How Are You Doing With Stress?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

Let me start off by saying that I’m not asking how you are doing with your stress. I want to know how you are doing with your boss’s stress. Are you creating it or are you reducing it? One of my coaching clients recently sent me a link to an interview with Mark Cuban. In the article, Cuban gave examples of what he looks for in an employee. The overriding characteristic he looks for is an employee who reduces his stress. According to Cuban, these employees are invaluable. As a senior leader for just over 12 years and a mid-level leader for 20 years before that, Cuban’s comments resonated with me. They also had me reviewing my interactions with those to whom I reported. Let’s face it, we all report to someone, and we are either creating stress or relieving it.

Here are a few things that are stressors for your boss (and the entire organization):

Drama. Life has enough drama with things out of our control that we shouldn’t be carelessly adding more. Drama surfaces through office politics, hurt feelings between coworkers, and late-night emails or texts. Before running to your boss, ask yourself if it’s something your boss needs to address. Does she really need to get in between you and your coworker over a simple misunderstanding?

“Not My Job” Syndrome. My first real part-time job was for a local manufacturing company. As a senior in high school, my school day ended at 12:30 pm so I went to work so I could buy gas for my 1967 Chevelle. There was a custodian working there that could barely speak English, but he could most certainly say, “Not my job.” No matter what you asked him he always replied, “Not my job.” If you see that something needs to be done, just do it. Don’t wait for someone else. No need to consult your job description to see if it’s written somewhere. Just DO IT!

Not completing your tasks on time. If your boss has given you a deadline, it’s for a reason. Why make her ask for updates? If you need more time, communicate that to her. She would rather know than wonder, or worse yet, expect it and not get it.

Now, this might seem a bit harsh to you, but I can say from experience, it’s a serious problem in many organizations, and I would bet that you might just be an accidental stressor. Please join Marisa and me on The Next Page podcast as we discuss this topic and look at more ways that we might be adding stress to people’s lives.

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