This paper draws literature that discusses stress and time management in relation to leadership skills that subscribes to an embodied view of organisations.
In Forsyth (2003), time management is about working actively to create efficiency and effectiveness in a way that makes achieving your target more likely. Good effective time management is a core skill, a differentiating factor which allows you to have an edge over other people (Williams & Cooper 2002). Time management is not optional; it is something that everyone has to acquire in order to work effectively, to achieve work-life balance and most importantly helping us to stay focus. Everyone practices time management to some degree; the only question is how well they do it and how it affects what they do (Hawkins 1996).
Time; if properly managed increases productivity and brings about opportunities for growth; On the flip side, if time is not handled properly, will bring about disadvantages to both the physiological and psychological self (Leatz & Stolar, 1993). Time is a unique resource as we cannot rent, hire, buy or otherwise obtain more time as once gone, it will never come back (Drucker 2002). One of the most common afflictions of stress is due to ineffective time management. As a result, ineffective time management or the lack of it will usually lead to one feeling the effects of stress due to closing deadlines or too much procrastination, thus stress and time management can be said to be closely interrelated.
Stress can be defined as the wear and tear our bodies experience as we adjust to our environment with physical and emotional effects creating positive feelings, fundamentally experience emerging from a set of interrelated circumstances and processes (Styhre 2002). While stress is typically discussed in a negative context, it does have positive values. Brewer (1995) notes that seeing stress as a force that motivates and energizes you rather than making one anxious and frustrated, allows channeling of energy into productive results.
However, most people view stress as detrimental (stress: from symptoms to syndromes journal) to our overall well-being. Stress comes from various channels of sources; task and role demands in the workplace, at home and in school etc, in fact your attitude towards time determines the stress level at which you choose to operate in (gift of time journal). Burnout occurs when one experiences too much stress for an extended period of time (Roney & Cooper, 1997).
Effective time management is often one used strategy for dealing with stress (Vecchio 2003). Experiencing stress is a complex phenomenon complicated to separate mental and bodily experiences into discrete domains (Shiling 1993). Cryer, McCraty and Childre (2003) refer stress to two simultaneous events: en external stimulus called stressor and the emotional and physical response to that stimulus, (fear, anxiety). Rubenstein and Sinatra (1998) reinforced that an individual is said to be experiencing stress when he is unable to cope effectively with that stressor. Negative stress is both an emotional and psychological habit that depress and burns a person out.
Stress (Gamse 2003) comes in two different forms; good and bad. Good stress instills confidence while bad stress shatters confidence. To improve workplace conditions, organisations have to focus on being goal driven and to transform bad stress into good stress for productive results. Stress managed properly leads to goal attainment and is greatly beneficial to any organisation. On the other hand, cumulative stress often has a vast amount of negative impact on the organisation like having a high turnoever.
