The Health & Safety Executive estimated that 31.5 million working days were lost due to work-related physical and mental health in 2022/23. If including work-related non-fatal injuries the figure is a staggering 32.5 million days lost to organisations and businesses. Think about the impact of lost workdays on your business?
Is management of stress a function of leadership? One could argue that it is up to the individual to regulate their own stress levels in order to manage what life throws at them, and therefore does not fall under the leadership role or umbrella. However, if workdays are being lost from absenteeism due to overload and stress, it becomes every leader’s concern and issue. Surely, therefore, it is better to help employees manage their stress levels before it gets to the stage where they call in physically or mentally sick, thus increasing the urgency and pressure that someone going off sick creates on daily operations as well as those left behind to pick up the pieces.
Working with individuals on work-life balance, as well as with groups on self-leadership and leadership of others, I am seeing more and more people with adrenal stress, very often worked-related. Reasons for stress vary, some can be self-inflicted, such as striving to be a perfectionist, the inability to say “No”, poor time management, inability to delegate as well as procrastination by putting things off. As for external factors that might cause stress, the first one that springs to mind is living in a blame culture, thus creating an environment of fear. Inappropriate leadership styles and habits such as a boss who doesn’t listen, or a boss who can only influence and get things done by using manipulation techniques, a boss who lives in crisis due to poor planning and time management or a boss who is unable to communicate effectively, displaying chameleon type behaviours, swinging from one mood to the other, making employees’ lives hell when they are not sure which persona they will be greeted with at any moment in the day.
Adrenal fatigue occurs when the adrenal system struggles to maintain homeostatic balance, leading to depletion and dysregulation of the adrenal glands and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis after a long period of emotional stress and/or chronic illness. Adrenal stress presents in different ways. Early signs might be intermittent lack of energy, headaches, cravings for carbohydrate or salty foods, low motivation and poor sleep feeling tired and exhausted on waking up. More advanced stages of adrenal fatigue may include these symptoms, and others such as night sweats, brain fog, lack of energy to do anything, poorly functioning immune system, resulting in catching every cold or flu bug that is flying around, as well as cravings for stimulants including coffee, chocolate and fizzy drinks all giving that quick, short lived, hit and energy boost that only leads to an energy low within a very short period of time.
Effective leadership walks a fine line, on the one hand between challenging team members enough to ensure they are not bored, and that they grow and develop, to on the other hand over challenging and therefore causing undue and unhealthy levels of stress, which due to constant pressure may lead to sickness and the inevitable time off work. Continued over-stress can lead to diseases such as hypertension, anxiety, depression and various forms of chronic disease, as well as mental ill-health whether anxiety, complete overwhelm, brain fog or depression. Many of these conditions will lead to the individual taking sick leave, leaving managers responsible for managing the gap this creates, picking up the pieces and somehow inspiring other team members to compensate for their colleague’s absence.
Surely its worth getting this right from the beginning and investing in managers and leaders who are able to lead effectively through creating an environment where employees want to work, love working and consequently are heathy and happy? Does this mean there won’t be conflict or times when everyone has to step up due to peak periods in the business or additional demands for extraordinary reasons, of course not! Investing in leadership development gives leaders the confidence, skills and ability to rise to the occasion and support their team members fully during these extraordinarily demanding periods.
John C. Maxwell once said, “The single biggest way to impact an organisation is to focus on leadership development.” Avoiding investment in development of your leaders is short-term thinking, indicates lack of foresight and is overall detrimental to your business in terms of ROI, growth and quality of service delivered to your customers and reputation, as well as employee physical and mental health and wellbeing.
References
https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/dayslost.htm