As the year winds down and the festive season is here, it is common to witness a prevailing feeling among colleagues and team members. Many express sentiments such as:
“Let's shelve this until next year; I'm at full capacity for now.”
“Our team feels stretched thin with everything happening at the moment.”
“There's an overflow of priorities on everyone's plate right now.”
“I'm undervalued amidst the chaos; there seems to be a lack of recognition for the small but essential efforts. No one says thank you anymore.”
While reading this, reflect on how you and your team might be feeling:
Overwhelmed?
Underappreciated?
Stressed for various reasons?
Job Crafting and The Research
Amidst these sentiments, a relatively new concept in leadership discussions has emerged—job crafting. This concept of job crafting has been hailed for fostering motivation, self-actualization, and a sense of purpose in work.
Research in The Leadership Quarterly by Elizabeth Solberg and Sut Wong delved into employees' perceptions of their ability to craft their roles amidst work overload. In simpler terms: Can individuals adjust their job responsibilities when feeling overloaded?
Job crafting is often seen as proactive behavior, reflecting self-initiation to instigate necessary changes. However, it is not always anticipative; rather, it is a response to the current workload. Reacting to the present workload seems more common than strategically shaping future responsibilities. The "tyranny of the moment" significantly influences our ability to craft our roles according to our needs.
The study highlights two crucial factors when employees feel overloaded: their perception of a positive resolution and the leader's need for structure.
Considering leadership and follower dynamics, accountability plays a pivotal role. Employees coping with work overload require both adaptability and the initiative to alleviate it.
However, it’s not just the follower's accountability that matters. The leader's control also significantly impacts the team. Research by Dragoni and Kuenzi suggests that leaders who display controlling behavior influence followers to exhibit less freedom or autonomy. Essentially, the more controlling the leader, the less likely the follower will exhibit the freedom to ease work overload.
In times of overwork and stress, maybe the blame doesn't entirely fall on the holiday season or even year-end tasks. Perhaps, it’s the leader's need for control. When leaders exude excessive control, it heightens the workload further, compelling followers to rely more on their guidance.
As a leader, consider this:
How can you loosen control of the reins and empower your team?
What value might granting your team more freedom bring to the overall effectiveness of your team?
I think that this holiday season, the gift of letting go of control might not only relieve stress for all but also foster a more empowered and productive team dynamic.