Anxiety
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 4, 2008
Anxiety is a strange thing. We get anxious for many different reasons, and it manifests itself in many different ways.
We can get anxious because we're starting a new job. We can get anxious worrying about whether we can pay all of our bills. We can get anxious because we're worried about the health of someone we know. Goodness, we can get anxious wondering how much gas will be in the morning.
And when we're anxious, we may not sleep well. Our hearts may beat harder or faster than normal. We may overheat and sweat a lot. We may start having problems breathing. We may feel faint, and have difficulty walking.
That's the strange thing about anxiety. One, it could be for something good or bad. It manifests itself in strange, uncontrollable ways. And it often is for something that we're not sure what will happen to begin with.
So, if we can exhibit anxiety in all these ways, at almost any time, what is it that makes managers think that their employees, new or existing, won't have anxieties for some of the things that are done to them? You change their job duties when they've been doing the same thing for years. You move them to a new desk or a new office where they're suddenly around different people. They know their job evaluation is coming up but you haven't given them any clue over the year as to whether they've been doing a good job or not. They hear the company isn't doing well and start worrying about their job.
It's incumbent on managers, being in the leadership position, to try to alleviate as much stress and anxiety as possible from their employees during the work day. They will always find ways to manifest their own anxieties without any encouragement from management, that's for sure. And managers never want to be the ones responsible for the anxieties of their employees, because it will affect how they do their job.
And it won't be for the better either.
I think we all experience anxiety in some way, shape or form, especially these days. Anxiety , of course, is always fear based. We need to figure out the best way to deal with it individually so that we can function on a day to day basis.
Gary Gregorys last blog post..Video for Blogs
Very good point, Gary. Fear is hard to overcome most of the time, but fear can also be channeled into some pretty great things. Still, when one is in a leadership position, they have to work harder to not only help those who report to them overcome the fear, but to not create an atmosphere of fear to begin with.