The Four Types of Stress that every Leader must control
By Jim Cathcart, CSP, CPAE
Author of The Acorn Principle
If you don’t control these four stressors, you become their victim.
-Physical Stressors
-Situational Stressors
-Relationship Stressors
-Attitudinal Stressors
Leaders, this is an article you don’t want to miss. Need Higher Production from your team? Control these stressors. Want Deeper Sleep? Control these stressors. Want to Retain your Top Talent? Control these stressors. Want to Live Longer? Control these stressors. Want Fewer Medical Issues? Control these stressors.
Jim Cathcart answers your real-life scenarios and explain how you can implement easy-to-use tools to master stressors in your life.
- Higher Production comes from uninhibited action. Stress reduces energy, distracts attention, generates fear, leads to indecision, produces interpersonal friction, and threatens work quality.
- Retaining Top Talent requires a stress-free connection with each of your people. People do not quit jobs, they quit their employers. It is the managers they want to get away from, not the work. Learn to be the kind of boss that others are eager to work with.
- Deep Sleep only happens when our minds and bodies don’t feel afraid. When you’re distracted by financial issues, interpersonal conflict, daunting challenges and a lack of clarity on where to place your energies, your sleep is the first to suffer. Sleep is essential to well-being.
- Longevity is directly affected by stress. Those whose mindset, life habits, work habits and relationships are stress-free have been proven to live longer with fewer issues.
- Medical Issues are often predictable and preventable. The major causes of premature death are life-style related. Heart disease, cancer, and many other top diseases can be alleviated by better choices and behaviors. Accidents are greater among those who are stressed.
Here are the Four Major Stressors that Leaders must control.
- Physical Stressors
- Situational Stressors
- Relationship Stressors
- Attitudinal Stressors
PHYSICAL STRESSORS
This is often the easiest of all stressors to control or even eliminate.
Imagine having to sit on a hard chair that is too short for you to easily reach your desk. Add to that poor lighting or too much bright light. Then a dash of ambient noise, not just sound, Noise! Sprinkle in some danger from things around you, like faulty wiring, broken furniture, proximity to moving parts, debris on the floor, and unpleasant temperatures. Add a dash of poor air quality in the workplace. Now place all of this in a dangerous neighborhood without protected parking, no convenient food places nearby, limited transportation, and ugly décor.
It is not hard to see how this would impact your work, your attitude and your safety.
Step one in controlling stress is to enhance your environment. Find a better work surface for your project. Place supplies in a more convenient location. Adjust the chair you sit in. Improve the lighting. Reduce the noise and distractions. Control the information and images that surround you. Change what you can, control what you can’t and manage the impact of what you are left to deal with.
Maybe you should plan regular micro-breaks in your work day. Stand and stretch occasionally, walk when you can, take the stairs instead of the elevator, bring your own desk lamp, buy a “white noise” speaker to drown out bad noise. Hold meetings standing up instead of seated.
Adjust your workspace ergonomically to make each action more body friendly. The tilt of your chair or computer screen, the placement of your keyboard, the fingertip access to supplies you need. Take charge of making your physical experience better, as if you had an injury and needed to accommodate it. Imagine that you had a back injury or broken arm. How could you adjust your workspace and tools to allow for the limited movements?
WHAT IS STRESS?
Dr. Hans Selye, Austrian born, “Father of Stress Research”, defines it as, “the rate of wear and tear in the body.” The non-specific response of the body to the demands placed upon it.
A specific response to a burn would be a blister. The non-specific response would be the emotional upset and resulting tension held in the body.
Historically, stress has been called by many names: What we know today as PTSD, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, in the Civil War 1860s was called “Palpitations” and “Soldier’s Heart.” In World War I it was called “shell shock.” In World War II we called it “battle fatigue.”
These are all reactions to sustained high levels of tension or anxiety, “stressful circumstances.”
Stress ignites the Fight or Flight response of self-protection. It is instinctive and unavoidable. But it is also manageable. We can reduce its impact on us.
