Whilst leadership is a rewarding role, that helps us develop our skills, it does not come without its challenges.
One of the greatest challenges of leadership is developing enough resilience to help us handle the stress that comes with the role. Becoming aware of what triggers our feelings of stress and how then how we manage stress is a vital discipline for any leader to master.
Our capacity is the stress load we can comfortably handle, manage and carry without reaching our tipping point. If we are unable to manage our stress load, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of our tipping point, where stress builds to a level above what we are comfortable managing and our tolerance levels to stressors will lower.
Eventually, we reach a point when stress becomes unmanageable and we start doing very real damage to ourselves and those around us. Within leaders, this can be seen through poor judgement and decision-making.
Every leader has the capacity to manage stress. But, as we hold different behavioural preferences, it is clear that every leader’s capacity will differ from the next.
Although some stressors provoke an immediate stress response, for example an emergency or crisis will induced stress in a moment, it is more commonly develops as an accumulation of pressure. In order to avoid this, here are three suggested D’s to consider as a leader, each of which can help keep inevitable stress contained: Derailers, De-stressors and Discernment.
These are emotional triggers or specific circumstances which possess great power to catch us out. What are you most vulnerable to? What situation or relationship most easily presses the wrong button for you? When are you aware of having reduced tolerance levels? We need to become more aware of these situations if we are to learn to overcome them.
Consider for a moment the various phases of a typical day. Most of us have a best time when we feel fresh and can think most clearly. This is when we typically make our best decisions. By contrast, we probably also have our worst time when we are often weary, less responsive and in danger of making poor decisions. Being self-aware of these times is crucial to leading ourselves well.
So too is building margin into each day. Margin is the space between our load and our limits. Too many leaders pack each day close to or beyond their capacity. In the short term this may seem productive, but it will not be long before we reach our tipping point and stress pushes us over the edge. Not only are we then no longer productive, but we have moved to a place from which it will take us far longer to recover productiveness. Building margin into our days may feel counter-productive but is essential if we are to avoid our derailers.
These are things that help us relax and most naturally reduce stress that might otherwise build up in the background. (We would be wise to find life-giving de-stressors; not all activities that can relax us are necessarily good for us!) It has often been said it is not the amount of stress we are under that is the key to coping, but having de-stressors built into our lives. De-stressors are a vital tonic to alleviating the inevitable stress that leadership involves. Without them our tolerance levels will become hugely reduced. With them we will probably find we can absorb far greater volumes of stress because the stress never ends up pushing us beyond our tipping point.
This is a crucial skill for every leader. Discernment involves learning when to say “no”. This enables us to establish healthy boundaries. What we don’t focus on as leaders matters in many ways more than what we do focus on. This is because every time we say “no” to something we are then freed to say “yes” to something else.
In his best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey talks about seeking to find your inner peace as a leader. He suggests that this is when your schedule and values are aligned such that you do not prioritise what is on your schedule, but instead schedule your priorities. LINK TO 7 HABITS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. Without keeping a tight eye on our values, our schedules become crammed with urgent tasks that crowd out important ones. Having lost the ability to say “no,” we have little or no capacity to say “yes” to better things. To help combat this, try creating a ‘not-to-do list’ this week. You’ll be amazed at how it helps you to stay focussed.
Being aware of our derailers, building in de-stressors and cultivating discernment are crucial skills for any leader looking to flourish when under stress. The Handling Setbacks and Stress pages of the C-me Colour Profiles are a great tool to help us reflect on these things, better understanding ourselves as well as the likely triggers for stress in others.
Our Stress and Resilience Workshop seeks to apply these areas with a particular focus on how to help coach one another back to High Performance. This could be the key to unlocking untapped potential in your team, ensuring everyone is giving their very best more regularly.