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Mental Toughness
By Kevin Dunne, Mindtools Content Editor and Writer
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that professional athletes provide some of the best examples of mental toughness in action. But it’s also something leaders and managers need to bring to their roles every day.
The tougher you are mentally, the more you’re able to overcome setbacks and succeed. Sports stars and teams develop this ability and apply it. Talent alone is not enough to succeed. Their coaches and sports psychologists help to build their mental toughness – a role that managers and leaders also fulfill for their teams.
Mental toughness comes from resilience, self-awareness and self-confidence. It resonates in the belief you have in yourself.
In practice, it means first managing your emotions in moments of personal and professional crisis; when the heat is on, the coolest heads prevail.
Keeping Control
Recognizing and controlling your emotions enables you to stay on task, be flexible in a crisis, and maintain your self-confidence.
Athletes are called upon throughout their careers to respond to and conquer stress, anxiety and adversity – in the moment and over prolonged, and often confidence-sapping, periods.
The Lakers trail the Celtics by 10 points deep in the fourth quarter. Do they give up? Of course not. It won’t be easy to reel in their arch enemies, it’s a setback, the pressure’s on, but can they do it?
Of course. They’ve done it countless times in the NBA, the same as their East Coast rivals have done it to them.
How? The answer lies in the work of Dr Peter Clough. The modern model of what comprises mental toughness is built on his 2002 research that first identified its key components, the four Cs – Control, Challenge, Commitment, and Confidence.
As Doug Strycharczyk, who co-wrote the book “Developing Mental Toughness” with Dr Clough, puts it, mental toughness “is a personality trait that describes how we respond mentally to stress, pressure, opportunity, and challenge.
“Mental response comes first when something happens and influences our behavior. If we want to change behavior, we need to understand where that behavior comes from.”
First, Know Yourself
Let’s look at control through a sporting lens. Counterintuitive though it sounds, angry boxers make terrible fighters. An angry boxer lacks emotional control. In that angry moment, are they managing their emotions or are their emotions managing them?
The second factor alive in that moment is the “challenge.” Sure, the boxer is up for the challenge, but their “risk orientation” is badly misaligned.
They see only the opportunity of knocking out their opponent but in their anger fail to recognize the threat – the risk of the other boxer punching back an opponent who has abandoned all pretence of defence.
People who have a high level of risk orientation will acknowledge the threats, but they'll still want to go for the opportunities.
The angry boxer is also a telling example of how mental toughness is not always a good thing. As Strycharczyk says, “If you're mentally tough, you might think you can do it all and you will have a go at everything.
“But maybe you don't actually have the skills and knowledge to do it. So, the key to optimizing people is self-awareness.”
Commit to Excellence
Commitment is at the core of mental toughness – the reason you are doing what you are doing, your purpose. And the extent to which you are prepared to do what it takes to achieve your goals.
Nobody who saw this year’s Masters golf tournament will doubt that winner Rory McIlroy had purpose. After trying and failing for 14 years to win the coveted Green Jacket, with many doubting he would ever do it, he finally did.
It wasn’t just winning the tournament; it was what it meant to him and how he did it. The Northern Irishman was under the crushing pressure of being so close to golfing immortality – becoming just the sixth player in history to win all four Majors.
What he was attempting had immense meaning to him. And in the final round, he held and lost the lead many times, missed a putt to win it, but got back up to prevail in the playoff.
His mental toughness meant he was strong enough to overcome those setbacks; his tears on the final green told us how much he was committed to his purpose.
As Strycharczyk puts it, “Probably the most important question in organizational development is not what people are doing but why they're doing it.”
Believe in the Outcome
The other element that McIlroy exhibited was his confidence. It wasn’t just about his ability; it was about how much he believed in it.
This is a critical factor, according to Strycharczyk: “Some people will be very confident in their abilities and will use them. Others will be less confident and they won't use them. So, it affects their behavior and their performance.”
As I’ve said, key to building your mental toughness is self-awareness – so just how mentally tough are you?
