Stress management stress and managerial performance.

Bucur, Viorel ; Titu, Mihail

Abstract: The authors aim is to draw attention to certain aspects regarding stress-related influence on managerial performance, emphasizing the need of organisational decisions for the training of managers so that they become aware and minimize stress-related effects. We have also underlined the relevance of acknowledging "post-shock" traumatic experience that the body is undergoing and, consequently, helping the body to get to the initial state in order to overcome any pressures.

Key words: stress management, communication, managerial performance, Selye syndrome, model and organisation.

1. INTRODUCTION

In the context of specialized literature, a significant part is played by stress-related consequences on the activity of managers in organisations, at the behavioural, physiological and psychological levels, and thus generating a number of responses:

* Behavioural--they suffer important changes engendered by a diminished professional and physical capacity;

* Physiological--manifested by some malfunctions of the body (e.g. heart beating);

* Psychological--resulting from certain emotional and cerebral processes, and requiring the employment of some defence mechanisms by people undergoing stress.

Studies performed in the field of stress analysis have shown the relevance as well the necessity of identifying stress-engendering sources. (Bucur, 2002)

2. STRESS-INDUCING AGENTS AND MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE

There is an interdependent relation between managerial performance and the multitude of internal and external factors that act upon an organisation.

Stress-inducing agents, engendering psycho-somatic adaptive responses, generating endless diseases and they obviously affect managerial performance.

Specialized literature highlights a multitude of stress-inducing agents whose impact on the human organism is evinced by D. Mechanic and T. Holmes and shown in the following figure. Thus:

* Level 1000--implies the death of a beloved person;

* Level 50/53--implies an accident, a disease;

* Level 30/36--implies the change of work place;

* Level 25/30--affects relations, customs, etc.

At the organisational level, the destructive effects induced by stress lead to absent-mindedness, change of attitude, poor communication, etc. Stress factors determine a diminishing of the body's capacity to cope with prolonged effort, disease, uncomfortable situations, etc.

It is imperative to devise and apply some prophylactic measures meant to diminish or eliminate such effects in view of insuring an increase of managerial performance as well as the performance of other categories of employees.

3. SELYE SYNDROME DEVELOPMENT (GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME)

Studies performed so far highlight the necessity of adapting the "SELYE Syndrome" to the context of internal and external factors that affect managers' performance at an organisational level, and not only.

Hans Selye's pattern requires its development, including a number of factors and elements that occur in the "shock" and "post-shock" states - see figure 1.

Apart from the three existing stages (alarm, resistance, exhaustion) an important part is played by emotional and cognitive intelligence, as well as the three stages engendering the post-shock state (recovery, re-adaptation and rebalancing) of the body. (Cungi, 2003)

No thorough analysis can be performed without taking into account the place and role played by emotional and cognitive in Selyes pattern.

Considering the systemic approach of the human body it is necessary to get the system to its initial state (shock/post-shock, tidal flow) in view of insuring a re-adaptation of the human body to new processes and challenges.

Further requirements that cannot be overlooked include a re-adaptation of the human body to "effort", training by specific programmes aiming to improve human qualities.

4. CONCLUSION

It is imperative that organisations insure training programmes for managers, and therefore convey specific management-related concepts allowing:

* An objective assessment of employees and their performances;

* Identifying the causes of lower performances;

* Supporting employees to cope with stress;

* Encouraging continuous creative professional development;

* Studying human qualities.

Managers should be aware that "emotions determine temperament", and intelligence control of our emotional life is a consequence of the knowledge and study of human qualities.

Conflict is a ubiquitous notion in our daily lives, and it is a result of differences among people--their needs and perspectives being different from one another--however, to deny its existence or to disguise it on purpose leads to serious disturbances. Whenever two or more individuals or groups of people have diverging interests, aspirations, options, sets of values, information they acquired, understanding of events, etc. the outcome is disagreement--whether verbalized or not--which is the first stage of conflict.

The word conflict can be interpreted--according to the Romanian Encyclopedic Dictionary--as "misunderstanding, conflict of interests, disagreement, quarrel, argument (violent, too)."

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Therefore, conflict may be defined as "any form of socio-human relationships where the parts evince opposing, diverging interests." Conflict is a ubiquitous notion in our daily lives, and it is a result of differences among people their needs and perspectives being different from one another --however, to deny its existence or to disguise it on purpose will not lead to its alleviation, but to psychic disturbances, such as: diminishing concentration abilities, delayed answers, accompanied by the inability to make the right decisions, confusion, a feeling of uneasiness, etc. (Bucur, 2002)

Whenever two or more individuals or groups of people have diverging interests, aspirations, options, sets of values, information they acquired, understanding of events, etc. the outcome is disagreement--whether verbalized or not--which is the first, and easy, stage of conflict.

Wherever there are people, there are conflicts!

Conflict is an inherent element in the life of couples, the relationships between parents and children, siblings, professors and students, teachers and pupils, employers and employees, citizens and state authorities, ethnicities, parties or political supporters, races, etc.

On an individual level there are interior conflicts, whereas on the social level there are interpersonal conflicts, e.g. parents-children, children-family, between siblings, spouses, neighbours; in educational institutions: e.g. professors-students/ parents, teachers-pupils/parents; in the economic field: e.g. employers-employees, administration-trade union; in administration: e.g. citizens-authorities; in the commercial field: e.g. consumers-retailers; or conflicts among members of similar or different ethnicities, races, religions; in the political, military, international field, etc.

The conflicting phenomenon is the subject of conflictology which trains specialists in solving conflicts of any kind and in any field, including non-conventional systems. There has been a tendency recently to solve conflicts of any kind, as well as to approach them in a constructive way, i.e. to transform conflicts into possibilities for progress, interaction, balance, interpersonal relations and self-development, by means of: acknowledging and reinvesting conflict strain in constructive, positive situations; conflict as life experience; deepening knowledge of oneself and of others. Classifying human conflicts is a very difficult process, because of the multitude of classification criteria, such as: the parts or participants in a conflict, disagreement (litigation), methods employed, etc. According to how the adversary (opponent) is perceived, conflicts can be: Fights--the enemy has to be pursued, warned, destroyed; Games--the adversary will be "defeated" by rational analysis and observing the rules of the game; Debates--conflicts of ideas, where "the opponents" try to persuade each other of their own way of understanding and evaluation (e.g. lawyers, Members of Parliament, etc.). (Titu & Oprean, 2007)

In work teams, there may be task-related conflicts (which refer to ideas and methods used) and people-related conflicts (which refer to the competition for leadership, personality differences and unequally assigned tasks). According to the effects they produce, we distinguish: destructive conflicts--characterized by total or partial destruction of competitors, while there is always a winner (e.g. wars); beneficial conflicts--facilitating changes and leading to increasing creativity and productivity (e.g. industrial revolution).

5. REFERENCES

Bucur, V. (2002). Management. Management of organisation, Napoca Star Publishing House, Cluj Napoca, 2002

Cungi, C. (2003). How we can stop the stress, Polirom Publishing House, Bucharest

Golman, G. (2001). Emotional Inteligence, "Curtea Veche" Publishing House, Bucharest

Goupil, G. (1991) Stress intelect, Coresi Publishing House, Bucharest

Titu, M. & Oprean, C. (2007) Quality Management, Publishing House of Pitesti University, Pitesti