The Four Greatest Causes of Leadership-Stress
Stress keeps people up at night and makes them irritable during the day. Stress makes people tired, sad, and disinterested. Stress results in poor eating habits. Stress kills.
Not all stress, however, is bad.
Not all bad:
A world without stress is a world filled with dull weaklings.
Good stress brings out the best in people. Skilled leaders put others in stressful situations in order to maximize their potential.
Good stress stretches but doesn’t overwhelm. Healthy stress drives people to search for answers, connect with others, effectively utilize resources, and creatively apply their skills. Bad stress is the opposite. It overwhelms, isolates, and paralyzes.
Four greatest causes of leadership-stress:
The greatest internal cause of stress is living out of synch with who you are. Knowing yourself frees you from living inconsistently and enables you to live within your values. It strengthens, in addition, your ability to withstand pressure from others to be who you aren’t.
The second greatest cause of stress is saying yes when you should say no. One reason you can’t say no goes back to the greatest internal cause of stress; living out of synch with yourself.
The third greatest cause of stress is trying to control things you can’t control. You can control what you do. You can influence what others do. You can’t control outcomes and others.
The fourth greatest cause of stress is weak, unreliable team members. Answer this stress by hiring passionate people and with aggressive staff development. Perhaps the greatest stress reliever after self-reflection is developing talented, reliable people.
What are your greatest causes of stress?
What stress-solutions help you?
As a small business owner and a mother of 3 teens, I often feel overwhelmed with stress, burnt out and frustrated. I read, and then re-read this post and also showed it to my husband (who also has a demanding sales job and travels a lot). It helped put a lot of things in perspective! Thanks, as always, for sharing such great insights.
Cheers,
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
What an encouraging comment. Thank you!
All the best as you face the challenges of stress-filled living.
Cheers,
Dan
This is going to be a post I come back to, I know it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I’m inspired to blog about my experience with this now. And Kelly, I hear you on the stress levels, three kids is really hard!!
Hi Vanessa,
Thank you for leaving your comment. And you are so right, 3 kids creates a stressful life! We had three!
Best,
Dan
I think the most important thing on this list is learning to say no. It is counter- cultural, and counter-intutive to what everyone teaches us. We fill up our lives with things, duties and minutiae that we really care nothing about. There are a limited number of hours in the day. And, despite the fact that we are all busy being all we can be, our talents, gifts and resources also have limits.
In addition to saying “No” helping us live in sych with ourselves, it begins to teach other people that they too have the ability to say “No.” This is another example of leading by doing. I have seen many people who suddenly feel that they have been set free or have been given permission to make choices.
Good post as usual Dan.
Hi Martina,
Thanks for consistently giving back to the Leadership Freak community.
Saying “no” is a huge challenge and for people pleasers it’s nearly impossible. Thanks for emphasizing that key solution to stress.
I think as we live more fully aligned with who we are we become better able to say “no”.
Cheers,
Dan
My greatest stress reliever is seeking out the help of others for bouncing ideas off, sanity checks, and just for listening. Sometimes the stress is self induced and having colleagues provide sanity checks lets me connect and gain another perspective into the situation. Most times, this provides both the solution and stress relief.
Rena,
Thanks for adding your insights. Including others in our lives can really help; as long as we include the right people. As you know, some people help relieve stress then there are the others!! ugh!
Best,
Dan
Love this list Dan. Concise, to the point, and true! I would add one: people trying to control me. 🙂 As a leader there are always going to be people who want to control who, what, where, when & the why of the leader. Bugs the daylights out of me. Especially when they think they know your job.
Hi Bill,
Great point. Thanks for making it. Just reading your thoughts get me “worked up.” I just “LOVE” people who think they understand my life and have the answers for me…. yuk!
Thanks for the good word and for sharing your insights.
Best,
Dan
Bill, nice comment. Now get back to work. You too, Dan!
🙂
🙂
You’ve done it again, Dan. Great post.
I would add to the list proper “swing”. A rhythm of going full out in energy exertion AND taking the time to invest in pulling back to replenish energy. When I spend too much time giving of myself without investing in rest, stress shows up at the door. I’ve successfully proven this happens every time.
