Can becoming a manager be dangerous to your health? Is suicide the new occupational hazard?

The business culture of the 1980s and 90s helped to transform economies in Europe, North America and Asia, and led to sustained growth in many countries. This period saw an expansion of the short term contract culture, major restructurings, outsourcing, more monitoring of individual performance and less autonomy, and a culture of long working hours. All of which have been carried forward to the first decade of the 21st Century. Although this has meant enhanced growth rates, there has been a substantial personal cost for many employees in general, and executives in particular. This cost was captured by a single word - stress. According to Prof. Cary Cooper, one of the current Gurus of Stress, the term stress has become as ubiquitous in our modern jargon as faxing, fast food or the internet . But for those whose ability to cope with day to day matters has reached a crisis point, the concept of stress is no longer a casual one; for them, stress can be either a four letter word -"pain!", or even worse, a five letter word - "death". This paper argues that executives often fail to see that a) they do not have the resources to properly deal with and manage stress, and b) they themselves generate and cause an unduly amount of stress on their employees. This paper is a "wake up call". It argues that dramatic changes are needed on two fronts: a. to incorporate the skills for managing stress into the executive inventory, and b. to alert executives about the need to identify and prevent stress, for otherwise we will face a new growing pandemic in the workplace.