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December 03, 2020 at 11:54 AM
Under normal circumstances, stressful periods tend to be moments in time rather than drawn out events. But in today’s pandemic-fueled world, most people have been experiencing stressful situations for months.
As we approach the holidays, more stressors are being added to our lives. At work, employees are entering into a time crunch to get projects and client reviews finished before year end. Outside of work, people have the added stress of preparing for the holidays and kids at home.
All this is fueling deeper burnout within advisory firms. With that, these stressors are adding to low energy of employees and for an advisor owner, it’s critical to understand the effects of these stressors on performance.
Here I’d like to discuss how to achieve the right balance between too little or too much stress and how leaders can help their employees and professional advisors overcome it.
Ties Between Stress & Performance
First, a leader has to understand that prior stressful situations tend to show how people will deal with stress in the future. Simply put, you need to know your employees.
Part of the role of a leader is to assess stress levels, but unfortunately there are innumerable outside factors that can create stress that we have no control over. All of those stressors, whether related to work or not, can affect an advisor’s business.
Advisory firms, for instance, have no control over the stock market and yet it directly impacts revenue. Each person deals with their own problems and people in their life that create stress, and those personal issues also easily can affect work performance.
The reason leaders have to become good at assessing stress levels, especially in these times, is because they also have to get into the habit of bringing those levels down when they can.