Dan, so concise and comprehensive I could not add any other factors to your list. I am in good stress mode at the moment, the adrenalin is pumping and there is a lot to deliver and I just feel like I am winning. Solutions that help me deal with stress is to literally check out. I disengage and observe more. If I don’t get involved, there is no emotional attachment so I can’t add to the existing baggage. I then have time to offload the current baggage, creating room to take on more of the stuff that comes my way! Stare at anything and do nothing (don’t judge, don’t analyse just observe) and you will be blown away at what that does for you
I really concur with point three. It’s not only a critical point to remember what you truely have control of but it will also keep you from being frustrated and wasting a lot of time!
In closing Dan, your posts really inspire me to become a more effective leader who is well grounded. Thank you
Hi Dan, like mentioned above this is one post I will continue to come back too. very timely list of stress events for leaders. I disengage to relieve my stress doing yoga or meditation or just “being without doing.” I love good stress and when possible try to modify bad stress or at least my perception of it to use its energy directing it to other venues where the impact may actually be positive. An example of this would be conducting a team meeting and having key people not arrive on time. Taking those present to where the absentees are pushes the negative stress to their court and two positive things happen. First and most important the team meeting takes place. Secondly the absentees will be a lot more diligent and trustworthy with their future attendance. I have actually done this on several occasions and it has materialized as described. This may be an extreme modeling of good behavior but it works and encourages those that did show up.
‘Being without doing..’ that brings up some lovely relaxing images for me, Al, got to remember that the next time I’m stressed 🙂 For me, good stress is a situation I know I can resolve, even if I don’t know immediately how I’m going to resolve it. Bad stress is something I don’t know to to start resolving, and I go into a bit of a tailspin. Silly, I know, but participating in a community like this one really helps, so thanks for your insights everyone!
Thanks Vanessa. The great thing about “being without doing” (if you can do it, no pun intended) is that if you practice a lot there are no geographic restrictions! 🙂
Dear Dan,
I am in agreement with all the suggestions. Being somebody else, saying yes to everyone, trying to change things that you cant and unreliable team members. It is very true. However, the most prevalent practices in the orgnisations are saying “Yes” to everyone. I have seen people at top in hierarchy say “Yes” to all people in order to help and later on showing their inabilities on many frivilous ground. I am unable to understand the assumption behind this practice. They do not understand that they actually lose their credibility and people stop respecthing them. They can seek respect by the virture of their position but they can not deserve respect from people side. This it the greatest leadership failure and perhaps the most logical reasoning is fear of losing position, insecurity and incompetency to face realities and take a firm stand. Leader has to take a firm stand, and should use his wisdom rather than taking consensus stand in order to be nice for everyone. I think, being nice is not enough, you need to be helpful. My greatest causes of stress is leadership credibility and culture enhancing opportunities. It means when leaders do not meet their words or promise then it becomes so de motivating that you can not expect positive development in future. Similarly, when culture does not provide opportunity to grow, then people may work but curiosity and passion are lost.
I strongly believe that authenticity and opportunity always help each and everyone in the organisation. When leader is authentic, it create trust in the organisaiton and when opporutnity is available, people work better and are more loyal.
Well said, Dan. You make excellent points about the causes of stress. The only addition I would make is the lack of self-care, or renewal. I have certainly found myself in all four areas of stress. Recognizing that was huge in re-centering and reducing my stress. Over the past ten years I have learned how to care better for me. Taking care of the engine that drives everything: Rest, Diet, Exercise, finding Enjoyment, investing in my Growth through new learning, and finding more things where I can make a difference. The latter really addresses the alignment question.
Tony Schwartz, the Energy Project, shared a quote recently from Drew Faust, President of Harvard University that I like. “Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But, don’t begin with it. Find work you love. It is hard to be happy if you spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t love.”
Thanks, Dan, we need to be brought back frequently to those things that are about feeding and caring for ourselves.
