It’s hard enough confronting and managing your own stress. But, there’s no running away from it. When your team members are faced with feelings of burnout and disengagement … when they’re on the verge of giving up, as the team leader, you have got to help them. You have got to put them back strongly on their feet!
Stress Is Not Uncommon
Stress is one of today’s realities in the workplace. When the job gets to be too complex, intense and demanding … when a lot of us now work in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week environments, anxiety and stress almost inevitably will set in. The bad news is that this situation is not likely to change in the next five or ten years. The good news is that the team has got you! You, the good, old reliable, professional leader who’ll always be there for them, to help manage their situation and become more resilient and effective.
One of the approaches you, as a team leader can apply is to focus on your members’ personal growth and development. Have a mindset of creating the happiest, healthiest and most productive team on earth. This kind of a perspective is the first step towards producing creativity among your people, unleashing their potential and sustaining their productivity.
Here are 3 other very doable, easy to implement approaches team managers can adopt for their teams:
- Place priority on activities that foster well-being for you and the guys. These may include coming up with some personal development tools as training sessions on mindfulness and resilience, or you could encourage your team member to take some time for exercises or get into some renewal activities like having meetings while walking leisurely in the park. Then you could also build some buffer time for deliverables so that your people can have some flexibility and manage their jobs at a reasonable pace without compromising objectives.
- Allow time for your team to disconnect from work. On average, workers around the world spend 34-48 hours a week working. Many of them can’t let go of related work activities after office hours. Experts say being “always on” can be an unproductive mind frame. Even the best athletes need time to rest and recover. So, be clear about when to disengage. For instance, no meetings after six or no emails, phone calls and messages on weekends.
- Be compassionate. Empathize with them. It’s not going to cost you a penny to be kind. And the benefits? Great! A research project at the University of New South Wales found that the single, most important influence in creating productivity within a company is the ability of its team leader to go the extra mile developing and recognizing their people, being open to feedback including criticism and encouraging teamwork. Additionally, being compassionate, understanding employee motivations, hopes and difficulties and having the right support set-up to allow them to be as good as they can be, spells high productivity.
Remember, personal development, over time makes each person better, enabling him/her to produce high performance and engagement while on the job.
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