It seems as though a lack of leadership and team work has spread across the pond as we see the fiasco of voting for the US House Speaker this week. Personal ambition, egotism, failure to see the bigger picture are all part of the mix. After a turbulent few years, surely 2023 would have been a time when we’d settle down a bit?
Apparently not. So what do we do, what do YOU do to ease the stress of these last few years? Leaders have a major role to play in helping teams cope with stress. How can you do that? Here’s a four-step plan to relieve stress that could help you and your teams. Step 1. Relax OK that’s easy. Isn’t it? Well no. We’ve been living under high levels of stress for some time now and so our bodies have got used to being under attack. It’s as though we’ve forgotten how to relax. We’ve forgotten how to reach equilibrium. As leaders, before we can help others, we have to help ourselves. Think back. How did you relax before Covid hit our lives? Did you take a walk through the woods? Read a book? Go to the gym? Enjoy time with friends? Each of these activities took us away from the world of work. Activities that allowed our brains to switch off. Activities that gave us respite and pleasure. Find a quite space, a quiet time. Take a deep breath. Take your mind back. Revisit the activity. Notice how that feels. Notice where it sits within your body. Welcome it. Nurture it. Step 2. Review How did you get to this point? What triggered the stress within you? What sparked off the actions that led to stress in your team? Work your way backwards from where you are now. Think about the critical path, the timeline that led to today’s situation. In your relaxed state, where blame is a non-entity, where you are questioning your assumptions, let those critical points come to the fore. You can do this as a team. Set the environment in which people can express their views with equality and without judgement. A Thinking Environment approach is ideal for this. Go around the room with a question which allows creative thinking to occur. Allow people to speak without interruption. To not be interrupted is a pleasure, to know you’re not going to be interrupted is a gift. A gift to your thinking powers. Give people equal time. And by showing that equality it empowers those who normally get ignored to have their voices heard. Allows thinking to be heard and respected for the insights it brings. Step 3. Renew Now, with equanimity you have been able to dissect what happened, the good and the ill. But, and this is important, the ill is only that if we do not learn from our actions. Every ill is a learning opportunity, a chance to grow. It gives us a chance to discard a behaviour and to replace it with something positive. Encourage that. We have learnt to respond in the way that we do. We have the choice to do things differently. We can learn to do something new. In a supportive, blame free environment we can embrace that learning, spread the positivity to others. Now you have a plan. A plan to think, act, respond differently. It may work, it may falter. We are only human after all. Each falter gives us the time and the space to relax, review and renew. Step 4. Return Remember that activity from step 1? Remember when you felt relaxed and where that sat within you? Hold onto that. Hold onto the feeling and share the desire to take that feeling into the workspace. You can still be focused on a task. The feeling of peace, of satisfaction, of competence is does not conflict with being task focused and productive. If we know our preferred outcome, if we know the steps to get there and who can help us do that, we will be able to return with a different mindset. We can return with enthusiasm and vigour. We can return knowing the support there is around us. We can return with a plan in place. We can return knowing we have the inner resources to flex that plan if needed. We can return knowing that we will not reach the stress levels of before. We can keep our body and our minds in equilibrium. So, what are you going to do? Will you take those four steps and apply them to yourself and your team? Or do you need some help to do that? We are running a retreat in March to take people through those four steps. Join us in the beautiful peace and quiet of Fintry. Discover the benefits of doing this and then share your wisdom with others. Be a true leader.
1 Comment
16/1/2023 02:14:24 pm
A beautifully clear sequence of steps. For me, being out in nature and really paying attention has become a key relaxing activity, since home is now so much associated with work.
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AuthorLaura Murphy blogs about things that interest her. They might not interest you but read them anyway. It might even change your mind. Archives
January 2024
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