Stress Is Increasing—3 Ways To Reduce Leadership Stress

Leadership stress is intense today.
Leaders are tremendously stressed today, and it’s putting them at risk of burnout--and putting organizations at risk of losing effective leaders. So, how can you deal with leadership stress?
It’s important to focus on leaders--and on their health, wellbeing and happiness--because it’s critical to leaders themselves, but also to teams and organizations.
Leaders have an outsized impact on organizational cultures, because people tend to focus on leaders’ behaviors and actions—and these tend to be magnified in the culture. And culture, in turn, has a significant impact on people’s motivation and engagement--and collective performance.
Stress Is a Big Deal
Among leaders, stress is intense and increasing:
71% say their stress levels have increased
54% are concerned about burnout
40% have considered leaving their role to improve their wellbeing
All of this is according to a survey of almost 11,000 leaders by DDI.
Gen Z, in particular, may avoid leadership because of stress. In fact, Gen Z is 1.7 times more likely than other generations to step away from leadership roles to protect their well-being, based on additional DDI data.
In addition, some people may avoid leadership altogether. In their survey of 27,000 people ages 18-67 across 34 countries, Rand found that 39% don’t want career progression and 57% would reject a job if it would affect their work-life balance negatively.