How Do You Manage Stressful Situations?

Well it's been a crazy couple weeks since my last post.  My facility hosted yet another fun-filled NASCAR triple-header, and even with all of the rain it was a "successful" weekend.  Leading up to the weekend, however, was not as smooth as I would have liked it to have been; which leads me into this post.


We have experienced quite a bit of change internally this year, the largest being a conversion to a new ticketing platform.  As with any new toy/technology, you have to assume you will run into your share of hiccups.  Of course, you don't plan on those hiccups to be one of the major functions of the system (printing every single ticket, voucher and hospitality pass for your major event).  There was no system flaw, mind you, it was merely a combination of not fully understanding the way the system worked when the events were initially built.  Here we stood, four weeks from event weekend and we had yet to print a single ticket.  


The stress in our office was high, season ticket holders (rightfully slow) were blowing up the phones asking where their tickets were; ticket reps were worn down from the badgering and our managers were pulling their hair out because they could not get the program to work.  I, on the other hand, continued to navigate the situation, calmly looking into why things weren't printing and working with our support team to come up with workable solutions.  I carried myself as I always do in the office, laughing, smiling, even dancing on a desktop everyone once-in-a-while.


A week before the race I was out with a few co-workers and employees for a pre-event weekend drink when one of them asked me, "So you must be looking for a new job, right?"  I was floored; where did that comment come from?  I responded with, "Ummm, what?  No, I'm not looking.  Why would you think that?"


She went on to explain that I was in no way stressed by the printing situation or the face that it was event week, and a few people in the office felt as though I just didn't care because I had one foot out the door.  


It was an easy response from there.  I explained that if I were to ever appear truly nervous or stressed then the reps should know that there is a major problem.  As the leader in the department, I can't let my staff know that I have a worry or am upset, otherwise it just trickles down and creates more anxiety.  I knew we had an issue, but I also knew it was correctable and we had people that I highly trust (including myself) working to fix the situation.  


So now it's your turn to think, how do you manage through a stressful environment.  Do you wear your emotions on your sleeve?  Your employees feed off of your actions and negative ones will only foster a negative environment.


Lead the way you want to be led...