We are about to introduce one of the major stressor at work which, as we have experienced so far, does not seem to get the representation it deserves.
At least not proportionatelly to the damage it daily causes for a significant number of workers.
But, let us go step by step.
Such an approach is required due to the fact due to the nature of the organisation of work on the most jobs in the corporate world.
It would perhaps be proper to pay some attention to the predominant shapes of organisations which are in place with diverse companies and employers.
However, we made a conscious decision to bypass this part.
The first reason for such a decision is the fact that the study of organisation is the part of economics.
Although one of us studied and graduated economics we could supply you with certain concrete knowledge on the topic, the previous sentence takes into account that is not an article on economics.
No, this is an article that is based on observation.
Even better to say, an amatuer empirical study that spans to more that a decade.
This study offers some humble conclusions on this common issue turning into a ever larger problem.
The second reason is that we are afraid that otherwise we could lose the focus from our main subject, which is the major stressors at work.
To be brief, concrete and to retain things simple, many companies and employers still rely on the hierachical order of things.
Hierarchy highlights clear differentiation of the tasks assigned and the goals expected to be accomplished between managerial level of employees and other employees that have predominant operational functions.
Meanwhile, our current, 21th century puts an accent on more horizontal forms of organisation.
These do not rely so heavily on hierarchy, but rather on cooperation.
In such environment the leading function isn’t so much expressed as in the clear hierachical organisations.
We also need to note that many companies worldwide chose to transform their organisations to these new forms of management.
However, these are not processes which happen over night and the transition may require a lot of adjustment and specific education.
But, even in these new organisational forms there is clear view of the objectives that need to be achieved and of the positions which are required to pursue their accomplishment.
To a common reader relation between a worker and his/her superior is still mainy viewed to the through the lense of hierarchical order.
It is often that a worker is being called out due to the issues in the communications with her or his superiors.
On the other hand, less or none attention is contributed to the issues which occur when workers suffer due to an incompetence of their superior to communicate information properly.
We must say that is surprising, having in mind the problems disabilities that are counting due to problems with stress regarding work.
For this reason, we devote this article to stress related lack of communication of the superiors towards workers.
Communication skills
A workplace is a place of constant challenges. It is a place where order and disorder meet and exist side by side.
Often, it is a jungle of many simultaneously speaking people which are struggling to understand each other.
It is time to see why we put the lack of communication skills on our list of major stressors at work.
The only way we see fit and proper to do that is to introduce us with the notion of communication skills.
We give much credit to consistency.
Therefore, we shall use the same approach which we utilised when we spoke about stress synonyms and stressors synonyms.
That implies that we are going to describe the content of the term communication skills as vivid as possible.
After that, we are going to gather the most general and substantial matter forming the meaning of this term followed by a humble try to press out the communication skills definition.
Once the communications skills definition is given, we are going to pull the term communication skills through a funnel named „workplace“.
We will do so for the purpose of extracting the part of the content of that term which we need to clarify this major stressor at work.
Stress related to work is the cause of many more serious related issues.
Because of that, this state need appropriate addressing.
As a first med kit try using the Anti-stress app.
What are communication skills?
Before ariving to the communication skills definition, we note that this term is often used in its plural as well as in its single form, but always with the meaning of plural.
Actually, the term communication skills, as we shall see shortly is a common denominator for different kinds of desirable qualities.
The qualities of the person delivering the message as well as of the person receiving the message.
Therefore, we prefer to use it in plural form.
Communication in general plays the highest importance in life of any member of human species.
Communication is the only way a human being steps into an inter-personal relationship of any kind with another human person.
Some may disagree with this statement due to the existance of love at first sight or animosity at first sight.
Because of these and examples alike it is necessary to see and further elaborate what lays in the chest of communication skills.
It is hard to imagine a world where humans are deprived of the power to communicate.
Communication allows relationships (under which we mean relationships in all the variety of their forms).
Relationships give rise to feelings.
Ultimately, feelingd shape our planet.
Therefore, picturing a world without communications can also be like picutring it without emotions.
To us, such world would look somehow…empty.
However, communication also has its bad sides.
It may, namely, give rise to the darkness in humans, especially when certain differences, like skin colour, religion or race are observed and serve as a mean of division and possible conflict.
Nevertheless, we humans have been given the power to communicate, from with derives the power to use this ability to do good and bad.
