Coping With Stress In An Organization

Coping With Stress In An Organization

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Defining Stress

III. Types of Stress

IV. How to Handle Stress

V. Recognizing Stress

VI. The Military and Stress

VII. Summary

I. INTRODUCTION

Since the beginning of mankind there has always been some kind of stress

affecting how people feel, act and cope with situations. In this paper we will

look at the definition of stress and what causes people to have stress. Then we

will see how different people handle stress and show how not all individuals

have the same tolerance for stress. The next thing that will be discussed is

how managers in organizations can recognize and reduce the negative effects that

stress has on the worker and the organization. Finally we will consider what

kind of stresses there are in military organizations and how they can be

controlled.

II. DEFINING STRESS

Robert C. Dailey, in his book Understanding People In Organizations,

defines stress as “any demand made on the body that requires psychological or

physical adjustment.” Many people think of stress as always being something bad.

However, stress sometimes can be good. Stress is part of our every day life.

It can have a motivating effect or a demotivating effect. Each of us have our

own level of how much stimulation or stress we need in our lives to keep us from

getting bored.1 Others however, have a much lower tolerance for stress stimuli.

So managers must be able to look at each individual and decide if the individual

has a high or low tolerance for stress. Managers can do this only if they have

a good understanding of what causes stress.

III. TYPES OF STRESS

Stress can come from a multitude of different reasons, but for

simplicity lets break it down into two forms: individual induced stress and

physical environment stress. Individual stress includes things such as role

conflict, role ambiguity, work overload, and responsibility for others. Role

conflict occurs when accomplishing one job inhibits or greatly reduces the

chance at completing another assigned task. In this case the person who is

tasked to do the jobs will incur some type of stress while trying to figure out

how to get both tasks accomplished in the given amount of time. How much stress

and if it will impact the individual positively or negatively will depend on the

experience level of the individual. Role ambiguity is when an individual is not

sure of what their job entails. It makes it hard for a person to decide on what

their priorities are and how to manage their time. Ambiguity can come from a