Leaders play a vital role in helping the team to succeed in their departmental and professional goals. At time, it may be the leader themselves who create the stress and need to learn ways on how to reduce when the need arises.
These are the common reasons that attribute to workplace stress :
Over-supervision
Lack of autonomy
Harassment and discrimination
Lack of recognition
Tight deadlines
Long working hours
Unreasonable Demands
Unrealistic expectations of workers’ productivity
Poor work-life balance
No Work Variety
In May 2019, the WHO officially started to recognize burnout as an occupational phenomenon which may require care. In their statement, the organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
Reduced professional efficacy.”
Number 1 : Keep Track Of Team's Workload
In many cases, work overload has been deemed as the "norm" as the trend towards lean teams starts to become popular. The team members are expected to pull their weight even if they are struggling to complete their primary jobs. As leaders, it is important to have a bird's eye view of the amount of workload that everyone is holding onto. It takes more than a half a year conversation to find out what is their real workload.
Number 2: Speak To Members In A Calm Voice Especially When Team Is Stressed
When team members are stressed, leaders need to take the reins and enable the thing rather than to disable them. To help enable your members, speak to them in a calm manner and allow members to voice out what is causing stress. At this point, it is not wise to start reprimanding or discouraging them, the end goal is for the member to feel a sense of relief when your conversation ends.
Number 3: Help Members To Focus
The typical office worker change their tasks at an average of every 3 minutes, this is further enabled with advanced technologies that enables for faster completion rates. Due to the advancement, the typical office worker is now "blessed' with more and more tasks that prevent them from being able to focus. Help them to categorise their tasks and encourage them to work in short bursts of task categorization.
Number 4: Begin Your Virtual Meetings With Variety
When the word "meetings' come to mind, the associated words like "boring", "long" or "unproductive" appear in the minds of people. Leaders can introduce stress-busting stretches or conversations to help reduce stress and associated meetings or virtual meetings as something positive and exciting rather than one that becomes too serious.
Number 5: Remind Team Members That They Are Valued
As the going gets tough, the tough gets going. The impact of words and encouragement especially from their supervisors or leaders can mean a lot. It is almost as powerful as receiving a birthday blessing from your loved ones. Make a point to remind your team members that they are a valuable part of the team, let them know about their successes and how they have overcome the odds before.
Leadership is not just a title, it is a process and journey of modifying , reinventing and enabling the people processes to bring out the best in people.
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