Organizational Effectiveness

Five Good Ideas about stress management and resiliency

Dr. Kwame McKenzie

Published on February 13, 2017

Deadlines, disruptions, fear and instability take a toll on staff and management. We all feel the stress at certain points. As a leader, how can you set the right tone and create an environment that supports staff in a time of uncertainty? For yourself, what tactics can you use to manage stress? How can you achieve a good work-life balance and avoid burnout? On February 13, Dr. Kwame McKenzie presented his ideas on stress management and resiliency.

Read Dr. Kwame McKenzie’s post “Five Good Ideas to Decrease Workplace Stress” on the Wellesley Institute website.

Five Good Ideas

Build resilience (keep connected, stay active, keep learning, see the value of the everyday, give back)
Understand that less is sometimes more when it comes to performance
Create a sense of coherence so everyone feels they understand and have influence over the outcomes
Allow for the sharing of power
Adopt the national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace

Further reading and resources

Work Organisation and Stress (World Health Organization)
Workplaces that Work (hrcouncil.ca)
The Whitehall Study (Wikipedia)
National Standard (MHCC)
The Inverted U-Model: Balancing Pressure and Performance (MindTools)
Job stress, sense of coherence and work wellness in an electricity supply organisation (South African Journal of Business Managment)

Dr. Kwame McKenzie

CEO, Wellesley Institute

Dr. Kwame McKenzie is CEO of the Wellesley Institute. He is an international expert on the social causes of illness, suicide and the development of effective, equitable health systems.

As a physician, researcher and policy advisor, Dr. McKenzie has worked to identify the causes of illness and in cross-cultural health for over two decades. He is an active, funded researcher of social, community, clinical and policy issues with nearly 200 academic publications including five books.

In addition to his post at Wellesley Institute, Dr. McKenzie is the Director of Clinical Health Equity at CAMH. He is a full Professor and the Co-Director of the Division of Equity Gender and Population in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.

Dr. McKenzie sits on the Boards of the United Way Toronto and the Ontario Hospitals Association. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College.

Dr. McKenzie is a member of the Ontario Government’s Mental Health and Addictions Leadership Advisory Council and sat on the Expert Advisory Group for Ontario’s Homelessness Strategy along side numerous other committees. He has a respected track record for setting up award winning services, training clinicians and researchers, offering clinical care to some of the most marginalized patients, and helping to develop health policy for Governments in Canada, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and United States.

Dr. McKenzie completed his medical training at the University of Southampton and was trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry and Harvard University.