From our point of view this power is a huge responsibility and as we see it and as the history shows, this power has been misused a couple of times too much.
This article does not strive to explain communcation or communication skills as such, but in their function as a great contributor to the existence of stress.
We deem that it is alway berrer to be equipped with the right tools to react to stress, when it occurs, properly.
However, as we are about to offer communication skills definition, we have to say that we noted unnecessary complication of things when discussing communication skills.
This only and unnecessary leads only to the poor understanding or even miunderstanding of the issue.
This is usually done by not understanding the extent of a certain communications skill.
This implies that numerous „communication skills“ are named or elaborated, which have already been covered be the main underlying communications skill.
We see that only as pushing of content for the purpose of ranking.
We do not like complications.
Simplicity is the key to understanding.
So, we have experienced that communications skills are usually devided in verbal, writing and non-verbal skills.
We do certainly agree with such branching, for it is the way of expert explanation, the way it is thought at school.
However, we chose a different, yet similar path.
It has been done so to retain focus on lack of communication as a major stressor at work.
Skills of expression
In a contemporary world, we really do not see the need to divide verbal and writing skills into two different set of skills.
Nontheless, we are aware that writing skills actually represents something rather new in human society, for illiteracy was still globally widely spread just 80 years ago.
Although we fully aknowledge the latter fact, we are turned towards the future and we see it as potentially very bright, due to our exceedingly optimistic views.
You might wonder why we chose „Skills of expression“ as our common denominator for verbal and writing skills.
It is something that simply must be covered when we are discussing this major stressor at work.
We had taken into acount that the are other possible way in which a person may express her/himself.
However, we also took into regard that among various forms of expression these forms are meant with no doubt first when talking about „expressing yourself“.
Verbal skills, present in human species for thousands of years enabled the establishment of most of the inter-personal relationships before the digital era.
This was necessary so due to the aleady mentioned fact of illiteracy.
Another communication skil that played a large and important role in thepast ,which we are to discuss further on certainly is gesture, especially when members of different tribes met.
In the past, writing skills represented power.
This is so, for an ability to acquire information over a piece of paper or some other material appropriate to write on meant a huge advantage over those who did not possess that skill.
Therefore, it was reserved for the rich and the privileged.
Today, illiteracy is out of the way or in the process of dissapearing.
The dawn of digital era and especially occurence of e-mail and a variety of social networks loomed long ago.
In such a situation, writing skills took over the supremacy from the verbal skills in establishment of the inter-personal relationships.
This is due to the possibility to connect in writing from the commodity of the person’s home and the speed to get a reply.
Non-verbal communication skills
Non-verbal way of communication always had large importance in interpersonal relationships.
Throughout history it was the only way in which two foreign tribes, people or nation came to establish contact.
Even today, when we are more easily able to overcome language barriers, non-verbal communications skills still make for a great deal of our overall communication.
Among the members of the same cultural circle, who share the same understanding on the particular non-verbal acts of communication it may even overthrow the importance of verbal and writing skills.
Non-verbal skills especially came under the lens in the digital era.
Due to the capabilities of the hardware of our electronic devices and software solutions, many applications have been created that offer the possibility of a video conference.
Having in mind the threat that COVID-19 represents, many business meeting are held by video conference.
These resemble meeting on the spot due to the possibility of the participants to track non-verbal communication of their co-participant for the purpose to draw some conclusions on their behaviour and intentions.
Therefore, in a business world, regarding the work space in general non-verbal communication skills have great importance in showing interpersonal attitudes.
Please take notice here that this article isn’t on the quest to explain in detail the forms of non-verbal communication.
Our main interest is to show how a poor or non-existant communication as a major stressor at work contributes to development of stress.
However, for the purpose of general understanding, we draw attention that the non-verbal communication, as it may be concluded has a goal to convey meaning where speech and written words are not able to.
Also, in the situations where speech and written words cannot be used with the same efficiency.
Mostly, non-verbal communication skills at work are ured to complement the information that needs to be transffered.
Non-verbal communication skills are those that employ, for example, posture, gesture, limb movement, facial expression body language and paralanguage with a purpose to send a certain message.
Therefore, they represent a form of a signal to other participant or participants in communication.
We hope that you may now grasp how lack of communication in a relationship of superiors towards workers may influence the creation of an unhealthy, stressful environment.
Communication skills definition
The last few titles enabled us to see what are communications skills comprised of.
