Facility managers work in settings where stress, urgency and competing priorities are the norms. Balancing safety, efficiency and cost control—often during emergency scenarios—can push even the most technically skilled managers to their breaking points.
To counter and address these stressors, Tashena Stokes, holistic leadership consultant at VidActiva, will host the session “Emotional Intelligence for Facility Leaders: Building Resilience, Trust and Team Performance” at NFMT East in Charlotte from March 10 to 12.
FN: Why has emotional intelligence (EQ) become a critical leadership skill in high-pressure facilities environments, and where do you see technical expertise alone falling short?
Tashena Stokes: I think especially after the COVID-19 pandemic happened; there was a complete increase in stress levels, anxiety and lack of communication just based on how everything went. It pushed a lot of things forward because of that. But in general, in facilities, we are always at the intersection of making sure things run efficiently but also at a low cost.
However, a lot of the time is counterintuitive to what we need to accomplish. We want things to be safe, for them to happen efficiently, but we also need them to happen at low cost. That then creates conflict. With all of that mixing, we just need to find better ways to communicate and to reduce those stress levels. This is often because those stress levels are manifesting in ways that are unproductive and unhealthy, making things fall even further behind and harder to achieve our goals.
FN: How can facilities leaders use self-awareness and self-regulation to manage stress and emotional triggers in real time—especially during emergencies, shutdowns, or construction disruptions?
Stokes: Regulating yourself helps you pull yourself out of your emotional brain and put you back into your frontal lobe where you can make clearer decisions. It turns out that our reactions do not actually last longer than 90 seconds. What usually happens for most people is that we continue to replay the loop in our head over and over, and that is what actually escalates stress.
Even in an emergency situation, you can take two minutes to recover. So, if we can just learn to stop, pause and find whatever the best regulation tool is for ourselves — whether that is just deep breathing or listening to something calming — that will take us out of the emotional loop and put us back into our frontal lobe. Then, we can start to make logical decisions there without emotions running wild.
FN: What are a few EQ tools — such as tactical breathing, emotion journaling or DISC-based communication — that facilities managers can realistically apply immediately, and what impact should they expect to see first?
Stokes: You can feel the physiological effects of it first. You will have your heart racing, your breathing will get faster, you may start to sweat — things like that. The tactics that you will use in those 90 seconds are designed to minimize the physiological effects that are happening. Strategies than can help address that are deep breathing, touch therapy or journaling. If you have a little bit more time, I recommend journaling in your notes app on your phone even if it is just for 5 minutes. If you are starting to feel a certain way, you can jot down your feelings in your notes. There are a lot of different techniques that will work for different people at the moment.
FN: Can you share real-world examples from construction or industrial settings where empathy or strong social skills directly improved safety outcomes, retention, or team performance?
Stokes: During a wellness talk I delivered to General Motors, I taught the group a simple in-the-moment regulation tool: box breathing. I encouraged them to use it three times a day — before starting work, midday to reset and again before transitioning home. A few weeks later, a director approached me and said he had adopted the practice consistently. He told me it had genuinely changed his life: he felt calmer, less reactive and noticeably less stressed. That was a powerful reminder that micro-techniques used in real time can create meaningful long-term shifts.
To learn more about managing stress, be sure to check out Stokes’ session at NFMT East 2026 this March. Register for East here.
Jeff Wardon, Jr., is the assistant editor of the facilities market.
