Stress is a big deal.
Every leader experiences it & likely their teams also.
It’s a universal human experience, it’s also an important issue for you as a leader.
For yourself personally as well as your team.
Stress and leadership are linked, but not just in the obvious way.
You already know that change causes stress, but do you know how stress can make change harder?
Stress has been with us for as long as we have been human. Our ancestors survived because they stressed about being eaten, or not eating. Experiencing stress is part of what makes us human – a necessary evil.
Something to be managed.
A leader’s job.
The leadership question is: What can be done to minimize it in ourselves, and our teams, so that it helps achieve our mission without damaging our people?
Good leaders also ask a second question – how does my stress effect the missions I choose? How does my team’s stress effect their reaction to our objectives?
To answer these, we need to know what stress is.
Stress is a physiological reaction in our brain to danger.
Whether that danger is perceived or real, our bodies prepare us to fight or flight by stressing us. Hormones flow, eyes dilate, brain focuses, action stations.
If the danger is real, stress is useful, because it stops us being eaten or makes us go out to catch food. It enables us to escape danger or achieve goals.
When the danger is not real, just perceived, the stress is counterproductive. It feels the same but all that fight and flight reaction shuts down parts of your brain that you need for clear thinking, when there’s nothing to run from. It makes you run faster away from something that’s in your head.
But – there’s a deeper problem than just clear thinking.
Avoidance.
People are smart. We try to avoid danger. Or at least the smart ones do.
So whatever is stressing you, your brain will tell you to avoid it. Subconsciously at least.
The cause of stress will be seen as the danger – so you might choose to do other things.
You will try to avoid what is stressing you out.
This can become a cycle – stress causes avoidance causes stress causes more avoidance… This is maybe why we procrastinate.
If the stressor is your boss, or the targets they set, it will take more courage to adopt those targets as your own. The boss can see their mission clearly, but you just don’t want to go there.
We talked in our last post about how fear is like a gate that stands between you and the mission you choose. Fear can stop you choosing to go somewhere you haven’t been.
Stress is like a gate across your path. Rather than go over it you stay where you are.
When you’re stressed you don’t stop setting new missions, you just stop exploring new places. You actively avoid things that might cause you stress. You lower your sights.
You are blocked by the stress gate.
This is a common symptom of burnout.
“…whatever is stressing you, your brain will tell you to avoid it…”
One way to reduce stress, and avoidance, is to reduce the perception of danger of the mission you choose.
To do that well you need to know what’s real danger and what’s perception. Knowing is just the beginning – you have to convince your team that it’s not real.
Take the time to engage your team, to reduce their perceived fear, so that they can choose the same mission you have.
Stress relief can require patience and persistence but will accelerate achievement once it’s done.
Patience isn’t weakness it’s strength.
This is a job for a leader.
A bad way to influence your team is to be a constant source of stress. The team, or their brains at least, will try to avoid you, and the missions you set.
Maybe one day they’ll avoid you permanently by leaving.
In the meantime, they might just slow down what you’re trying to achieve.
Do you feel stress?
Do you set goals or targets that increase your stress? When you do, it’s a sign that you’re crossing the gate into new territory. Good luck on your new journey.
Do you set objectives that don’t stress you? Maybe they’re in familiar territiory?
Does your team feel the same stress? Less or more?
Do you have any objectives that your team haven’t engaged with?
Are they procrastinating?
Are they just stubborn or are they showing signs of stress?
Do you take time to engage your team on those objectives?
Have you tried reducing stress to reduce avoidance?
Is stress a problem?
.
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“I might be wrong, but at least I’ve thought about it…”