They are the basic prerequisition to enter in any type of interpersonal relationship.
Importance of possessing and proper usage of this skills cannot be highlighted enough.
They make it possible for ourselves to engage in and establish contacts and ties with our surroundings.
Also, they make able to read and absorb information from our environment.
This is why these skills are of invaluable value for our possibility to orient oneself in contemporary complex world.
Therefore, communications skills definition sees those as our capacity to transfer data or to receive them.
Lack of communication as a major stressor at work
Workplace is one of the places where communications skills matter.
It is a place where communicating in a quality manner represents the difference between creating positive and productive environment and environment of confussion, distrust and eventually sickness.
For this reason, it is imperative to pay close attention to the lack of communication as a major stressor at work.
There are multiple situations at work where the lack of communication may lead to some undesired results.
Lack of communication proves to be most destructive when it comes from the superiors.
You might find this wrong.
However, let us elaborate our previous note.
For that purpose let us shortly view the role of superiors.
It boils down to three main activities.
First of those is giving instructions.
The second one is related to providing guidance, not in a way of support, but regarding the explanation of steps in which tasks should be executed.
The final activity is giving feedback.
Following this elaboration, our question back to you is “How is the worker able to work productively in the absence of those three?”
Our opinion, based on the years of experience in a workplace environment, claims that lack of communication and the absence of performing these activities by the superiors hinders the ability to work and dissorients workers.
This disables the workers’ engagement on concentrating to solve the problem and they remain focused on the problem itself.
Such a situation gives rise to a considerable amount of stress and we have witnessed that it causes temporary or permanent disability.
We are now going to discuss some of the ways in which lack of communication triggers stress.
Lack of communication of objectives
We suppose that every company and every business has some goals they strive to achieve.
After all, companies are by definition founded for the purpose of making profit.
Profit may be made only when business functions as planned.
In order to do that, you need people, that is workers who function as planned.
Some may argue that this discussion is futile, because automatisation of business processes is on the way and that all the decisions will soon be made by a robot.
Perhaps…
But, until that moment arrives, we say it worthwhile to pay attention to the superior – worker relationship through the lens of communication.
In an otherwise healthy environment, workers perform the best when they are clear on what they are expected to do on how they should do it.
Why is that so relevenat, you may wonder.
It is due to the fact that the salary of the common worker as well as hers or his employment are very dependent upon the successful and swift execution of the tasks.
For many workers the fear of losing a salary and a position is a daily issue.
This is even more highlighted now, in the COVID-19 era.
In general, common workers are aware that they will be the first to be called out, when business operations stall or start confronting hurdles.
The are even more aware that in such a situation the superiors, that may be responsible for the occurence of problems, tend to get away unpunished.
When it comes to the lack of communication of objectives, the problems that are to arise due to the failure of the superiors to communicate effectively are usually foreseeable.
This is based on the circumstance that the lack of communication, when it exist, takes the shape of the pattern.
Speaking concretely, if a superior did not have the capacity to communicate objectives in a present day, this is often covered by such incapacity to do that in the past.
Exactly this pattern and constant fear and anticipation of how things may go terribly wrong if such behaviour continues contribute to the steep build up and then to the burst of stress.
Most often the spark that ignites a stressul reaction is the real occurence of a certain problem.
The biggest negativity here is that the described pattern presents a lose-lose situation.
On one side, inability of workers to acquire the knowlegde of what they are expected to do and of the tools they should use to accomplish the goals leads to their growing discontent.
On the other side, growing discontent represents a constant threat of interpersonal conflicts between workers on the same level of hierarchy or even between a worker and his superior.
Any of these results make stress a daily routine, with the threat to severely damage one’s mental health.
When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination. ”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
We would certainly agree with the citation above, beacuse we witnessed it to be true.
Lack of transparency
In these cases, lack of communication is closely connected to the lack of transparency.
Low transparency is usually the sign of incompentence and insecurity of the superiors.
Closely interrelated with the lack of communication of objectives is the inability of the workers to give feedback on the progress of fulfillment of the objectives.
This is a further factor that acts a serious stressor in such an environment, especially in a situation when the superiors are pressuring the workers to fulfill the objectives that had not been well or defined at all.
These situations severely affect the opinion of the workers that they are being undervalued and seriously hinders their performance at work.
To note, this isn’t some textbook theoretical thought.
