Organizational Stress: Positive or Negative?

In this paper, I expect to discuss factors which lead to stress in the workplace. Are individuals stressed in the workplace? What causes stress in the workplace? Who is mostly stressed: men or women? Are individuals being exposed to stress management techniques? By recognizing stress in the workplace, employers can act appropriately to reduce stress. The outcome can benefit social and family relationships, as well as preserve ones health and make people more productive in organizations.

There are many models of leadership that exist across a range of fields (e.g. social work, education, psychology, business, etc.). The ability to transform an organization successfully requires a different set of attitudes and skills. Transformational leadership is an approach where a leader utilizes inspiration, charisma, individualized attention, and intellectual stimulation with their employees (Iachini, Cross, & Freedman, 2015, p. 651). Transformational leadership helps to clarify organizational vision, inspires employees to attain objectives, empowers employees, encourages employees to take risks, and advocates the seeking of alternative solutions to challenges in the workplace (Transformational Leadership, 2015). It allows the leader to engage and motivate each follower identify with the organization’s values and goals.

Stress has been linked to hypertension, heart attacks, diabetes, asthma, chronic pain, allegeries, headaches, skin disorders, cancer, immune system weakness and decrease blood count (Cummings et al, 2005). It has also been linked to an increase risk of alcoholism and drug use. High levels of stress can lead to higher absenteeism, larger staff turnover and low productivity. The symptoms are evident in the quantitative data, with an

Venkat R., K. (2002). Transformational Leadership and Value System Congruence. International Journal Of Value-Based Management, 15(1), 19.

There are numerous challenges that organizations are faced with in order for them to survive and grow. These challenges are mainly faced by people who are tasked with making decisions on a daily basis within the organizations because a majority of the challenges are human based. The employees working in an organization are likely to suffer from occupational stress depending on their work. Occupational stress comes along when an employee is faced with demands within the workplace, and they are not able to complete or carry out these demands. The failure to complete the demands placed upon them would cause the employee mental and physical strain as their body would have a physiological reaction. According to research there are various factors that contribute to stress in the workplace. These factors include isolation, extensive working hours, negative workloads, unhealthy working environments, harassment, bullying by management, and lack of motivation or advancement opportunities. The factors mentioned are not exhaustive as there might be other causes to occupational stress depending on the individual or employees.

Stress can be caused by many different things within an organisation but the main causes of stress can be broken down into “six management standards” Anon (2009) how to tackle work related stress http://www.hse.gov.uk/ I used these areas to construct the chart below and discussed stress at a team meeting and asked my team to complete a Circle of influence around areas over which they felt they had no control Appendix 1 we also discussed what we / I could do to manage the six main causes of stress

Heifetz, R. A., & Laurie, D. L. (1997). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 75(1),

How each individual chooses to relieve their level of stress is a purely personal matter. Stress is reported to cost employers production and money. Certain levels of stress are beneficial to society and individuals, this allows for positive growth; although long term exposure to stress can cause ill-effects to one’s well-being. Work place stress, otherwise known as occupational stress is said by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization to be a global occurrence. It is estimated that occupational stress causes US employers a loss of up to $200 billion a year. This includes low productivity, workers’

Many believe that stress is a simple problem, however it is often misunderstood and more complex than they believe (p. 181, Griffin & Moorhead, 2014). Stress is the physiological and psychological response to excessive and usually unpleasant stimulation as well as threatening events in the environment (p. 284, Schultz and Schultz, 2010). Stress appears in silent and subtle ways but this negative response affects millions of employees in all levels of all types of jobs (p. 284, Schultz and Schultz, 2010). If identified

Bass, B. M. (1990, Winter). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, pp. 19-31.

Over the past twenty years, an abundant body of researches have been done to review transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Burn (1978) was the first person to introduce and conceptualize the concept of transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Bass (1985) based on Burn’s concept and deepened his notion with modifications, which stated that one of the best frameworks of leadership is transformational or transactional. Following Bass and Avolio (1994, p. 4) provided the idea of these two leaderships and generalized them into the development of global economic world. Bass and Avolio (1997) also suggested that there was no need to view transformational and transactional leadership as

A large amount of credit is given to Bass 's transformational leadership theory identifies four aspects of

In a point in our lives we all experience stress and many questions arrive to what initiates stress? what harm does it do? and how to deal with it? But, whether is at home, college or most commonly at work it’s normal to end up mentally and physically burnt-out at any job and experience stress, especially if the person is at an entry-level. Work overload, spending long hours with little result, pressure when meeting deadlines, problems getting along with co-workers, difficult tasks with no breaks in between and being responsible for others can eventually have a negative effect on people and cause them to experience different levels of stress. Typically, stress at the workplace relates to also having a problematic boss. But fortunately, there are many solutions to deal with stress. Do the the scientific improvements and advancements, institutions and people have been able to come up with programs which helps manage and prevent. Some of these ways are by providing therapy, adjusting a flexible work schedule, and communication programs. In times when stress level is high and it becomes a health issue, its best that people change their habits or work environment and reach out to a doctor for best medical assistance. But frequently, these relieving programs are efficient, it helps employees develop better relationship with the managers or employers, and eventually creating and enjoyable work environment by eliminating insignificant arguments that provokes

Conger, Jay A. (1990). The Dark Side of Leadership, Elsiever Science Publishing Company Inc., New York, USA.

Nowadays life is changing at a whirlwind speed and so is the workplace and technologies. Employees throughout the world suffer due to this common element stress. Stress at work is seen as one of the major psychosocial risks of work. Numerous studies have been done in the field of business, regarding the factors leading to work stress and its impact on employee performance. Stress has the positive and negative effects on the individuals and their environment. It depends on the individuals whether they can manage the stress or not. Although for some worker stress is normal, but over stress can interfere with productivity and impact the emotional and physical health. The ability to deal with stress can