Some people—and Instagramers—say that difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. But is that always true? Do we always need to drive up winding roads to reach the peak?

CEOs and managing partners often feel the brunt of stress the most when it comes to their companies. When stress is hitting hard, they’re carrying the burden 24/7. Sure enough, they’d disagree with the previous quote. Stress only begets more of it and, when it piles high enough, there’s no peak to be found.

Not only that, but it causes a ripple effect, affecting your team, your employees, and the way you run the business. It slows down productivity, decreases efficiency, and creates a tense environment that nobody wants to participate in. 

COVID-19 hasn’t helped either, affecting more than 60% of business owners and causing them and their teams even more distress while they try to work from home and operate their businesses from afar. 67% of them reported anxiety with restrictions in place. 

And this is on top of what you’ve already been dealing with. 

However, there are ways to turn stress on its head and use its momentum to push back and create something positive instead. Creating an environment that’s peaceful, promotes reflection and self-care, and is beneficial to all can bring improved performance for you and your employees alike.

Why is stress more prominent now in the workplace?

With economies lopsided, heightened job insecurity, and constant pressure, workplaces have become a more stressful place than ever before. Compared to the 1990s, recent years are much more demanding of workers, creating more tension when compared to decades ago. This is especially true for middle-aged leaders who don’t have to just be successful at work, but also are expected to raise their families at the same time. 

CEOs and managing partners are at an age where their own well-being isn’t the only one they have to watch out for now, but that of their families (both aging parents and their children) and employees, too. 

The access to technology has also heightened everyone’s anxiety, as it gives everyone a pulse on information at any time—sometimes too often. Political upheavals, calamity, and other negative events are constantly on everyone’s minds. It’s difficult to tune it out and only causes more stress than it did decades ago. 

What is the impact of stress in the workplace and how does it affect leadership?

Like we mentioned earlier, if you’re stressed, it causes a ripple effect. The anxiety will trickle down to your employees, bringing productivity to a halt. Important conclusions are bottlenecked, people will experience decision fatigue, and some employees will even shut down, procrastinate, or panic. 

Even more so when you decide to shut everyone out of your own process and try to handle stress yourself.

Stress is a killer—literally. It manifests itself through physical, emotional, and psychological ways that can damage your body and brain permanently. Not only can it contribute to depression and anxiety, it can affect your muscles, the immune system, and even the heart. People experience heart pain, sleepless nights, and body aches from trying to ignore stress.

When you’re not at your optimal self because you’re giving in to the tension you’re feeling, you can’t be a good leader. And without a good leader, a company is left tip-toeing and uncertain. Not that you need to babysit every decision, but without a leader they can look up to and one they can see giving in to stress, it doesn’t make for a very inspiring environment. 

7 strategies to combat stress in the workplace

If you’re looking to alleviate the stress in your life and your workplace as a CEO or managing partner, these seven strategies can help you out.

1. Identify your cause of stress

The first step to tackling something is to acknowledge it. Ignoring anything only makes it feel more like a burden the longer you hold on to it. So being able to write it down—whether it’s a bad partnership, having a hard time with work-life balance, or a difficult employee—helps “purge” the brain of it.

Seeing it on a page or being able to admit it to yourself is a big step as you identify what it is. It can already bring you some initial relief and help you start to pinpoint where to find solutions. Who knows? Maybe there’s one answer for all your problems and just listing them down aligns them all.

2. Take care of yourself

Without health, we have nothing—or so the saying goes. But it definitely rings true. You can amass all the success in the world but with an ailing body, it’s all for nothing. Eating right, exercising, and sleeping well all contribute to a sound mind and a sound body which are more prepared for challenges.

Self-care is something that many people overlook but is vital in stress management. Beyond just the basics of eating, sleeping, and exercising right, there are also other activities you can do. You can take breaks and do what you love, pamper yourself with a massage, and even socialise with peers and friends. Doing these things gives you time to slow down the gears in your head and to just relax. 

3. Be mindful and do mental health checks

Mindfulness is the innate ability to remind yourself when you’re steering off-course from your task without judging yourself or berating yourself and simply getting back to it. It’s acknowledging yourself, what you’re doing, and being reflective. It’s something not everyone takes seriously, but it’s a game-changer and boosts productivity and self-reflexivity. 

Having these check-ins can also help you understand yourself better as a person and as a leader. This will help you become more productive and understanding and even more empathic to yourself and your team, molding you into a more inspiring, calm leader.

4. Maintain a healthy work/life balance

At home, turn off your work notifications. It’ll make all the difference. Bringing your work home with you only blurs the lines between your professional life and your home life and it will probably cause tension with your loved ones. You need to keep work at the workplace and have time to recharge for the next day. 

Dedicate time to your friends and family and switch off business mode for the time you are away from the office. As a CEO or managing partner, you may feel you always need to be “on,” but you don’t. Give yourself a break, too.

5. Focus on what you can control

Maya Angelou once said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” Sometimes, things aren’t in our control. A change in industry regulation, a competitor makes a breakthrough, or even the coffee machine breaks down. Instead of letting those things get to your head and cause you even more stress, remember that these things aren’t things you have control over. You just have to focus on what you do have your hands on and maneuver those things instead.

A lot of mishaps can make you feel unconfident and hesitant, but they don’t have to. As long as you can admit to yourself that there are things out of your hands and obstacles you often don’t see coming, you can regain that confidence.

6. Talk to your team

Having someone to bounce ideas off can help de-stress immensely. Maybe you’re so immersed in your own perspective that you haven’t been able to consider someone else’s. And that might just be the key to what you’re so apprehensive about. 

But not only that, checking in with the team allows you to know how they’re doing and feeling. If your stress has caused them to become anxious without you knowing it, their admittance can help you reflect on your own actions and how you’ve brought them down without realising it. Sometimes knowing that there’s collective distress can bring everyone together to find a solution.

7. Ask for help

Lastly, it’s never a bad idea to ask for help. It’s not a desperation move nor is it shameful. It’s natural and human. We live interwoven lives and one thread can bring up another. As a CEO or managing partner, you take on so much responsibility and often think you have to carry all the load. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Whether it’s your mentors, peers, or partners, asking for their help can benefit you in so many ways. Beyond a business perspective (possible networking, boosting your brand), it brings you to a more balanced emotional state. It also paints you as more open and vulnerable, humanising you and your business, making you easier to relate to and sympathise with.

Being stress-free can bring optimal work performance along with a healthy lifestyle and work-life balance. Balancing your life doesn’t have to be difficult, you just have to be able to do things right, take care of yourself, be mindful, and ask for help when needed. Stress doesn’t have to be a constant and you can work at your prime without it once you understand how to combat it. 
If you require business advice in terms of getting on top of things that are causing you stress at work, book a call with us here.