Do Leaders have stress?
Leaders
are humans and so they have to bear the brunt of stress which at times becomes a very difficult pill for digestion. Leaders are not expected to be stressed out, as it can lead to failure in the vision and the mission of the company. However, as humans’ lot of leaders get stressed out at times impacting the overall workplace and in turn impacting the teams as well.
Currently, the way leaders are put under lot of stress, it can lead to bout of short tempers and lose focus thus leading to failure to do their job properly. A stressed leader will be very bad for the business and will also often lead to them missing the signs of stress within those they lead.
Unfortunately, when most people experience leadership stress, it’s not in expectation of an upcoming challenge. Usually, it’s a sense of fear associated with continuously striving to do more to prove. In many cases, that fear is only magnified by the process of thinking about experiences from the past or imagining scenarios in the future and attaching negative emotions to them. It’s not that thinking about past events is bad, necessarily, but latching on to them leads to harmful health outcomes.
In order to reduce leadership stress and burning out and become strong, leaders should first decide how much time they would want to spend thinking on past events as this will not produce any positive outcome. The next step is always to move away from the negative energy into reflection. Reflective leaders are more likely to succeed in life but they are humans and it is okay for leaders have stress.
How Leadership Stress Affects …….a person
Rumination is a “silent” mental health problem which affects your health and releases adrenaline, which causes your heart to speed up. As your heart pumps faster, blood hits the artery walls, and pressure builds up. Over time, that can lead to an increased risk of a heart failure. It also releases steroid hormone putting your white blood cell production on hold. Without adequate white blood cell production, your immune system goes for a toss and you are exposed to illness.
Stress impacts your positive attitude. People who frequently ponder as they are stressed out often verbalize their thoughts. It keeps alive the negative emotions they’ve associated with their experiences, but it also affects the overall attitude.
It’s hard to focus, if you’re spending the majority of your time thinking and pondering on past experiences. It will always impact your present work so better to move away from negative vibes and it is possible that leaders have stress.
Strategy for Managing Stress – Organizational Way and Individual Way
Organizational Way
Organizations have robust way to help their employees to come out of stress. They have their Human resource team that provides various kind of wellness-training events which support employees in managing stress. Other support given by the organization includes flexible work schedules, vacation time off/holidays, access to various inhouse facilities like(gym, lawn tennis, table tennis, pool etc). These helps in supporting individual stress management techniques for leaders to be able to step away from their sources of stress in order to be more effective leaders.
However, they are lot of organizations who do not help their employees by addressing these issues but they seem to run away from the issues and label these employees are “non-performers”.
Individual way
Recognizing your own stress signals:- Pay attention to your body’s responses due to stress. What is the trigger that is pushing you towards feeling of stress? Do you feel that the heart rate is going up? The sooner you realize your body is in stress mode , the sooner you can take action to manage your stress.
Introduce Health and diet in your schedule:- Various reports suggest that regular exercise not only reduces stress but also reduces anxiety, improves sleeping habits and boost immunity from illness.
Maintain boundaries between home and work:- This starts by setting expectations to the system. Start sharing your working hours and preferred communication channels with your respective teams and immediate supervisor. Try to maintain much as you can of your schedule to live with intention both at work and at home.
Practice the Art of recovery:- Make sure that throughout your day, you give yourself frequent breaks between your tasks. Frequently get up from your desk and take a stroll around, or go out for some fresh air in the open. Try to take vacation after completion of the project, or at least unplug while at home with family and friends. Learn about other practices for recovery from overwork.
The above methods are some ways to tackle/manage your stress level and come out from it successfully. Additionally, quality spending time with family, be ready to face failures as this will give you lot of learning and make you even stronger to fight out in future and get moving in life and do not get glued to the past …as you will never be able to change it….
