New Management Job Description: Managing Stress, Anxiety and Fear

In a survey conducted several years ago by the Anxiety Disorders of America Association (ADAA) in partnership with National Stress Out Week, 56% of people said that anxiety and stress affects their performance, 51% said it affected their interpersonal work relationships, 50% said it affects their quality of work, and 43% said it affects their relationship with their superiors.

From The Business Mirror:

"For some, the economy is having an extreme impact. In a November-December study by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 54 percent of participating hotline callers said their household's financial situation had changed in the past year. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, meanwhile, has had an increase in calls, from 412,000 in 2007 to 568,000 in 2008."

Right now, almost everyone is, at least a little, stressed out. Especially at organizations that have gone through one, two or three rounds of layoffs. Right now, in this economy and during this recession, managers, leaders, and organizations need to step into new leadership capacities. Managers need to engage and interact with people in a way that assists in finding ease and support. We need new management for a new world. Earlier this week, I wrote a blog called Leading from the Heart, the first in an undetermined series on a new and emergent way of leadership and management. We all need to lead from the heart.

Again, from The Business Mirror:

"The irony, advisers and economists say, is that an anxious investor, consumer or worker actually compounds the economy's distress. The fear is driving people to make rash decisions with investments, thus contributing to the volatility of the stock markets. It is keeping consumers from spending money, not a good thing nationally, considering that consumer spending makes up 70 percent of the economy. And it is making many workers less productive at work."

Building leadership capacities is now essential for an organization's success. Managers need to manage and lead from the heart. Leaders need a new sensitivity and awareness. If an organization's leaders cannot manage fear, anxiety and stress, that organization will be greatly crippled and ultimately fail.

In the series Leading from the Heart, I will touch on and explore many different perspectives on what will be required for leaders to manage successfully and effectively in our new world and time.

In the meantime, here are a few pointers:

1) Find confidence and be confident. Inauthentic expressions will backfire. However, if you can access a true perspective of ease, innovation, and abundance your presence will have powerful impact on all of those around you. Your attitude speaks much louder than your words.

2) Listen. Listen. Listen. Use your time to listen to your employees concerns. Listen with genuine concern. Talking to your employees about their problems is not listening to their problems. Truly listen. Truly listen to them from a place of clarity and compassion. Yes, compassion. This is not the 80s anymore and management needs to change.

3) Be honest and positive. False hope is false. Blind optimism is annoying. However, find a healthy, balanced, positive perspective and share it generously.

4) Reframe. Challenge the assumptions of doom and the perspectives of failure. Give your people a new and empowered place to perceive from. Show them hope. Show them innovation. Make the impossible possible. Take failure and turn it into results.

5) Be real. Share your concerns and your fears in a real, honest, and authentic way, and also offer your wisdom for how you manage and deal with it. Be willing to relate to your people; collapse the divide and let down the wall. Create access to you. This isn't an open door policy, it's an open heart and mind policy. Revisit no. 3.

Change has to happen, and it needs to happen fast. The world and our economy is not going to afford us an even and measured learning curve. The time for new management came yesterday. Get busy.