Understanding the Impact of Stress on Career Growth and Well-Being

All of us have inborn stressors. Each person’s stressors vary depending on how you profile. How and when we react to our inherent stress triggers control our behavior towards stress and allow us to (logically or illogically) make business decisions, cultivate or destroy relationships, and balance our mental well-being or cause physical harm to ourselves or others.

Have you ever seen a fistfight break out at work? Have you ever witnessed a verbal lashing? If you have been employed long enough, you possibly have. Not to mention how many people criticize or react poorly before they have all the facts.

I live with an autoimmune disease. The symptoms of autoimmune disorders have been proven to increase with stress. Over time, as I am getting better at managing stress, my quality of life has significantly improved, and my hope of complete healing someday is in sight.

None of us will ever eliminate stress entirely from our lives. We are only fooling ourselves if we say we will or have. We can significantly reduce stress by recognizing what causes us to stress and changing our focus from the stressful situation to how to control our reactions and behavior. As Charles Swindoll said, “Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.”

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Managing Stress and Fostering Professional Success

In my case, learning about myself and my communication style through Everything DiSC® assessments—along with life, business, health, accountability, and other friends and partners along the way—continues to help me increase my emotional intelligence (EI). EI is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. It has been proven that we can increase EI with self-awareness and focused effort.

Leveraging DiSC Assessments to Enhance Self-Awareness and Communication Skills

Let’s look at some of the behaviors from the four main Everything DiSC® profiles that we often see revealed when we are under stress:

(D) Dominant DiSC style:

  • Create anxiety in others
  • Overstep boundaries
  • Communicate with bluntness or sarcasm
  • Act restlessly
  • Overrule and steamroll others
  • Make mistakes and are inattentive to details, logic
  • Become easily dissatisfied with routine work
  • Withdraw from the team

(I) Influence DiSC Style: (also referred to as Interactive)

  • Act impulsively—heart over mind
  • Reach inconsistent conclusions
  • Make decisions solely on gut feelings
  • Oversell
  • Inattentiveness to detail
  • Naivety/Over trust people
  • Apply superficial analysis
  • Have difficulty estimating the time needed
  • Stimulate anxiety in others

(S) Steadiness DiSC style (also referred to as Support):

  • Insist on maintaining status quo
  • Do things the way they were always done
  • Take a long time to adjust
  • Have trouble juggling multiple tasks
  • Need full information to feel comfortable
  • Difficulty with innovation
  • Wait for orders before beginning
  • Need help starting unstructured tasks
  • Appear calm while internalizing stress

(C) Conscientious DiSC style:

  • Seeks excessive feedback and direction
  • Hesitant to react without guidance or help
  • Bound by key procedures and methods
  • Gets bogged down in decision-making
  • Resists delegated tasks
  • Needs full explanation before acting
  • Avoids participation when threatened
  • Yields position to avoid controversy
  • Exclusively focused on tasks
  • Appear to be calm while internalizing stress

DiSC profiles and most assessments should only be 30% of the deciding factor when hiring someone. The Everything DiSC® assessment does not measure other factors, including beliefs, values, character, ethics, temperament, emotional maturity, thinking preferences, communication style, etc., that influence how a person reacts to stressors.

Reference checks and behavioral interviewing are the only ways to determine much of this during the interview process. An example is when a reference says a candidate’s weakness is that they are laid back. If you don’t further ask how that affects them doing the job you are considering hiring them for, you could overlook a top performer and behaviorally sound candidate—especially if the reference goes on to say the candidate as no problem addressing issues and does so professionally and on time, and they are excellent at follow-up and documentation. It’s a much different result than if you assumed that because they are laid back, they avoid potential issues.

Do You Know What Stresses You Out? 

Notice the what, not the who. Learn your triggers and how to control your reaction. A person who doesn’t react has tremendous power.

If someone upsets you because of how they act, what they say, or what they believe, don’t emotionally react. By taking control of your response and your reaction into your hands, you not only provide a protective barrier for yourself, you often take power away from them. This clarity gives you the ability to set boundaries and accountability factors protecting yourself and possibly others moving forward. Have you completed your Everything DiSC® assessment? If not, are you ready to? You hold the power!

To Taking Control of Your Reactions and Emotions,

Suzanne Breistol