Agency leaders and employees alike are facing an increasing amount of pressure in all areas of life. Not only that, but there are also more and more distractions that take attention away from handling that pressure. Employees may find it easier to bottle up these issues and not deal with them. Unfortunately, attempting to hide stress will negatively impact performance.
Knowing that the demands on time and energy will only go up, how do leaders help employees better manage these pressures and drive performance?
Name the Stress –
There is a negative connotation associated with stress, but often it is because stress is left unmanaged for too long. By the time it is addressed, the stress has compounded, performance has taken a nose-dive, and the employee is at a breaking point. Helping the employee take time to walk through and list out those stress factors in their life, whether professional or personal, can be an excellent place to start.
Once those are identified, work with the employee to write an action plan that will help minimize or eliminate the issue. Doing this can help an employee take ownership of something that feels very out of control.
Emphasize Focus –
Every day, there are more and more distractions that pull your employees away from what needs their attention. While some of these things are necessary other parts of their job, many are not. When an employee is jumping from one distraction to the next, they cannot work effectively.
Focus is the key to top performance and will also make employees more resistant to crumbling under pressure. Providing direction to employees regarding what their top priorities should be and helping them minimize distractions will help them to focus on the most important tasks.
Develop Necessary Skills & Strengths –
All employees have specific strengths and weaknesses. However, certain parts of their job or projects may require them to utilize underdeveloped skills. Understanding the limitations they may have and discussing ways they can develop additional skills will help them diversify their skill set and make them better equipped to step in on future projects quickly.
Teach Flexibility –
One of the biggest causes of stress is resistance to change. Your employees want to keep doing things the same way. Helping your employees overcome this is critical to their continued growth, development and will ultimately help eliminate unnecessary stress from their life.
Spend time to examining how an employee works, identify bad habits, and brainstorm with them on what could be done in those areas that need the most improvement. Investing this time and helping them adopt new working habits will help teach them flexibility. Modeling flexibility in your work as a leader also helps set the stage that change is a normal part of life. This can be done by demonstrating how you accept input, adapt to new ways of doing things, being a continuous learner.
There will always be stress and pressure – these are natural parts of every area of life. Equipping your employees to manage pressure better and not be a victim to it will ultimately help set them up for continued success in their insurance career.
About the Author
Justin Goodman has spent the past 20 years in insurance. He is the co-founder and CEO of Total CSR and co-founder and Managing Director of Project 55. By the age of 29, he was recognized as one of the top five construction insurance experts nationwide by Risk and Insurance Magazine. He also was named to Insurance Business Magazine’s Hot 100 and most recently the 2024 Insurance Journal Agent of the Year. Justin has trained over 50,000 CSR’s, account managers and producers through his work at Total CSR. He has a passion for developing the next generation of insurance professionals. When not with his family, he devotes his free time to speaking engagements and advising agency owners across the country.
