What stresses you out at work (and what you can do about it)

As a leader, you might believe you should be calm and in control at all times. But the truth is, as well as being enjoyable, work can sometimes be stressful. Working with a team made up of very different personality types brings variety, but with that sometimes stress. Once you understand what it is that could make your blood pressure rise, you can learn what to do about it. Taking control and making positive steps is always a great start.

That’s where the Insights Discovery profiling four colour energy model is invaluable. By discovering whether we are Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green, Cool Blue or Fiery Red helps us to understand why we behave the way we do and our strengths and weaknesses. This allows us to communicate more effectively, strengthen team relationships and mitigate the risk of stress.

The colour of your stress relief

Here are the four colour energies, along with their individual stress triggers and actions that can be taken to minimise stress.

Sunshine Yellow
As a Sunshine Yellow, you are enthusiastic, impulsive and active. You get stressed out when your ideas aren’t listened to; when there’s a lack of flexibility in your workload; and when the working culture is too serious with no room for fun. So as a leader, what can you do about it?

• Gather the ideas of your team and send them up the chain – there’s power in numbers
• Hold Happy Hour once a week, where you and your team have the flexibility to work on something you really enjoy that might not be a main task.
• Introduce Fun Fridays – dress down, tunes on and pizza delivered for team lunch

Earth Green
Earth Greens are accommodating, reflective and reliable. The things that stress you out are enforced tight deadlines; sudden changes to priorities; and too many interruptions. As a leader, what action can you take?

• Enlist the whole team’s help to complete it on time – you can get there together
• Ask for reasons, so you can understand WHY changes to priorities are happening
• Try to give the fullest details before beginning a project, which will minimise interruptions.

Cool Blue
If you are Cool Blue, you are logical, concise and structured. You get stressed out by a lack of obvious structure in a team member’s work; poor quality work; and irrelevant chatter. Here are a few ideas for mitigating those risks:

• Be fair to your team by being transparent about the structure you’re looking for in their work
• Let go a little and trust their instincts if their output is generally good
• Set aside ten minutes an hour for a chat with your team to minimise irrelevant chatter.

Fiery Red

As a Fiery Red, you are assertive, determined and realistic. The things that stress you out are decisions taken by committee; lack of immediacy; and feeling out of control. Here are some ideas for action you can take as a leader:

• Make sure everyone feels listened to, but be clear that the final decision will be yours
• Have short, regular checks with your team to ensure everyone understands priorities
• Try to let go of being in control all the time – upskill staff by giving them responsibility.

So what are you waiting for? Give these actions a try, and see if they work for you. Your team (not to mention your blood pressure) will thank you for it!

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