Mental Toughness - What Is It?

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Interview with Paul Caffery - MD of Results Results

I recently had a conversation with Paul Caffery to find out more about Mental Toughness, a term often used in sport but becoming increasing prevalent in industry.

JC "Paul, what is Mental Toughness?"

PC "Mental Toughness describes the mind set that every person adopts in everything that they do. It is closely related to qualities such as character, resilience, grit etc. You could define it as 'A personality trait which determines, in large part, how people respond to challenge, stress and pressure, irrespective of their circumstances'"

JC "Do organisations need people with high levels of Mental Toughness?"

PC "Good question Julie. This is the first question you should ask when considering job specifications or potential candidates for a specific role, as many positions within an organisation do not require particularly high levels of mental toughness. However, if mental toughness is a core requirement for a role, then the good news is that it is something you can test for and develop in your selected people.

JC "We hear a lot about Mental Toughness in sport, what sort of roles would require high levels within industry?"

PC "We would expect people in roles such as Six Sigma Black and Green Belts, Continuous Improvement Co-Ordinators, Team Leaders or Supervisors, Managers, anyone involved in Lean Implementation to typically require high levels of Mental Toughness. These people can then help to improve your organisation's performance by developing new skills in themselves, whilst co-creating and improving the work environment and processes with the rest of your team. This in turn makes the new state of performance sustainable, whilst encouraging them to improve it further"

JC "What are people with high levels of Mental Toughness typically like?"

PC "A mentally tough person tends to be sociable and outgoing; being able to remain calm and relaxed, they are competitive in many situations and have lower anxiety levels than others. They also have a high sense of self-belief and an unshakeable faith that they have control of their own destiny. These individuals can remain relatively unaffected by competition or adversity, performing to the peak of their ability in terms of performance, behaviour, well being, resilience, aspirations, employability and the ability to bring difficult situations to a satisfactory conclusion.

JC "Thanks for the explanation Paul, anything else we should know about Mental Toughness?"

PC "Yes! I would like to issue a health warning about Mental Toughness, because the organisation and its management team are always responsible for ensuring that unnecessary and undue stresses are not placed on your people. It is counter-productive to require mentally tough individuals to cope with situations that should be managed and remedied by you!"

JC "Noted! Thanks Paul"

This is the first in our upcoming series on Mental Toughness, sign up to our Blog, Facebook page and Twitter channel to ensure you receive notification of new posts on this topic