Why stress bragging may be impacting your career

Feeling stressed at work is an experience that most of us will go through from time to time. We’ve all juggled competing priorities, stretched ourselves to meet deadlines and dealt with the fallout when things go badly.

How we deal with those stresses is a case-by-case scenario, but for some people the default position is to let everyone around them know just how many hours, meetings or mistakes (made by other people) they are dealing with.

There are a few ways to describe this – one of them being “stress bragging”, a concept that was recently published in research journal Personnel Psychology, coined by researchers who looked at the affect this type of behaviour has on the workplace.

Not surprisingly, the findings showed that not only is stress bragging harmful to co-workers, it also has negative implications for those doing the bragging. Rather than elevating them in the eyes of their colleagues, it might reflect your competency level and can do more harm than good.

Look for a solution instead

Leadership expert Rebecca Houghton warns that constantly reminding people you are “so busy” that you’ve spent the weekend working could limit career progression.

“The fact is, we’ve been hired to be productive. If you need to remind people that you are constantly working back, and you see it as a competition to show how ‘busy’ you are, then it is highly likely you will not be promoted into senior roles where that mindset is not valued,” she says.

A better approach is to avoid using the word busy and instead be specific about the actual issue. 

“You can’t solve ‘busy’. We've been getting busier and busier since the 1970s and it has become a word that just papers over the cracks — it's no longer seen as a solvable problem,” says Houghton.

“Instead of saying you're ‘busy', start being more specific. If you're feeling overwhelmed, be clear about why. Did the system go down? Is the business case flawed? Did someone fail to deliver on a promise? These are concrete issues that can be addressed, rather than just saying you're busy, which doesn't lead to any real solutions,” she says.

How to manage overload

Burnout continues to be a huge issue for workers post-pandemic. Data from Allianz Australia shows almost half the workforce is fatigued or burnt out. 

Workplace and recruitment expert and the author of Earning Power, Roxanne Calder says stress bragging is very different from genuine burnout or managing a heavy workload — and it can have negative consequences.

“I think many people are overworked and overwhelmed, especially post-pandemic, with the ongoing skills shortages. They're taking on more, and while they may not want to admit they’re struggling, the reality is that if we don’t learn how to prioritise or set boundaries, overwork becomes a serious issue,” she says.

However, stress bragging often leads to two clear outcomes: people may start avoiding you, and you may appear incapable of managing your workload.

“It is a passive aggressive style of communication that can really drain energy from other people. It’s usually done by people who are seeking some form of validation or recognition for the work they are doing,” Calder says.

“I think we all fall into those archetypes at different stages. It's just a matter of recognising when we've gone too far and looking for productive ways to address what the problem is.”

Some of those ways are looking at personal work habits, identifying how to ask for help, delegating where you can and addressing procrastination.

“If you don’t have any self-awareness or self-regulation about how your complaining is not changing anything, then people will start to not listen to you and the problem will be amplified. Find a way to communicate what the issue is, instead of offloading your frustrations onto your co-workers,” Calder advises.

Points to remember

• “Stress bragging” (also known as “busy bragging”) is bragging to others in the workplace about how busy you are and how much work you’re doing.
• It is different from burnout or managing a heavy workload.
• As a result of stress bragging, people may start avoiding you and you may appear incapable of managing your workload.
• Better approaches are to be more specific about what’s impacting you, look at your work habits, identify how to ask for help, delegate where you can and address any procrastination.