We live in times when we often engaged in long working hours which can be physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing having consequences such as stress, burnout, and disorientation and affect the overall productivity of the employee.
When it comes to leaders it can be quite challenging for them to manage their own personal stress, and coping up with the same can be quite hard, as they have to help their team members as well to manage their stress and burnout.
However, there are ways through which. We can manage our stress as well as help our team members to manage their stress and Burnout efficiently and develop resiliency. So here are 5 ways leaders can help their teams manage stress and burnout
Encourage mindfulness in your team:
The idea of mindfulness revolves around improving the brain function through practicing self-awareness by tracking moment by moment thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, which helps us to be in the moment and deal with the present situation efficiently. This training over time can help us deal with stress management and cope up with burnouts and help the team member to build resiliency
As Buddha has once remarked. “When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
Offer a flexible work environment:
We often tend to be very strict when it comes to flexibility at work. Everyone is looking for flexibility at work and being rigid with the same can be very strenuous. So as a leader we must allow our team members some flexibility by letting them work freely by monitoring them leniently as long as they work and complete their respective tasks by specific deadlines.
As a leader, we can also allow our fellow members who have to look after theirchildren. By letting them coming early to the workplace and leave early to pick their children from school. We can also give them a change of environment by letting them work from home every week or once in a while. In the same way, we can help them to reduce stress in the workplace.
Demonstrate and promote well-being practices:
Stress is contagious and working in a stressful environment can induce stress to a healthy individual as well. But the good news is well-being also has the same effect.
A recent Gallup report that surveyed 105 teams of six for three-month periods found individual team members who reported experiencing well-being were 20 percent more likely to have other team members experience the same within six months, according to HBR.
As a leader, we can bring about well-being among our team members by practicing activities that are beneficial for personal health and promotes stress management. For instance, we can take resilience training and encouraging team members to exercise or engage in renewal activities.
Debunk the myth of multitasking:
We, humans, are very efficient when we engage ourselves in doing one task. We are not effective or efficient parallel processors.
“Multitasking doubles the amount of time it takes to do a task, and usually at least doubles the number of mistakes,” said JoAnn Deak, Ph.D., a neuroscientist, and educational researcher, according to the report. In order to avoid burnouts from multitasking and avoid unnecessary stress from the burden of many tasks. We must as leaders encourage team members to “monotask” and focus on one task at a time.
Show empathy and compassion:
As leaders, we can be compassionate and empathize more often and not just sympathize with our team members. It can significantly help them to manage stress and burnout. Due to the fact that the University of New South Wales found, according to the report. The leaders should try to strive to “understand people’s motivators, hopes, and difficulties and to create the right support mechanism to allow people to be as good as they can be.”
For example, we can look at the Kris Thorkelson, founder of My Place Realty a Winnipeg based company works to provide quality, multi-family homes that people are proud to call home and is open for communication with his team and business relationships as it is critical to the success.
Conclusion:
Incapacity of a leader is our not only our duty but a moral responsibility to support our team’s ineffective management of stress and burnout. By practicing techniques like mindfulness and offering them a flexible environment to work as well by being compassionate and empathetic towards them we can not only build a solid work relationship but also help them enhance their performance as a whole.
