Stress in The City
This week I have noticed an article on the stressed out bankers and traders in the City of London. There might not be much sympathy for bankers at the moment, but some of the following points are relevant to other areas of work including the Voluntary and Public Sectors. The article describes the culture of the city as psychologically toxic. City workers want to be perfectionists and in control. When this does not happen they feel like failures.Some of you might recognise this in your own work environments, particularly in senior management. Managers are made by being good practitioners, and typically stop providing services to people, and start managing the people who provide the services. The responsibility, power and money increase, to the point where it is difficult to return to the original work.

This promotion is understandable: workers are judged for the quality of their service work and it is assumed that the same quality can be transferred into a management role. The further up the work ladder managers go the more their own personalities influence their work, up to the CEO/Director who it is well recognised sets the tone and culture of the organisation. So it would be important to be curious about what motivates workers to be managers? Following a career path, earning more money are the more obvious reasons but are there other reasons for being a manager? Is there be a need to be perfect and in control so that the manager can be accepted by others? Is there a possibility that if a true acceptance of the manager had taken place, being perfect and in control would not be an issue?
Stress in The City

“Stress in the City” (Leslie Chapman in Therapy Today February 2012 Vol.23/Issue 1 Pages 14-18)http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/2896/