Too much stress for anyone at work is unsustainable, and shouldn’t be normalised.
But if there is regularly too much stress, it’s not necessarily the employer’s fault. Sometimes, hard to say, but you may just be in the wrong job.
I’ve run and advised consultancies for most of my life. Consulting is an amazing job – you get to help people make a difference that they might not have been able to do, or do as well or as quickly, without your support. You get variety, and can apply lateral thinking that comes from that to different problems.
But it’s also a job with client expectations. It’s one where you need to continually learn. It’s one where pace is important.
In short, it can be a more stressful job than many others.
Likewise, starting and running a company, especially if you have employees, usually places a higher level of demands on you than being an employee. The stress is higher, and you shouldn’t do it if you haven’t got a high level of resilience and ability to manage stress.
Different jobs are different in many ways. One of those is the amount of pressure that comes with them.
But fortunately ,different people are also different in many ways. Some crave variety, others predictability. Some want a physical job, others a more intellectual one, and others some kind of combo. Some grow through pressure, others find it limiting. These aren’t judgements – they’re just different needs and wants.
So if you are too regularly too stressed at work, it may be worth pausing to think whether it’s this job with this employer – i.e. a problem with the company – or whether the career may not be one that works for you. Either one would need fixing, but the solution isn’t the same one.
How we can support you
- Join us on a workshop on how to scale your company; create time to focus on the bigger picture; and keep values and purpose at the core. For max 5 CEOs of companies with revenues between £1.5m and £15m.
- Subscribe to our Bite-Sized Business Tips - thought snippets for values-centred business leaders. Every few days, a short focussed read on a specific topic of how to lead a company that values both profit and purpose.
- Talk to us to explore how we can help you scale your consultancy/agency in the direction you want to take it.