Stress doesn’t exist within the event itself; it lives in our response to events. Psychiatrist Thomas Holmes and Psychologist Richard Rahe created the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Scale in the 1950s after surveying 5,000 people. They found that high scores even predicted injuries among football players and diminished immune responses among grieving families.
Ratings on the Holmes-Rahe Scale were based on total stress points experienced within a given time frame. The more points you had, the higher your chances of illness, injury, accidents, conflicts and breakdowns. The highest points went to Death of a Spouse, then Divorce, Jail term, Personal injury or illness, being fired from work, then “empty nest” when children move out, followed by such things as: an outstanding personal achievement (yes, even good things produce stress), trouble with a boss, change in sleeping habits, change in eating habits, vacation, and Christmas holidays. All of these require some level of adaptation and add up to “stress points.”
It’s relatively easy to identify stressors. A package you mailed that didn’t arrive on time. Being overcharged for something. Being placed on “hold” yet again while problem solving. Missing an important meeting or call. There are thousands of little items that “drive us nuts!” The points add up, and they affect us when we don’t notice it.
Tension is obvious, Stress is not. Stress is the “silent killer” that shows up as nervousness, self-doubt, indecision, forgetting important things, feeling “out of sorts”, being irritable, and unable to fully engage.
What’s a person to do?
Adjust what you can. Avoid additional stressors. Behave in healthy ways.
Get around people you enjoy.
Eat well and take your time while eating.
Learn to be body aware: try progressive relaxation head to toe.
Practice your hobbies, play a musical instrument, sing with others.
Walk, exercise, stretch, run, lift, and just…move.
Laugh. Tell stories, share the experience with others.
Remember your goals and dreams. Write them down and read them daily. Visualize your dreams vividly.
Do things for others. Volunteer, give, share, help, be a supporter or encourager.
Look for things to praise in others. Tell them what you admire.
Make a Gratitude List of everything you’re thankful for. The longer the better.
Pray, read scripture, practice your faith.
SITUATIONAL STRESSORS
Ever walk down a dark alley in a bad part of town, at night, alone? How about standing in front of a room full of people who don’t know you or like you? Have you been “called on the carpet” by a teacher, drill sergeant, employer or parent? How did you feel when the police officer pulled you over?
Have you been out making “cold” calls on new prospects? Did you notice your tension level increasing when you were about to ask for the order on a sales call?
Did you notice a tension increase when you challenged the bill your doctor or service provider presented to you? When you took a spill on your bicycle how long did the effect of that mishap resonate with you? Been dreading a conversation with someone you know?
All of these are Situational Stressors. And many of them can be avoided or disarmed.
The famous mantra “It is not what happens that counts, it is how you respond to it” was championed by professional speaker and author W. Mitchell and he has lived this message.
Mitchell had a motorcycle accident as a young adult that resulted in severe burns that melted his face, burned off his fingers and required months of surgeries and skin grafts to just allow him to survive. Despite all of this he recovered to a near normal life, though his appearance was permanently altered, and he needed prosthetics to deal with daily life. Then he broke his back in an airplane accident (He was the pilot!) and confined to a wheelchair for life.
Rather than give up, he became a radio personality and later was elected mayor of his city in Colorado. After that he became a full-time professional motivational speaker and traveled the world solo to thousands of conventions. He was elected president of the Global Speakers Federation and is admired by millions. I’d say he mastered Situational Stress wouldn’t you?
Two types of Situational Stressors:
Things you Can Control and Things you Cannot Control
The Serenity Prayer applies here: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
What can you control? Where you go, when you go, who you go with, what you do, how you do it, what you don’t do, how you cope with fear and challenges, and more.
What can you not control? How others behave, random occurrences, greater forces (e.g. weather, or traffic) and the news.
Other strategies:
- Convert it to something you can control. Change assignments, reschedule, take a new approach. Involve others, find better resources or tools.
