“Be consistently calm – irrespective of the situation” was a
piece of advice my manager gave me early in my career. The following list briefly
outlines the benefits of keeping your cool at work; some obvious, some perhaps
less so.
Benefits of remaining
calm:
1. It’s good for your health
The negative impacts to your health of stress are well documented.
2. Calmness and clarity of thought leads to better
decisions
It is very easy to fall into the trap of making decisions
based on emotion, not logic. For
example, no matter how much effort or money has gone into a project, if the
future benefits do not exceed the current and future costs, then the project
should be immediately cancelled.
3. Your staff members are more likely to inform you of issues
If your staff members are fearful of your response to bad
news, they will seek to hide issues as opposed to raising them so that they can
be properly addressed. What you don’t
know, can definitely hurt you.
4. You will gain respect
The ability to make calm and considered decisions in stressful
situations will gain you respect. I used to work with a colleague who,
while reasonably competent, was excessively nervous at work. Unfortunately it
depleted the confidence his superiors had in his abilities, which ultimately
impacted his career progression.
5. It’s something you can take pride in.
Given that so few people actively control their emotions, achieving
this feat is worthy of great pride.
Although this is only a brief summary of the benefits of
staying calm at work, I hope that it is sufficiently convincing that you now
aspire to be the calmest person in the room. Be sure to subscribe to this blog so
that you receive my next post on the strategies that I employ to manage my
emotions.