Managing stress and resilience

- According to Hans Selye, "It's not stress that kills us, it's our reaction to it." Trying to meet aggressive deadlines, deciphering unclear expectations, anxiety around restructuring, adapting to new systems or new procedures, adjusting to a shakeup in management, having to learn new skills, adapting to budget constraints and new financial realities. These are all majorly stressful work-related events. And that can feel even more overwhelming and more isolating and difficult if your team is working remotely. During this lesson, I want to teach you how to manage stressful situations and help your team become more resilient to changes in unpredictable times. First it's important to acknowledge stress in the digital workplace. Overall, too much stress in the workplace decreases employee and organizational performance. Remote working brings additional stressors that can lead to your or your employees' inability to cope. Feeling detached from the team, balancing the demands of home and work, having constant interruptions and technical difficulties. These are all stressors that are unique to the digital workplace on top of the common workplace stressors. So tapping your emotional intelligence skills to communicate with your team and manage your and your team's stress can really mitigate the impact of stressful situations. By acknowledging the collective stress, you can start to reframe high stress environments and chart a course of action. That leads to your approach to stress. How do you approach stress with confidence and a clear mind? When you approach stress well, you will inspire others to become and to cope better with rapid change. Let me give you an example. During the financial crisis of 2008, my employer, a financial institution, was on the brink of failure. The CEO was able to discuss the challenges we faced and confidently described the path to economic recovery for our organization. Although our future was unclear, employees' stress tolerance increased and they worked diligently to bring us out of the woods. Here are some ways that you can increase your stress tolerance and have a constructive approach to stress. First, as a leader, you must be conscious of your stress and recognize clues that you may be becoming overwhelmed as the airline state, "Put your oxygen mask on first, so you'll be able to help others." That means you need to spend time caring for yourself with rest, many breaks, separating home from work life, take a walk, listen to music, and exercise, or whatever you need to do to de-stress from the work day. On that note, encourage your team to check in with themselves. Encourage them to take their vacation time or time in the middle of the day. Whatever you do for yourself encourage your team to do it for themselves. Next, really communicate more. Talk to them about how they feel. Ask questions about the stressors and ask what you can do to help remove obstacles and then do it. Finally stay future-focused. Remind your team of their skills and encourage them to get creative and take control of what they can control. Remind them that new skills come from adapting and that will come in handy in the future. Painting an optimistic picture helps reduce stress and reframe negatives into positives. So a little stress is good. It helps us to stay focused and meet new challenges. However, excessive stress can start to affect your team in negative ways. So make sure you're always paying attention. In your next one-on-one meeting, you may want to pose two simple questions. What's stressing you out and how can I help you?