This week in MGT 500 we are talking about time and stress management.  Dr. Montag posed a true or false question to us during her lecture video about who has more stress managers or the employees they supervise.  I started thinking about my personal situation with stress and those that I supervise.  I feel that I have a fair amount of stress with all the things that I am being asked to do at work, but I also feel that those that I supervise are also under a lot of stress.  The answer to the question that was posed to us was that the employees that were being supervised had more stress.  One reason for that is that the managers have more autonomy than the employees.  I can definitely see the rationale for the answer, but I do think that it depends on the job and the people involved.

In my job I have a lot of different hats that I wear, with a lot of different deadlines and things that must be accomplished.  This is very stressful to me and I am working through some time and stress management techniques to help reduce the stress.  I know that the employees that I supervise are also under a lot of stress at this time.  When the school year starts there are a lot of things that must be done to ensure the children are healthy and able to attend school.  There are federal, state, and local regulations that must be followed with specific deadlines, this can be stressful to keep up with.  I also know that if you asked the employees I supervise they would probably tell you that I am a source of their stress or a stressor for them.  I do try help decrease their stress by helping them meet deadlines, going through paperwork that is needed, and reducing meeting times so they can work more on the things that they need to do.  And because I am trying to help reduce their stress I am causing myself to feel more stressed.

I hope that as a manager I can be less of a stressor and more of a support for my staff.  I want to be more of an instructional support (problem solving support) than and emotional support, but we all need an emotional support sometimes.  I think being an effective manager is keeping a balance between stressors, stress, and stress reactions and helping my staff balance these as well.