Well put, Jim. I couldn’t agree more with you. Spending 80% of our waking hours engaged with what honors our Passion, Personality, and Proficiences. It’s all good stress.
I love that thought from Tony Schwartz, Jim, thanks very much for sharing.
Stress is definitely a perennial topic of discussion, isn’t it? The four causes you present can all influence how “stressed out” we are, but for me it’s probably a combination of #1 and #2. I take on too much partially because I lose track of my truest self and don’t use a strong enough filter. Add in the obligations I feel to the many activities my children are involved in and the “yeses” start flying when the “nos” should be part of the mix.
Stress solutions? One thing that is key, no matter what, is exercise. Besides the physical benefits, an exercise activity that allows an individual to let their mind “wander” really provides benefits far beyond the physical.
Dan,
Great insight. Each of these 4 stressors could put a huge amount of pressure on anyone. I think that I’ve endured each of the 4 and can say that the resulting stress and worry didn’t help the outcomes any. By the way, at first glance I thought that the title of this post was The 4 Greatest Causes of Stress – Leadership. That would be a much different post!
Thanks for sharing.
Chris
An enjoyable read Dan.
Great post Dan, have posted a link on my FB page for our Captains and officers. ☑
Great Post, Dan. I am a little bleary-eyed this morning as the stress did keep me awake last night–how timely your post is! What struck me was the reminder that you can influence others, but not control them. Helpful insight when dealing with particularly difficult issues in the workplace.
Good distinction regarding good and bad stress, Dan. Scientists differentiate these as “eustress” and “distress.” When you jump out of an airplane, you get a physical stress response. If you wanted to jump out, you enjoy the adrenaline rush–that’s eustress. If you had to because it’s on fire, your response is likely distress. The negative health consequences we think of as “stress-related” are technically “distress-related.” It matters for the reasons you note, and because we have some control over our initial stress responses. If you learn to turn a stress into a eustress whenever possible, you can reduce the mental and physical health impacts.
Concise and spot-on list of causes of leadership stress. I’d only add one: the feeling of overwhelming responsibility for others’ satisfaction, happiness and security. That alone may make you long for the “good old days” when you were either a manager or mail clerk.
Dan,
Thanks for the repost via Twitter on this one. I missed it the first time around. You are right on the mark with these, especially #2. I tend to say “yes” too quickly, for too many reasons, and feel bad having to say “no”, but the easiest way to say “no” is to explain (to yourself at least) that you don’t have the time or resources to do a job worthy of the cause.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery and for a successful year ahead.
Hi Frank,
Being useful is one of life’s great pleasures.
Happy New Year,
Dan
As a headteacher I can confirm that by far the greatest cause of stress is a lack of rigour in the selection process for new staff. If you don’t get that process 100% right then the ongoing problems and stress with a weak member of staff will fill your days.
Thanks for sharing your experience and insights. Best, Dan
I started my media business 7 months ago, I often use freelance designers and photographers. Saying yes to small projects Managing these people can be difficult at times, especially when saying yes to too many small projects.
Learning to live with your self and knowing who you are is indeed important. I have learnt it sets you up for a coherent business and personal life.
Thanks again for your posts and wise words!
Alex
Talking to a trusted advisor is an excellent way to get something heavy off our chest and to start look for solutions. This is why developing and maintaining solid support systems (family, friends, mentors, etc) BEFORE a crisis occurs is so important. Thanks, Dan! I continue to appreciate what you post.
I say Yes when I should say No. I do it because I think it increases the stretch / capacity in my life. I do it because serving can be about filling a gap an meetin a need more than about doing something that is your niche! I do it in case the leaders above me see something in me that I don’t see in myself that may be linked to my purpose / cause. That said I struggle to find the balance one role I full fill I do not like at all it worries me and something rises up in me every time it’s mentioned. If I fill my life doing everything maybe I won’t have time to follow my heart and do what I would really like. As leaders it’s our responsibility to manage our selves too. That means sometimes doing things you don like for a season but it also means being sensible with your time management and priorities and sometimes saying No!!! Now then I need to go practice what I preach!!!