As a small business owner, I have had my share of stressors over the years. I’m sure most everyone reading this has also.

I have learned that not only I, as the President of SACS Consulting, have to deal with stress, but that my employees also have to deal with stress. And while the causes of their stress may differ from mine, essentially the things that are stressing them are also my responsibility. As a leader, it is incumbent upon me to help them to manage their workplace stress. Helping my employees to feel empowered, functional and appreciated is an important part of my HR and my corporate culture. Therefore, I also have to understand what motivates and what stresses them to determine what, if anything I am doing is contributing to their stress.

As business leaders, how we look at stress and how we deal with it can have a huge influence on our business and on our employees. We can see stress as a pathway to motivation or as an obstacle. Good stress management can help us to identify and control our employees’ level of engagement and their well-being. When employees are stressed, it can have a negative effect on productivity, build resentment, cause poor choices and dysfunction, and generally undermine their performance and your business success.

I believe that stress doesn’t have to erode company culture and productivity. While you can’t eliminate stress entirely, through good management it can be turned into a positive motivator to enhance performance. This begins with you, as a leader. You start by taking a good look at yourself and your management style. Are you causing your employees stress? Be honest about why and what is stressing your employees and how you may be unknowingly contributing to it. Is your management style, your actions or inactions intensifying rather than alleviating pressure on your employees? Are you fostering distrust or frustration among your employees? If so, you need to make some changes. Employees want to please you. They are emotionally engaged and invested in their jobs and in your leadership. They genuinely want to contribute. So, take a good hard look at what it means to work for you from their perspective. Ask them questions and really listen to them. Do not get defensive. Be pro-active. You may find it helpful to develop a stress prevention program that includes education and training. This may take the form of conflict management, employee wellness, organizational techniques, coping skills, counseling or employee assistance programs. My firm offers many of these training programs.

By identifying what can help you and your employees manage the impact of stress you can learn to turn it into a positive motivator.

 President, SACS Consulting & Investigative Services, Speaker, Trainer, Corporate Security Expert Timothy A. Dimoff, CPP, president of SACS Consulting & Investigative Services, Inc., is a speaker, trainer and author and a leading authority in high-risk workplace and human resource security and crime issues. He is a Certified Protection Professional; a certified legal expert in corporate security procedures and training; a member of the Ohio and International Narcotic Associations; the Ohio and National Societies for Human Resource Managers; and the American Society for Industrial Security. He holds a B.S. in Sociology, with an emphasis in criminology, from Dennison University. Contact him at info@sacsconsulting.com.