Experience and honest reflection on your experiences will go some way to revealing that, as will taking a psychometric mental toughness questionnaire. These are widely available online.
Once you know that, you have something to work with and on. As Strycharczyk adds, “Coaching is about helping somebody to understand why they perform or don't perform at a deep level. So the mental toughness concept actually is central to that.”
What’s Next?
So, mental toughness is key to optimizing performance. Fortunately, it can be nurtured and developed. See our article Mental Toughness to discover ways to do it.
For a deeper dive on the topic, see our expert videos with Doug Strycharczyk, What is Mental Toughness? and Mental Toughness for Managers.
Tip of the Week
Deal Quickly With Conflict
By Simon Bell, Mindtools Content Writer and Editor
I bear grudges. It’s not an attractive personality trait, and it can sometimes get in the way of working productively.
I know it’s a bad thing when I catch myself stewing over something someone has done or said. So what should I do about it?
Short answer: deal with the issue as soon as it happens. I’m petty, so the conflicts I have usually arise from small annoyances or disagreements. And honestly, I know that I can easily resolve most of them if I address them straight away.
If I leave them, I know things will escalate, and the conflict, when it finally spills over, will be far worse than it needed to be. So it’s best to get it off my chest soon – calmly, and without throwing things.
Similarly, if you notice conflict between your team members, take action and help them resolve the situation before it spirals out of control. You’ll all get along better that way.
Pain Points Podcast
What holds us back from being the best versions of ourselves, in and out of work? Why does self-improvement sometimes feel so hard?
On Pain Points this week, author and trainer Sid Madge reveals the lessons he's learned from working with prisoners, the unemployed and people at all levels of business. He discusses the power of our personal stories, the value that lies in our unique experiences (including our failures), and the impact of learning to think differently – about where we are now, and where our lives could go from here.
Subscribe Today
Video of the Week
Expert Video With Adam Galinsky
In this mini-series of three videos, Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky shows leaders how to succeed in negotiations when the outcome is crucial.
From preparation to the negotiation itself and real-world examples, Adam's insights pull together decades of research into actionable strategies.
Watch Now
News Roundup
This Week's Global Workplace Insights
AI Adoption Spurs Two-Tier Economy Risk
According to a new report commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the U.K. should act to avoid the emergence of a two-tier AI economy. Agile startups are embedding AI deeply into core strategy – developing new products and transforming industries. So far, so good. But many large enterprises are applying it just for efficiency gains. With these organizations responsible for nearly half of U.K. turnover, this disparity could hamper productivity and growth.
The digital skills gap remains the biggest barrier to deeper adoption. Nearly half of businesses cite it as a limiting factor, and hiring digitally skilled staff can take over five months. Without urgent action to equip the workforce with AI literacy and close this talent gap, large swathes of the economy risk falling behind.
AWS has a commercial interest in this, of course, but their advice – to accelerate investment in skills, resources and funding, particularly for startups to avoid a fragmented AI landscape – sounds compelling.
The Problem With Vibes-Based Hiring
A new report from recruitment software company Textio, as reported on HuffPost, highlights a troubling trend: hiring decisions are often based more on "vibes" than verified skills – and the consequences are gendered. Managers are more likely to praise successful male candidates as “confident” and “strong,” while women are described as “bubbly” or “pleasant.” Sure, likability matters, but it’s not a stand-in for competence.
This kind of subjective hiring undermines diversity, promotes bias, and sidelines high performers – especially women and people of color. Ironically, candidates who are rejected tend to get more detailed feedback on their skills, while those hired are praised for personality traits.
Seems like leaders need to standardize recruitment, for example by asking all candidates the same skills-based questions in the same order. Hiring for “fit” may feel intuitive, but it’s costing organizations top talent. It’s time to shift from gut instinct to structured, equitable hiring practices.
Have you reviewed your team's hiring processes recently?
See you next week for more member-exclusive content and insight from the Mindtools team!
