Here are some emotionally intelligent tips to help your employees better manage stress:
1. Encourage emotional awareness
The ability to identify and manage your own emotions is the core aspect of being emotionally intelligent. Create a space where your employees feel comfortable recognizing and sharing their own feelings. While it’s easy to encourage the celebration of wins big and small, helping employees share when they’re overwhelmed and stressed isn’t always easy.
Reward employees for speaking up for themselves, and create a team mentality for tackling and managing stressful situations. This will help employees communicate better and be more aware of their stress levels and what triggers their stress. A more self-aware team is equipped to handle interpersonal challenges as they arise.
2. Become a trusted advisor
Build trust with your employees by creating an open-door policy. Allowing your team to come to you when they need a trustworthy person to talk sets employees up for emotional intelligent wins. Rather than feeling alone and frustrated about a problem, employees recognize their stress and meet with you to seek guidance, support, and a potential solution. Asking for help is a stress gamechanger.
3. Advocate for setting boundaries
We spend most of our time at work, so it makes sense when our work lives bleed into our personal lives. This is where boundaries come into play. Encourage your employees to know what their limits are and make sure that they’re followed.
Emotionally intelligent boundaries may relate to defining job responsibilities such as clarifying who assigns work to whom. They could also be interpersonal boundaries, such as managing the tone of voice used in the office. For example, venting about frustrations with a client can only be done in the morning for 15 minutes during a team huddle.
4. Promote finding resilience in passion
Setbacks are inevitable at work. Help employees bounce back from difficulties by keeping them focused on ideas, tasks, or overall projects that excite them and boost their creativity or passion.
Finding resilience in what you’re passionate about is an emotionally intelligent way to activate a positive attitude and outlook to better move through turbulent times. Employees who make a conscious decision to thrive in spite of adverse events will see hardships as times for professional growth.
5. Set the example
Most importantly, you can’t promote emotionally intelligent stress management to your employees by being a ball of stress yourself. If your employees see you working around the clock, or never taking a vacation, and showcasing negativity, they’re going to follow suit.
Focus on ways to be a better example to your employees by actively handling your stress. This could be as simple as getting your team together for a group workout, encouraging a meditation app, or even taking the vacation you so desperately need.
Don’t let stress damage the success of your employees. Give your team the stress management tools they need to thrive.
