Stress is an unavoidable part of life, and the workplace is no exception. Workplace stress can arise from various sources, including heavy workloads, deadlines, conflicts with co-workers, and organizational change. To manage team stress becomes inevitable whether it’s rotating team members and office politics, economic uncertainty or constantly evolving technology, as there’s a potent mix of new and old sources of stress at work.
Due to the increasing pressure on you as a leader to deliver, do you find yourself getting wrapped up in responding to the practicalities of these challenges, at the expense of addressing how it is affecting people emotionally?
Managing workplace burnout
As a leader, it’s important to recognize the impact of stress on yourself and your team and to develop effective strategies for managing it. To manage team stress is an essential aspect of leadership development, and it is critical to prioritize employee well-being, productivity, and organizational success. Leaders play a vital role in creating a work culture that promotes stress management.
Frustrations, disappointments and setbacks are inevitable, necessary even, but building resilience to them doesn’t mean disallowing emotions about them. Doing so hurts all aspects of business, by making your company a place people not only don’t want to work, but can’t work.
Importance of stress management for leadership
To manage team stress is a crucial aspect of leadership development. As a leader stress reduction strategies is one that can guide and support your team, and make important decisions, and manage multiple priorities. These responsibilities can lead to high-stress levels, negatively impacting your ability to lead effectively. Here are a few ways that stress can impact your leadership development:
Lower productivity
High-stress levels can make focusing challenging, decreasing productivity. One of the important step to manage employee stress as a leader is ability to stay on task and prioritize effectively is critical to your team’s success.
Irrational decision making
Stress can cloud your judgment and make it difficult to make rational decisions. This can lead to poor choices that negatively impact your team’s performance and organization.
Low employee satisfaction
A stressed-out leader can create a stressful work environment, decreasing employee satisfaction and engagement.
Burnout
Chronic stress can lead to burnout, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. Burnout can be incredibly challenging and negatively impact your overall health and well-being. Burnout significantly impacts employee retention, with a substantial proportion of employees leaving their jobs.
Steps to manage employee stress
With 69% people saying their manager has the greatest impact on their mental health- more than their doctor and in line with partners- is time to formally look at the way you’re managing stress in your team by allowing for and empowering progress through, what it means to be human.
Avoid toxic positivity
Toxic positivity can be a denial of reality. Telling someone, or ourselves, to “just look on the bright side” or “things could be worse” in the face of disruption and adversity can serve to shame people for their natural human reactions to stress and worry.
That is why excessive positivity in leadership can appear like a strength, but it can quickly turn to a weakness. Great leaders should avoid defaulting to an up-beat attitude in the hope it will raise spirits, and seek to understand others’ position in order to express sincere interest in how they are finding a situation.
Adjust diverse feelings
The degree to which you are consistent, intentional and authentic with your 1-on-1s can be the difference between buys in or checks out during periods of high change or personal upheaval.
Ones ability to stay grounded is tied directly to how connected they feel, to others, work, purpose, company. Leaders are a big part of that. How often do you simply ask if there is anything you or the organization can do to be helpful?
Create a Culture of Gratitude
When one is feeling stressed or feeling low, it can be so easy to have a negativity bias that makes one notice and add more weight to negative events. Gratitude helps keep this in check, ensuring one don’t allow to over-focus on disaster scenarios. When a leader shares a sincere expression of gratitude for an individual’s unique contribution or efforts, they immediately multiply the level of psychological safety and emotional commitment that person feels. Work moves from being viewed as a chore, to something meaningful. Something filled with ‘get to’ moments.
Self care first
Stress is an emotional contagion. If leaders are experiencing tension, the chances are that this is going to filter down through the team. The number one rule of managing stress within your team is to manage your own stress.
One cannot pour from an empty cup, so ask yourself – are you depleted? How are you feeling, how this is affecting you and what do you need? Reflect on how you are personally adjusting to the change. Find ways to decompress, relieve pressure and build your own resilience.
Nothing is sustainable. Including your ability to effectively and meaningfully support your team.
