For the leaders of organisation there are two levels at which workplace stress must be addressed. Firstly at corporate, strategic level, where a degree of stress is inevitable, given the pace and frequency of change that businesses of all kinds are experiencing today. Political, economic, environmental, social, and technological changes combine to make it essential that the organisation is equipped to respond to or, better, to forecast and prepare for change. The need to manage change successfully adds to the complexities and pressures facing the leaders of the organisation. Secondly, at the operational levels stress which affects the managers and operational staff can be caused by many factors, not least the behaviour of the operational managers themselves.
However, the leaders of the organisation are responsible for the way in which the organisation responds to the threat of negative stress, at both strategic and operational levels. In fact, it is often the behaviour, the actions, the style of the leader(s) that causes the stress. Some of the most common areas in which the negative behaviour of the leader(s) can cause stress are described below.
Successful...