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Stress and startup almost always go hand in hand. It seems to be an accepted standard in a startup environment. Every interview I have been at a startup, one of the first question thrown at me is: How good are you at handling stress.

Having been in two early stage startups, I know where this question is coming from. For a startup founder, the startup success has a lot riding on it.

However, if I place myself in the hat of a leader – is it fair to exert stress on a daily basis on a scaling up company too? Although, my heart says No with a shriek, the experience says otherwise.

I sometimes find that there’s too much of stress out there in the environment. This seems to be particularly true in the startup and small business segment.

What can we do as leaders to reduce stress in a startup/small business environment?

Where’s the stress coming from?

This is a tough call for businesses because they are rarely trained to look at it this way. It is almost always about quarterly projections, spreadsheets and profits, EBITDA, etc. If those projections are excelled, we are looking at huge bonuses, greater market share etc.

Does the same motivation apply to all the employees too? In other words, as a leader, it might be a personal motivation to excel in these targets. However, we will need to ask the question about a long term gain vs short term loss.

Are we putting the long term success of a company at jeopardy just because it means success in the short term?

This is the same discussion where some companies relented to price gouging during covid. We will need to ask the question – will the company be alive in X years of time. If so, what is the precedent we are setting externally?

Using stress to achieve targets

I agree – the challenge with leadership is that we can’t set the goals too low. At the same time, we can’t set unreasonable expectations too. They need to be balanced based on an employees work load and their bandwidth. Nothing demotivates someone more than not being able to achieve goals or targets.

I would like to start off with an assumption that everyone wants to do a good job. There might be an exception or two, but we can’t let that define an organisational culture.

Just because stress helps us achieve some results and push people toward targets, we will need to consciously ask – is stress a good way to achieve our targets?

Have we explored other dimensions to get to these projections/targets. Have we bought the team in with our vision, mission and goals? . Have we listened to their motivators for the goals to be achieved. Surely it can’t always be about money. We did discuss Maslow’s hierarcy and the place of money vs personal ambitions. If we are aiming for a long term goal – has this been taken into account?

How to consciously reduce stress?

This is a constant question for every leader. The question is not just about personal stress but also about the ones exerted on our teams.

What are we consciously doing to check on the stress levels we exert on the team. Do we provide adequate one-ones’ with the team members to understand them better.

A leadership role cannot be just about the targets being achieved. If so, we are literally looking at wrong goals which will eventually crumble and lead to an entropy. Either that or people will stop caring. You will concsiously need to start thinking about hikes and bonuses. But that’s least sustainable and the philosophy is atleast over a 100 years old.

So – stress at workplace is common. But does it mean that we can use it as an excuse to get away? Or are we willing to take up the ownership to reduce stress at workplace.

After all, the business cannot just be a short term measure. It needs to think beyond a fair few years into existence.