Individual trees, not forest stands, respond to environmental conditions. Such an individual-scale approach has rarely been used in dendrochronology studies to analyze the radial tree growth responses to climate. The aim of this study was to apply this individual framework to assess growth diversity of trees facing variable water stress environments, and to identify sensitivity factors likely to drive growth response at stand and individual tree levels. Using a mixed approach coupling dendrochronology methods with a process-based ecophysiological model to assess water stress level, we defined two phenotypic growth traits: the sensitivity, representing the growth response to water stress level, and the potential vigor, representing the relative capacity to grow in years with no water constrain. Here, we redefine the concept of vigor in order to dissociate it (1) from asymmetric competitive pressures within stands, and (2) from the response to stresses which also affect tree size or average growth rate. We illustrate this approach on five temperate species sampled over a wide range of ecological conditions using the French permanent plot network for the monitoring of forest ecosystems dataset (RENECOFOR, ICP forest network). We analyzed the relation between sensitivity, potential vigor and tree size at individual tree-scale, and the relation between sensitivity, average tree size, local environmental conditions (soil and climate) and species at stand-scale. We found a positive phenotypic correlation between sensitivity and potential vigor for most of the stands (92%), revealing a growth trade-off between potential vigor and drought resistance. The relationship between sensitivity and individual tree size was considerably variable between stands and over time within each stand, suggesting that tree social status effect is complex and modulated by local environmental conditions, stand structure and endogenous processes. The variation in sensitivity to water stress among populations was significantly correlated with environmental conditions (positively correlated with extractable soil water and summer precipitation), suggesting local adaptation and/or acclimation. The individual-scale approach developed in this study revealed the existence of different growth strategies to perform in a context of inter-annual variation in water stress. Our results highlight that accounting for individual variation of the response of trees to climate, and considering sensitivity factors modulating this response, is necessary to understand future stand-scale performances of forests. We suggest the integration of inter-individual diversity in forest dynamics models using the dendro-phenotypic traits of sensitivity and potential vigor in order to predict more accurately how forest stands will respond to climate change and how management actions may influence their responses.