4 Types of Stress You Will Overcome With Executive Peer Learning
4 Types of Stress You Will Overcome With Executive Peer Learning.
Stress is something we all experience in our lives now and again. But it’s how we respond to it that determines whether its effects are good or bad.
How can stress be good? Well, stress certainly has its place, and it can be used to help us adapt and grow. But too much of it, and the effects can be incredibly detrimental to our mental and physical health, as well as our work.
The important thing to realise is that stress can be managed and contained. So, this article unveils the 4 types of stress you might experience in your business, and how you can overcome them in your CEO training.
4 Types of Stress
Dr. Karl Albrecht created a model on the four common types of stress, which he published in the book “Stress and the Manager.” They include time stress, anticipatory stress, situational stress, and encounter stress.
When it comes to managing and overcoming stress, it helps to understand which of the four you might be experiencing. To make this easier, we’ll next look at each type in a little more detail, along with possible solutions to take to cement your leadership legacy.
1. Time Stress
Time stress comes about when you feel an overwhelming sense that it’s running out before you can get everything done. It can cause you to feel trapped as you fixate on failing to meet a deadline or compromise the quality of your work.
The thing about time is that it stops for no one. It will keep going no matter how much you have on your plate. So it’s pointless worrying about it as you’ll only lose more time, and it’ll drain your energy in the process. And so the downward spiral begins and then nothing gets done.
So how do you manage time stress?
The best way is to start by managing your time better. That means creating a plan of action for your day/week that lists all of your jobs and their deadlines. From here you simply prioritise each task and allocate a timeframe to work on them.
The main reason you might experience time stress is due to the lack of planning. So as the work comes in, jumping from one to the next with no end in sight is a sure way to miss what’s important and where your focus should be. With a good system in place, you’ll know exactly what to do and when you need to do it, without the added stress.
2. Anticipatory Stress
Anticipatory stress is where you feel anxious about what the future holds. Much of it is based on past experiences where things have gone wrong for you before. So, in order to prepare for a similar event in the future, you look for things that can go wrong. This causes increased anxiety as you dread that upcoming presentation which last time had you crumbling with fear.
The important thing to remember here is that anticipatory stress comes from our perception of what might be. But you can only prepare so much. While your past affects your perception, it is also a learning experience. You overcame it before, and you can again.
Some good techniques for dealing with this type of stress is to consciously use your mind, rather than leave it on autopilot. If you can visualise a possible negative event, you can visualise a positive one. Use this to think about all of the things that can go right and keep doing it until you feel more confident in the future event.
Mindfulness meditation can also help here as it brings your focus to the present. After all, the past has happened and the future unwritten. So whatever happens you have no control over it. Only the present. However, if it makes you feel better, you can plan for possible contingencies that’ll make you feel more confident and better prepared for anything.
3. Situational Stress
Situational stress is something that can just happen out of the blue. It comes from an unexpected event such as a conflict or emergency which catches you off guard. It triggers your fight or flight response, which not only blocks a potential solution but can severely impact your ability to work.
This is one of the hardest forms of stress to control because you can’t really prepare for it. We respond quickly and emotionally because the body is in survival mode. However, there are things you can do to train yourself to deal with it better through self-control.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman proposed that our self-control is directly linked to our emotional intelligence. By recognising our emotions and automatic responses, we can learn to control our behaviour and the impulsive decisions we make. So when a situation arises, we don’t fly off the handle.
4. Encounter Stress
The last of the four categories of stress is the encounter, which comes from how we interact with other people. First off, we can never know if we’ll like someone or if they like us, which can trigger social anxiety. Then, if you deal with people on a regular basis in your job, you can get “contact overload” from all of the many different interactions.
When you experience encounter stress, it can come from having to deal with individuals or groups of people. Once again, past experience plays a part, as well as fixating on potential problems with future encounters. This can severely impact both work and personal relationships, so it’s crucial to work towards improvement.
This can be done by improving your emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. It allows you to be more aware of others’ needs and wants as well as your own while boosting social confidence. As you learn to deal with different personalities, you become better equipped for any future encounters.
This can be a huge advantage as you not only improve your current relationships, but it enables you to deal with the trickier ones too. A little empathy for others can go a long way in assessing and responding to interactions. It also helps to recognise your limits in how many interactions you have each day so you don’t burn out.
Leadership Development and Overcoming the 4 Types of Stress
Being a leader is no easy task. Aside from all the responsibilities, you’ve also got to learn how to manage these 4 types of stress. In doing so, you become better equipped to deal with any situation that comes your way, and people will look to you for answers and leadership.
Learning to recognise and overcome these stressors in your CEO training is a great way to ensure this. The good thing is that these stress management and interpersonal skills go with you throughout your life. It’s not just about improving your work but creating a healthy balance for all of your life, whatever you do.
If you’re looking for a program that helps you accelerate your growth further, take a look at our Leadership Development Programs here.
