Soaking Up Stress

I was standing in line, along with a hundred other people, waiting to board my flight. As the gate agent stood there, another airline employee walked past, said hi, and asked how she was doing. The gate agent’s response was, “I’m stressed.” In the next few minutes, it became obvious that she was stressed because there was a delay in boarding the plane. The rules required all of the flight attendants to be on board, but one had not yet arrived. None of the customers in line seemed upset, and the delay didn’t last long. But she was stressed nevertheless. As I thought about this incident, I wondered why she was so stressed. I know that the airline wanted to have an on-time departure, but the delays were not her fault. She took on stress that wasn’t really hers to take, about an issue over which she had no control, and that had minor consequences. Could that sentence be written about you? How often do you get stressed about an issue or problem that you didn’t cause? The tech staff misses a couple of sound cues in the worship service. The discipleship pastor is late in sending out the new small group curriculum. The volunteer coordinator isn’t well prepared for the training event. While none of these are desirable behaviors, should they cause stress for you? Now to be clear, if you’re in a first chair or senior leadership role, I know that you ultimately have an organization-wide, buck-stops-here responsibility. I realize that even if you didn’t cause a problem, you may need to deal with the aftermath. I simply want you to reflect on whether you’re like a sponge, soaking up any and all stress that comes your way. If so, could you be less “absorbent”? I also want you to consider what the cost may be if you take on all of this stress. The personal cost of living in constant stress should be obvious, but there’s an organizational cost as well. The energy and brainpower spent worrying about things over which you have no control is a valuable resource that might be better spent on more strategic matters. Leadership is all about choices. So just as you try to make wise choices about organizational priorities, try also to make wise choices about what stress you absorb. It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>