Alan Bourne, director of Talent Q, an employee assessment company, recently stated in a status paper that extreme stress could have damaging effects on workers, which are largely caused due to extreme behavioural changes in the workforce.
A recent survey conducted on 14,000
Leaders in any organisation should be selected with care and proper understanding. Leadership can be very stressful for those people who have not taken time to grow personally. Often it is seen that people rush to hold onto leadership positions, even when they are not mentally prepared for it. Such people tend to buckle under the slightest stress and fail to execute their responsibilities properly.
The study showed that men become more over confident in stressful conditions while women become more dependent and hypersensitive. However, the study revealed that there is no correlation between age and display of such behaviour.
Talent Q studied the changes in behaviour under stress across different departments and found out that difference in jobs handled also play an important role in the display of extreme behaviour.
According to the study, people in finance micro manage while admin people become hypersensitive under stress. Similarly, legal people become over dependent while management staff become over confident. Further, the study revealed that people in HR display odd behaviour while production staff becomes recluse and sales people become flamboyant.
Finally, Dr Bourne added that behavioural changes should be considered while choosing leaders and once a leader is chosen, he or she should be properly trained. For those responsible for health and safety in an organisation, click on NEBOSH General Certificate to learn about the importance of promoting a positive health and safety culture in the workplace environment and for information on courses with training and support for organisations in attaining their health and safety objectives.
