Nurse leaders can look out for signs of burnout–such as excessive absences or tardiness, negative attitudes, or withdrawal from community activities–and help nurses who are at-risk develop effective stress management techniques. Nurse leaders should remember the importance of nurses scheduling for managing stress. Leaders need to stay vigilant about when tasks or shifts need to be adjusted to lower stress levels, and they may want to look at cutting out non-essential tasks where possible to allow nurses to focus on primary duties. Including physical activity in routines may simplify stress management for nurses.
While going to the gym or taking an exercise class may be ideal, there are other ways nurses can make time to work out to relieve stress, even while at work. Because leaders are largely dependent on sensory activities, it is important to find a regular activity, like exercising or listening to music, that relieves stress, but that can also benefit ones overall health. According to our research, leaders turn to sensory pursuits most frequently as a stress-management technique. In addition to drawing from positive sensory pursuits, leaders can also adopt the following actions to counteract the detrimental effects of stress.
Every woman in a leadership role can seek out stress-management techniques that meet her needs and preferences. You may be learning how to manage your stress using a variety of techniques, and it is completely up to you what one you choose to commit to.
Learning how to manage that stress is one of the most powerful things we can accomplish as leaders. Most people, including women who are leaders, have trouble managing stress.
Stress usually stems from the nagging feeling that things are not going well, or that you are not doing everything you could to solve the situation. Stress often leads us to feel helpless, and when we feel that way, we are not using our strength as effectively. Managing Stress As a Leader When most of us experience high levels of stress, this is generally a sign that we have overextended ourselves and failed to step in early enough to handle emotions.
When we are feeling stressed, we have increased the levels of cortisol in our bodies. The earlier you acknowledge when your body is going into stress mode, the quicker you can take steps to handle it. What I am going to propose that we do is practice a lot more discipline and control when we are not feeling stressed.
If you are looking for effective ways of dealing with stress, then writing is one thing that you should give a shot. You have to assess what stresses you, figure out what triggers these stressors, and figure out how to get rid of them before sweat beads start to trickle down your face.
You can cut a lot of the stress down and be more effective at your job by focusing instead on getting things done, and ironing out any rough edges afterwards. When things get too stressful (and this year has definitely been a year to write home about), your ability to effectively lead can get hindered, especially if you lack resources and habits for dealing with that stress. While it is easy to get overwhelmed when managing one company, let alone when you are juggling multiple businesses, the resulting stress can lead to sleepless nights and other physical complaints, which may leave you wondering whether the health cost is worth the sacrifice. However, sustained levels of high stress can cause devastating physical and long-term psychological consequences to employees.
Many times, the failure to stay focused on one specific need leads to a stress in a leader. Leaders who are faced with a crisis and lack the skills to handle additional stress can then narrow their focus on the immediate situation, failing to consider the future or bigger picture. Leaders may close off from the perspectives of people they normally trust, and accept extra demands that interfere with managing family or personal life, in turn increasing their stress levels. If leaders and their teams are understanding one another, they are more likely to detect signs of stress and strain sooner.
From therapeutic soakings and musical hobbies to breathing exercises that take just two minutes, no two leaders are alike when it comes to monitoring and reacting to a stressful situation. Not only do these behaviors alleviate the leadership stress at that time, they also can help to eradicate stress for the future, even before a task begins. One way they can keep this up is by leading by example, practicing the stress-management techniques themselves, and sharing success with their employees. Encouraging top-down interdependence makes people feel comfortable about letting the flag fly when they are stressed, asking for help when needed, holding one another accountable for unhealthy workplace behaviors, and collaborating on stress management techniques.
Instant messaging and productivity tools are helpful to connect people, which helps to manage stress in a team. Using the techniques on this list may help you manage stress on a team and maintain a higher and consistent operational performance rate and output quality, change the culture of the workplace into a more positive work environment, improve the employee satisfaction and retention goals, and enhance the quality of your own professional and personal life. There are plenty of ways you can model healthy stress-management behaviors for your employees, and develop team habits that contribute to stress reduction at your workplace. Leadership Resources is committed to doing just this, helping individuals to build patterns of success that reduce stress levels and maximise performance.
As we noted earlier, it is critical for CEOs and company owners to avoid sending the wrong message (never stop working) by aggressively encouraging employees to utilize PTO and vacation to reduce stress. The most effective leaders are aware of causes, and they are taking steps to make sure that their “never-ending list of tasks” has built-in practices to help them manage their stress better. If you cannot find your files, documents, tools, and so on, easily, you are going to end up losing time, which is going to make you behind, which is going to create more stress.