Avoiding and Managing Stress

One way to reduce stress is to state your expectations clearly. Workers who have clear descriptions of their jobs experience less stress than those whose jobs are ill defined. The same thing goes for individual tasks. Can you imagine the benefits of working in a place where every assignment was clear and employees were content and focused on their work? It would be a great place to work as a manager, too.

Stress can be contagious, but as we have seen above, this kind of happiness can be contagious, too. Creating clear expectations does not have to be a top–down event. Managers may be unaware that their directives are increasing their subordinates' stress by upping their confusion.

In this case, a gentle conversation that steers a project in a clearer direction can be a simple but powerful way to reduce stress. In the interest of reducing stress on all sides, it is important to frame situations as opportunities for solutions as opposed to sources of anger.