speaker and facilitator on topics including Leadership Solutions, Burnout / Health & Wellbeing, Culture Transformation, and Team and Board Effectiveness.
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