How to manage stress at my work

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When I am coaching candidates on stress management, firstly I identify their personality working type and use this vital information to alleviate their vulnerability.

Most of us experience an element of stress in our working lives. Its intensity will vary and be mainly dependent on the following causal factors: your personality type, your work performance and environment, and your personal circumstances

Having a better understanding of what is the most likely factor to cause you stress can help you to recognise the symptoms and alleviate the stress through positive management.

It is a shame that stress can cause so much unhappiness in terms of the quality of life, to the point sometimes of causing bad health such as strokes and heart attacks or mental breakdowns, before any remedial action is taken. You will be familiar with the type of comment:

‘Since my heart attack I have learned to get my priorities right. I exercise, eat better, enjoy work and all round I am much happier.’

For some people it takes a catastrophic event to acknowledge the negativity of stress and re-adjust a lifestyle.

The following information may help you to become more alert to situations or circumstances with which you may find difficulty coping. Good advice is always to use external parameters as an indication of stress rather than your emotive reaction. If you feel the stress is negatively influencing your work performance, then force yourself to discuss the situation with a friend.

I have identified 4 very distinct and different personality types: the Supporter, the Influencer, the Creative and the Analyst and I use this knowledge in all my 1-2-1 coaching sessions with very exciting and positive outcomes.

You can consult The Lowe Personality Profiles on my website jobcoach.org.uk and better understand how to manage difficult challenges in your life.

Here is a summary.

The Supporter and stress

The Supporter is sensitive to the work environment from the people perspective.

An aggressive and uncaring atmosphere at work will cause the Supporter stress. An aggressive and uncaring colleague or manager at work will similarly cause stress.

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Domineering or bullying types will tend to capitalise on the Supporter’s rather placatory persona and their behaviour can become more intimidating and stressful.

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The Supporter must be prepared to ask for help and refer to a colleague and follow the colleague’s advice to actively confront the situation. Taking no course of action will cause the stress to increase and create a situation of unhappiness and severe pressure on the work and family environment. Ignoring the issue is not an option.

The Influencer and stress

The Influencer thrives on recognition and acknowledgement of achievements. They are generally not prone to stress, as they tend to share their problems with whoever is prepared to listen. This sharing, or to put it more unkindly off-loading, means that problems don’t tend to fester in their minds. If a problem arises, the Influencer will not naturally volunteer ownership if it reflects negatively on their reputation.

Situations where the Influencer is not given due credit for performance or is misunderstood will cause stress. The Influencer plays to win and if there is no benchmark for competitiveness and high profiling, then they will become frustrated and bored. Work that is highly repetitive, monotonous and with no transparent goals for achievement will cause them frustration and the likelihood of changing roles.

The Creative and stress

For the Creative the causal factor for stress will be work related. The ability to conceptualise is unique. The ability to create is unique to the Creative whether it is a product, a building, a musical composition, fine art, media or graphics.

Unlike the other personality traits where one can identify a single factor which is the dominant cause of stress, the Creative can be negatively influenced and frustrated by a number of factors.

Working in a highly-disorganised environment, unable to use their design and creative abilities and working in a role that lacks challenge or is repetitive and boring, are factors that singularly or collectively will cause the Creative to be stressed. Similarly, an environment where their talents are not appreciated but disregarded and critiqued, will cause the Creative to lose confidence in their abilities and doubt their creative talent and ability. They are not good at just ‘playing the game’. Very often the only solution is to change role or job, advice which will probably clarify or explain why Creatives change roles more than the average or why they often prefer to work freelance.

The Analyst and stress

Similar to the Creative, the factor that will cause the most stress to the Analyst will be poor project definition and time. It will be directly work related. Their mentality is such that diligently fulfilling the role to a satisfactory technical conclusion is their prime focus – time deadlines can at times be secondary considerations. Unlike the Supporter the Analyst will naturally depersonalise situations.

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‘They always want things done by yesterday. They don’t understand the complexity of the content. You can’t rush these things. They are complicated and you have to get it right however long it takes.’

This type of typical reaction from the Analyst can cause frustration to those to whom they are reporting and the Analyst will not enjoy the criticism this type of insular reaction will evoke. To alleviate the stress from ‘unprovoked negative reactions’ (as an Analyst might consider), the Analyst must explain in detail the components of the task in terms of content, complexity parameters and the aspects which, at the early stages, may not be definitive.

Detailed explanations help to depersonalise situations and by continually briefing colleagues on the progress of the task, the Analyst will fend off those stressful, irate reactions to their apparent lack of time priorities.