Handling New Manager Stress

The moment has come after years of hard work and dedication – entering the ranks of management. New managers face a host of challenges between business tasks and people issues. As a result, expectations of performance change, impacting the process of getting comfortable with the new role. The pressure of competing demands can break individuals who prized the concept of management but found the realities of the function quite different. There are a few ways to ease the burden of new manager stress.
Set Realistic Priorities

The tendency to over-commit can be a big problem. New managers are eager to show they are ready for added responsibilities and tend to accept all assignments given to them. Soon everything is a priority and the quality of work declines. The struggle to please upper management, and stay attentive to employee needs, blurs the process of proper planning. Tips to setting realistic priorities: 

1. Document mission critical goals. Start your planning around the most important top level goals. All sub goals will flow from there and drives individual employee goals. Establish time measures for tracking progress as appropriate (e.g. weekly versus monthly).

2. Build in flexibility. The tendency with setting goals is to get so specific and fixed that changes outside of your control wreaks havoc on an otherwise iron-clad plan. Understand that change is inevitable and the ability to adapt your goals to changing conditions is necessary. Flexibility in goal setting occurs through estimation. That means factoring in buffer space. If it takes two weeks to complete a task, estimate three weeks. If issues come up that impact this task you know that you can adjust quickly and still get the original task done.

Communicate and Delegate

One of the many mistakes new managers make is to micro-manage people and processes. This can result from lack of confidence, lack of trust or knowledge of team competencies, or individual control is the only way to feel comfortable handling business demands. Managers need to establish role clarity early on with employees to share the workload properly. Through team meetings and 1-1’s, a manager can communicate his or her role, how they can help, and what they expect from their team. Recognition is key – offer your team praise and thanks for their help and reward them for strong efforts when deadlines are met.

Finding the Safe Stress Zone at Work

When you, as a leader, see these responses it is to your advantage to help your employees gain an understanding of what is actually happening. Here are the four most common reactions in every organization dealing with the stress:

• FLOODING is the tendency to “blow up”, yell, and repeat a statement, getting louder with each breath. There is a need to “drown out” the real reason for the upset and the individual is often overwhelmed with anger, fear, hurt, or sadness. The adrenaline rush gives lots of energy and the flooding can go on for hours, even days.

• DEFLECTING is the tendency to block the movement of a conversation or situation, force a change in direction and prevent anything with conflict to come to be discussed. During times of high stress deflectors often become obsessive compulsive and love to just do busy work. If there is a tense discussion the deflector will make a joke, or point to a dirt spot and make a fuss.

• INDULGING is the tendency to devote oneself entirely to a specific situation and never come up for air. There is a deviant pleasure in “wallowing” and suffering without let up. There is complaining about the effort and exhaustion and yet a delight in holding others captive, being the martyr and “doing for them.”

How To Touch The Soul Of Another Being

There are moments in life when something so special happens that you can’t help but to wonder why we all just can’t get along?
After witnessing this, can you honestly say that animals don’t have feelings just like us? That all they want is to be in harmony with us all?
We are all physical beings living in a spiritual world filled with more wonder then our minds can simply comprehend.

The wonders of life are all around us to experience if only we open our hearts and allow the experience to just be.

Laura Stinchfield – Communicating With Your Pets – Episode #49

Laura Stinchfield is an internationally known animal communicator / pet psychic and animal trainer.

She has studied intensively with Carol Gurney, a pioneer in animal communication as well as with Linda Tellington-Jones and Robyn Hood, the founders of T-Touch for animals.

She has been working in the field professionally for over 15 years. Laura’s clientele ranges from other animal trainers (domestic and exotic), veterinarians, rescue groups, celebrities, to private consultations.

Laura believes that in sharing her work and knowledge she has the ability to change world consciousnesses. She believes that in time the suffering and plight of animals will take a drastic turn for the better. Laura believes that she has been given a gift and with that gift she has the responsibility to improve the planet.

Can You Build a Small Business While Working Fulltime?

Tweet Can You Build a Small Business While Working Fulltime? By Guest Blogger: Tony Deblauwe Are you pursuing greater financial freedom and personal independence by building a small business? Unless you have a lot of extra capital lying around, chances are you are also working fulltime to pay your bills. Is it possible to create [...]

Wake Up America

I am greatly concerned by newspaper articles and television news reports urging people to get their flu shots early. The articles are almost always one-sided; presenting only the viewpoints of government health officials, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture flu vaccines, and drug stores that sell them. The tone is the same: get your flu shot or you could die.

As we’ve seen in previous years, people see these reports and needlessly run out to get vaccinated without knowing the facts about the flu or vaccines. And if this isn’t bad enough after last year’s fiasco of “the sky is falling” warnings, pharmacists and others who sell vaccines, along with public health departments that are supposed to inform the public about real health issues, are warning more people to get their vaccinations even earlier this year.

The facts are that flu vaccines have a negative impact on the health of people of all ages and the government knows it! Even the CDC’s own website about influenza and flu vaccine includes a section about who should not be vaccinated against season flu: including people who have had a severe reaction to an influenza vaccination in the past, and people who developed Guillian-Barre syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of getting an influenza vaccine previously (www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm). One of our primary national public health organizations says people can get Guillian-Barre syndrome from flu vaccines!

Workplace Violence – Dealing With Coworker Altercations

By Guest Blogger: Tony Deblauwe

With the rash of workplace shootings in 2010, the awareness of workplace violence has been magnified for employers. Have you ever been a witness to workplace violence? About 1% percent of U.S. workers are assaulted each year by a coworker. Such peer-on-peer attacks can result in serious physical injury, an inability to return to work because of fear of further victimization, and other serious problems. A pattern of aggressive behavior including harassment, stalking, threats, and unwanted physical contact is a critical warning sign that an employee poses a danger to coworkers. Employers are wise to take the issue of coworker violence very seriously.
However, there is a grey area where you, as an employee, might not feel comfortable reporting an incident between coworkers – especially if you are friends with both parties. You might fear that the response from HR would be out of proportion to the offense if your employer has taken OSHA’s advice and established a zero tolerance policy.

Here are a couple of example scenarios:

If You Want to Be Happy

Everyone wants to be happy. In fact the Declaration of Independence gives Americans the right to pursue happiness. It is not guaranteed, but we can chart our own path to joy. At times when our work becomes overwhelming, or in this economy underwhelming, we may feel stressed and unable to rise to the level of cheerful delight. However we all know people that no matter the circumstances always seem to have a smile on their face and a joie de vivre. How do they get there and how can we achieve this same satisfaction in our days and allow this feeling to spill over into the work we do? Happy people have three qualities that other people don’t have: they know it, they show it and they grow it.

Nancy Weil – Healing Benefits of Laughter – Episode #35

Nancy Weil is a sought-after lecturer, presenting programs and seminars on the healing benefits of humor to a diverse audience. Through her company, The Laugh Academy, she teaches clients how to reduce stress and live an incredible life now. She is Director of Bereavement Support at eleven cemeteries in the Western NY area and serves as a Funeral Celebrant.

Stressing over Life with a Teenager

Now that the kids are back to school stress begins. As humans we strive on structure and going back to daily or weekly routines helps make life easier. I often hear from parents that are so pleased that “we go back to school in just a few weeks. We are all ready!” But as you reached the end of last school year there could have been frustrations. Look back at last year and look at where the stress occurred for you as a parent? Were you or your kids too involved? Did you or your kids have late season burn-out? Did frustration rule around the house? If so you need to change– Today!

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