The secret Stress Formula for employee productivity

2019 and 2023. Our team has annual company meet-ups in the Philippines, which help strengthen our bond!

Now let’s dive into our secret Workplace Stress Formula, and how it can help you manage workplace stress effectively and enhance your employee’s productivity!

The Adaptive Leadership Model: Our Secret Stress Formula

Leadership is more than just solving immediate problems. It involves creating and sustaining conditions where employees can learn and adapt to challenges 💪

If you solve problems for your team all the time, YOU will bear their combined stress. This is not a sustainable approach, because it can lead to burnout for you and dependency for them.

Instead, why not empower your team to develop their problem-solving skills and resilience?

You can do this using the Adaptive Leadership Model (aka our secret formula), which is practised by our Managing Director Richard Phu. This model from Heifetz and Linsky focuses on a “productive range of stress”.

The Adaptive Leadership Model

Basically, this model suggests that leaders should focus on pushing their employees slightly beyond their comfort zones and getting them into the “productive range of stress”. This helps them understand their stress tolerance—and expand them.

This allows teams to develop new capabilities. With this in mind, it makes more sense for team leaders to:

• avoid short-term fixes
• focus on underlying business problems
• set sights on potential long-term solutions!

👉 Related: Growth vs Scaling: Which is right for your business?

At the same time, this stress formula tells us to recognise the limits of stress tolerance. You don’t want to overwhelm your team with too much stress either! 😅

Instead of strategic growth that drives your business forward, exceeding your team’s limits can lead to:

• burnout
• work avoidance
• or superficial solutions.

6 tips for leaders to use this model

Academics Drago-Seversen & Blum-DeStefano identified six key practices for leaders to follow the adaptive leadership model, which we just shared with you.

They came up with these practices for educational leadership, but we believe these tips also apply to the workplace. We’re all about continuous learning at work! 💡

Here are the 6 tips you can apply as a leader to enhance productivity in your team (adapted for the workplace):

1. Get a Clearer View: Broaden your perspective to understand the bigger picture and accurately assess situations, instead of zeroing in on niche concerns.
2. Identify the Challenge: Pinpoint underlying challenges that prevent you from reaching your bottom line.
3. Regulate Stress: Create a safe environment where employees can express their opinions freely.
4. Maintain Disciplined Attention: Stay focused on your core tasks and delegate the rest.
5. Empower Teams: Genuinely encourage your teams to develop creative and innovative solutions.
6. Protect Leadership Voices from Below: Ensure all viewpoints are considered, including from team members who may be often overshadowed.

Work stress and challenges can be tackled in different ways, with multiple solutions that require change in MANY areas 😫

But by trying out adaptive leadership based on the productive stress formula, you don’t have to do it all on your own. You can practice working together with your team to solve problems, constantly learn and adjust, use different viewpoints, and share leadership duties!

How to implement this secret formula in remote work

Remote work adds another layer of complexity to managing stress and employee productivity. It’s a different kind of stress involved when you’ve never seen your team in person 😆

Here’s how to implement adaptive leadership and our workplace stress formula in a remote setting:

Understand Individual Tolerance Levels

Everyone has different stress tolerance levels. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to assess the limits of each individual in your team and gently challenge them beyond those zones so they can extend their limits.

This can be done gradually through intentional training and upskilling to avoid burnout.

👉 Related: Upskilling and training a kick-ass remote team

Empathy and 360 Feedback

Regularly read into the team’s:

• feedback
• body language
• and responses in meetings.

This helps you gauge their comfort and stress levels 👌 You can turn this into a regular practice by conducting monthly one-on-one check-ins to touch base with your team and provide personalised support if needed.

Additionally, you should also consider asking for feedback from your team on how you’re doing as a leader. This 360 feedback helps ensure that even leaders are aware of their strengths and areas for improvement, which promotes continuous growth and effectiveness.

Provide Clear Objectives and Tools

Ensure there is a clear reason, objective, or vision driving your team. This helps in aligning their efforts and managing stress effectively. You can even use digital tools and platforms to streamline processes and reduce workload!

👉 Related: Top 5 Business Automation Tools in 2024

Create a Safe Space for Failure

Encourage a culture where failure is seen as a part of the growth process. This means providing support when team members do not reach their target and guiding them to bounce back stronger 💪

Adopting the practice of “seek forgiveness, not permission” normalises setbacks as learning opportunities, which can motivate your team to:

• take calculated risks
• innovate
• and continuously improve.

Deploy Varied Support

You can only do so much as a leader, especially in a virtual workplace 🧑‍💻 So vary the support you offer to your team, from:

• giving your time
• directing them to resources
• or providing constructive feedback.

Tailor your support to individual needs as you see fit!

👉 Related: How to achieve true time freedom | Working from home

Discover the productive amount of stress for your team

A productive amount of workplace stress is necessary for your team to continually learn and improve.

By applying some of the adaptive leadership tips and principles we shared with you in this article, you can create a working environment where your team looks forward to conquering challenges and setting new goals! 🎯