Leadership Training Workshop on Stressor Management

• How can leaders avoid becoming their followers’ stressors?
• Why does self-care training set us up for failure?

Unfortunately, leaders have the power and privilege to pass their frustration and anger on to their employees with micromanagement, mandates, displacement aggression, and other toxic behaviors.

Growing scientific evidence demonstrates that stress affects not only our health but also our ability to make good decisions. When under stress, leaders often make bad decisions, causing more stress to themselves and their employees. In the workplace, poor leadership is the most common stressor, while good leadership is the most desired stress reducer.

Workshop: Transform Leadership by Managing Stressors

By understanding stress’ impacts on the brain and human behavior, leaders can gain clarity on their roles in making their followers feel safe. They will equip themselves with science-proven tools and skills to make better decisions and produce more successful outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore the Connection between Leadership and Stress: Stress is a common cause and an inevitable outcome of poor leadership because it impairs decision-making.
• Learn the Neuroscience of Stress Response: Fear often triggers stress subconsciously. Our tendency to overestimate risks breeds more anxiety.
• Identify 5 Safety Signals to Reduce Stress: Control, predictability, progress, social support, and frustration outlets prevent stressors from causing chronic stress.
• Examine Common Stressors in the Workplace: Lack of control and predictability manifests as micromanagement, mandates, and ambiguous communications.
• Avoid Stress-Induced Toxic Behaviors: Leaders are in the position to pass their stress onto their followers and become their followers’ stressors.
• Distinguish Stressors from Stress: Actively mitigating employees’ stressors by leaders is much more effective than increasing stress tolerance through self-care.
• Design and Enhance Safety Signals: Increasing control, predictability, progress, social support, and outlets helps employees deal with work-related stressors.
• Understand the Biology of Burnout: Chronic stress changes brain chemistry and inevitably leads to burnout and depression. No one has unlimited tolerance for stress.

Target Audiences and Details:

• Business owners, C-suite executives, and senior leaders
• Elected leaders and government officials
• Managers and supervisors
• HR professionals and change management consultants
• Business consultants and coaches
• The workshop lasts 3-7 hours.
• The ideal audience size is 10 to 50 participants.

Terry’s talk on ‘The Science of Stress Reduction’ clears up and answers questions regarding why and how we react under stress. You know you can’t control it but why? Terry gives his audience a new, fascinating way to assess stressors. He provides a scientific framework built on having control, predictability, and progress. He breaks down the science in an interesting and factual way so you can begin to understand the pathways to breaking free and acquiring new habits to help you deal with stress. He discusses triggers and how to block them as well as clearly defining the body and brain’s response to various situations. Terry captivates his audience with his knowledge of the brain while sharing techniques so you control your auto response. Fight or flight? Terry explains it all. I highly recommend inviting Terry to speak to your audience or team because his insights are so helpful in reducing stress and burnout. ~ Terri Mattson, Life Coach, Beginning Today Lifestyle Wellness

The Science of Stress and Burnout Prevention

There are thousands of self-care and resilience workshops out there. But nearly all of them are based on personal experience, anecdotes, or recycled content. They rarely address how to assess or handle stressors. Why are such workshops counterproductive or even harmful? When businesses and organizations require their employees to participate in such mandatory workshops, the hidden message to those employees is, “Your stress or burnout is your problem. So fix it.” When none of those breathing exercises works, it is the employees who feel like they are failures.

Good leaders can shift from the “band-aid” approach to a new, science-driven approach to reduce their followers’ stress and mitigate burnout. Dr. Terry Wu, a renowned Neuroscientist, teaches and facilitates this workshop. Dr. Wu turns complex science into actionable practices that will change how you manage stress. He gives you real tools supported by decades of scientific research.