It is something that is happening in practice, day by day, all over again.
Due to such incompetence of the superiors the workers aren’t able to see the big picture.
Under big picture we refer to the conncetion between a specific objective that are obligated to fulfill and the mission or strategy direction of the company.
Take into account the following thought.
When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixes duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter DISORGANIZATION.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
We are more that symphtetic with all of you who struggle daily at work.
To ease your work related stress, head here and get the Anti-stress app. It may work for you as a first med kit in any situation.
Lack of communication of priorities
The other area in which lack of communication may prove itself damaging is the inability of a superior to differentiate between important and not that important objectives.
This presupposes that superiors are at least able to communicate objectives clearly.
That means that workers have a clue about what is expected of them and they are acquainted with the steps in which every objective needs to be met.
Have in mind that this is just a main prerequisite for workers to feel well on the workplace, in order that they do not suffer from stress.
However, every employed person knows that that there is often multitude of objectives which need to be fulfilled almost at the same time.
If the superiors aren’t able to communicate to the workers the order in which the objectives need to be met, this leads to multitasking.
We devoted the whole article to multitasking as a major stressor at work.
Therefore, we will not repeat ourselves and the perils which lay in multitasking.
We will just note that multitasking makes the probabability of mistakes much higher and diminishes the ability to work in a productive manner.
The overall result is more stress.
Therefore, you may easily see how these major stressors at work function in synergy and have great destructive power.
A true story on the lack of communication of priorities
It is a true story beacuse it is a story I live every day.
I already shared with you that I work in the field of criminal law.
Currently, outside the job that I am doing for my company, I work full-time in one public authority.
Regarding the objectives I am expected to meet there are regular questionnaires of the regional and international organisation, queries from the other member states of the EU, requests for opinion regarding the draft of the acts which contain the provisions on misdemeanors and criminal offences and so on.
Although I am always perfectly aware of the gravity of each objective, of the order in which they have to be fulfilled in order for the system to work in optimal manner and of the impact of non compliance with some of the international requests on how the internationl community sees our state, my boss (lady boss) very often isn’t.
I simply cannot understand her inability to make a list of the current objectives due to their importance and deadlines.
Notwithstanding my ability to understand such incompetence or not, that affects me daily.
Due to her incompetence, me and my subordinates are expected to bring every objective to an end in a shortest time possible.
Even when a deadline for a certain objective may be for example two week from now.
You may think that she is doing that to show to her bosses that she is efficient and productive.
I also thought so for some time, but this isn’t the case.
An explanation of the reasons would require a new article made from scratch.
Perhaps needless to say, but her behaviour leads to occasional disability of my subordinates due to stress and affects their mental health in general.
Often, I see how they are confused.
I goes even further than that, but this is enough for you to get the point.
My subordinates already use our Anti-stress app. Find yours here.
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Lack of communication of responsibilities
It is well known that every job advertisment comes with a list of responsibilities a potential worker is expected to take on when she/he takes the position that is advertised.
Also, it often that the superior delegates the part of his duties to a subordinate worker.
However, we are not talking about that.
We focus here on cooperation or with the usage of contemporary langauge, team work.
We take into account that today many jobs exist which require the mutual cooperation of workers of different expertise in fulfilling certain important, complex tasks.
These are the cases in which fractions of the taks must be logically devided, means of communication between team members established, oversight and help provided and a possiblity of feedback enabled.
There are the basic preconditions in order that such a task may be dealt with.
Needless to say, fulfillment of the objective is usually time bound.
Therefore, if responsibilites of team members aren’t clearly devided and determined, it is objectively hard to expect that the job will be accomplished successfully.
A superior that lacks the ability to communicate responsibilities risks the unsound relations between workers, their confusion and greatly contributes to the decline of their mental health.
In such a way in turn to major stressor at work.
It is so because all the team members are aware that there is an objective waiting to be accomplished, that the deadline is closing and that thing do not function.
The only satisfaction, if any, they may have is related to the fact that the failure will hurt the superior even more than it will hurt them.
Conclusion
We deem it imperative that the worker always knows his position in a company.
This is important in order that he may be successful as well as to assess this future plan regarding the currenct workplace.
This information has to be passed on by the superiors.
If there is a lack of communication, workers will certainly suffer as a result.
At first, this will be manifested on their ability to work in a productive manner.
After some time, this situation will turn to their mental and overall health and drain it slowly.