A VP called me this week to rant about a team member's inability to stop stressing. The rant was based on frustration because she had tried lessening the demands being placed on the employee and had also stepped up on the tools and support being provided to this team member to no avail. Her frustration was totally understandable as she was missing pieces of the stress equation.
Perspective
Work stress can be seen as the imbalance between demands and resources. On the demands side, we have to take into consideration that a person's perspective on the possible consequences of not meeting those demands is as important as the demands themselves.
As leaders, when an employee complains about stress the first action we consider is lowering the demands we are putting on that employee. This default reaction is based on the fact that we are indeed putting high(er) demands on our employees. We often fail to consider the employee's take, not on the demands themselves, but on the possible consequences of not meeting them. Experience shows that employees' perspectives on what will happen (to them) if they fail to meet our demands are skewed. Interestingly the more stress they feel, the more emotional their response, the further removed from (the leader's) reality their perspective will be.
Internal resources
The second focus leaders have is related to resources. We evaluate external resources like support, equipment, and tools and focus on stepping up in those areas. We almost always overlook the employee's own internal resources. We neglect to check on their resilience, mental health, personal beliefs, and their ability to change perspectives. The sad truth is that if our employees are lacking in internal resources, no matter what we provide externally, there will be no change in their stress response.
When someone experiences stress we need to be open-minded enough to consider all the different angles where we as leaders can trigger a difference. Every person is unique so each employee coming to you will probably need a different approach. We might need to lessen demands, change perspectives, step up on corporate resources, assist and support with shoring up internal resources, or come up with a combination of all the above.
As leaders, we need to stop fearing stress and seeing it as a sign of weakness. It's "just" a sign that we and the employee involved need to tweak the current work formula. An employee exhibiting stress is an opportunity for us to possibly innovate our way of working and assist this employee in personal development. If faced head-on and open-minded there is an opportunity for us to make improvements and grow together.
So next time an employee complains about stress embrace the chance to make a change.