- Consider it a gift. Stuck in traffic? Practice a new skill. Listen to a podcast. Breathe and relax. Review your upcoming plans in detail.
- Ask for help. Don’t limit yourself to only your ability. Reach out.
- Accept reality. Maybe just saying, “It is what it is.” Will allow you to focus on “Now what can I do?” instead of “Woe is me.”
Become more aware of how you behave and how you feel when situations arise. Know thyself. Then interrupt your normal response pattern. Pause, breathe, think, reconsider. Then choose a new attitude or solution.
RELATIONSHIP STRESSORS (Interpersonal)
Personal relationships and business relationships may require different approaches, but they have similar patterns for success. Saying you are sorry is difficult, but the process is the same for all relationships. First you must admit that you erred, then you must show the other person that you realize the problem you created, then you must express sincere regret and the willingness to make things right again. “I’m sorry. I can see that this put you in a bad position. I was out of line, please accept my apology. It will not happen again.”
Some relationship stressors come from the rules, expectations or habitual patterns we follow with others. If your coworkers bring you problems to solve and then leave them with you…that is a stressor. Author Willam Oncken called this the “monkey management” problem. People bring the monkey on their back to you and leave it on your back for a solution.
It’s better to have them bring the problem, put in on the desk between you and them, discuss how to handle it, then let them leave with the monkey to solve it using your advice.
At work we each have certain Outcomes that we are tasked with achieving. If you are a sales person then your job is producing sales or acquiring new customers. If you are an administrative assistant, your job is making your boss more productive. The better we clarify our Roles, Responsibilities and Expectations, the more happily we can work together.
In every relationship there are Three Essentials to make it productive and satisfying.
- Mutual Commitment to the success of the relationship
- Open Truthful Communication
- Clear Agreements as to what is expected from each other
Personality Differences
We are all unique, yet we share many characteristics. Areas of difference include:
Behavioral Style (Our habitual ways of acting in stressful and non-stressful situations.
Values (What we care about most. What motivates us.)
Trusted Sources (Who or what we rely on in order to determine the truth)
Velocity (The energy and drive patterns that determine how we approach a task)
Each of these has the potential for conflict…or compatibility.
We must Notice them, Accept them, Adapt to them, and Remember them.
ATTITUDINAL STRESSORS
The way you think and feel about yourself shows up in everything you do.
So does the way you think and feel about others.
And the way you think about your work, your employer, your products, coworkers and life in general.
The PRIMARY source of interpersonal stress is your attitude. Not what they did, but how you interpreted it. “He was late for the meeting.” (A Fact) “That means he doesn’t respect me.” (Your Opinion). “She knows I don’t like to be surprised.” (Your Opinion) You cannot know what someone else knows or remembers, nor how they see or interpret it. You can know that they didn’t act on that knowledge, but you cannot know why unless you ask.
Do you feel that you’re a sickly or frail person? A strong and resilient person?
Are you lucky or unlucky? Good looking or not? Cool? Funny? Interesting? Smart?
The way you filter the world through your attitudes has a HUGE effect on your experiences and your stress levels as you experience them.
Learn to manage your mind. Train your thoughts. Feed your mind.
“Five years from now, you will be the same person you are today except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read.” Charlie “Tremendous” Jones.
What you feed your mind shapes how you see the world. How many varied sources of information do you ingest regularly? Is it true that you are the common denominator of the five people you spend the most time with? Many believe that is true. Choose your relationships intentionally and thoughtfully.
CONCLUSION
You either control the stress levels in your life or they control you.
This all starts with awareness. Notice more about yourself, your circumstances, your feelings, your actions. See the Patterns. Then, if you want to make a change, Interrupt The Patterns. Pause long enough to make a better decision. Choose what to do next. Then repeat the good patterns until they become habitual. Guard what goes into you mind, don’t rely on just one source or point of view. Become the person you want to be, someone you can admire. Be an example of how to control stress, be good enough at it, that others will want to follow your lead.
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