Facing Your Fears
How Working with Your Fears Can Make You a More Effective Leader
Fear: An Anecdote
I have a question for you: What would you do if you could do anything?
I have a colleague that worked in youth development for many years, managing programs for kids of all ages in her community and working with other organizations to bring them exciting, engaging opportunities to learn, develop and just be with other people their age. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? She thought so too; she loved what she did immensely.
After working in her field for some time, she was eventually promoted and given her own team to manage, along with all of the responsibilities of doing so. For years, she’d looked up to her own supervisor, one who had taught her to lead with diligence, empathy and a listening ear. She was so excited to put what she’d learned watching that supervisor into practice, and for a while, it worked really well for her; she handled obstacles and challenges that came up the same way she’d been trained to for years.
One day, she was assigned a project by her executive leadership team that was on a larger scale than she’d ever managed before. She suddenly had an abundance of resources at her disposal, a large staff to manage, and hundreds of kids to serve in a short amount of time. She was filled with excitement and eager to get started, until — in response to her own request for guidance on which direction the project should go in — the executive team posed their own question: What would you do if you could do anything?
This stumped her. On one hand, she was an incredibly creative person; she had no shortage of big-picture ideas or aspirations, and the fact that she could create something from nothing used to thrill her. But on the other hand — after being a team manager for less than a year at that point and already receiving compliments by several peers and executive leaders — the pressure to succeed had started to feel like a physical force working against her. So instead of feeling excited about the possibilities the new project offered, she felt a sense of dread deep in the pit of her stomach, weighing her down.
Though she did eventually go on to create a great program, my colleague admitted that it was a very rocky road; looking back after the project’s completion, she shared that there were decisions she would have made differently, difficult conversations she would have handled more thoughtfully, challenges she would have led her team through more strategically.
When I asked her why she thinks she made the decisions she did, she said simply, “Fear. I realize now that I was so afraid of failing that I operated in survival mode. I forgot to trust my team. I forgot to have fun.”
I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count; as leaders, we have the potential, resources, know-how, resiliency, and often just plain determination to lead great efforts and teams, but our own fears show up in one form or another to get in our way.
A tale as old as time.
And while the old notion that leaders are meant to be fearless, overly-confident, know-it-all unicorns whose work goes unaffected by their own personal lives is, thankfully, being called out for its fallacies, I still so often see leaders — both seasoned and new — derailed by their own fears in the workplace.
So what do we do when this happens? How do we combat an emotion that can sometimes feel so overwhelming that it blocks out everything else, yet at other times so elusive that we can’t even identify it by name?
First, we learn to read the signs.
The Four Fatal Fears
It’s said that there are four root fears that result in an abundance of behaviors that hold people back from performing at their highest abilities; these are called the Four Fatal Fears. They are: the fear of failure, the fear of being wrong, the fear of rejection, and the fear of being emotionally uncomfortable. Let’s take a deeper dive into each and how they might manifest in your daily life.
The fear of failure: When leaders operate from a fear of failure, they are often reluctant to act. They may procrastinate in making decisions and miss opportunities. This fear also impedes their sense of adventure and playfulness, as well as their ability to take the risks necessary for innovation and growth, and can lead to polarized thinking. We also see this fear on the other end of the spectrum showing up as haste and almost a panicked approach to getting things done to prove oneself. The issue here is that this approach to overcoming the fear of failure often leads people to doing the wrong thing really fast rather than the right thing at a logical pace.
The fear of being wrong: Leaders who need to be right tend to dominate discussions and attempt to control the thinking of others, rather than engaging as a resource who can expand other’s understanding of issues and opportunities. Over time, this approach stifles others from participating in the conversation and offering their perspectives, leading to stunted creativity and engagement.
The fear of being rejected: Fear of rejection causes leaders to rely exclusively on a consensus decision-making style because they believe it is more important to be liked than respected. Fearing rejection, leaders often try to present themselves in a way that is palatable to everyone, except themselves. This leads to stress, burnout and lack of confidence, and over time even self-rejection and self-loathing.
The fear of being emotionally uncomfortable: When leaders need emotional comfort, they lack the capacity to remain present and engaged when faced with emotional expression from others, especially sadness or anger. They tend to avoid emotionally charged discussions, quickly moving on to safer ground, and therefore, miss the opportunity for mutual learning and growth.
Fear as a Tool
As a society, we’re often taught that fear is our enemy — something to run from and avoid at all costs. And for good reason, right? If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that fear can be all-consuming, turning us into versions of ourselves that we don’t even recognize.
But if working in leadership development for 30+ years has taught me anything, it’s that useful, positive change often happens when we look at the things we fear the most.
Which means that, while fear doesn’t feel great in the moment, if we use it to our advantage, it can be effective in leading us in the right direction. Towards cohesive teams. Towards productive strategies. Towards joyful workplaces.
So ask yourself a few questions:
In a recent situation where I felt fear creep in even if ever so subtly, which fear was most present?
In what types of situations do those fears tend to show up?
How do these fears affect the decisions I make and actions I take?
What decisions might I choose to make in hindsight?
While answering these questions, you might just learn to identify fear when it comes up at work, and develop ways to work with rather than against it in the moment.
When we as leaders face our fears head-on, we’re not only bettering ourselves, but our entire teams, as well. By not allowing our fears to take up so much space, we leave more space for our teams — for conversations, creativity, vulnerability, empathy, and teamwork.
To go deeper into this exercise, take a look at our Four Fatal Fears resource, which guides you through more detailed definitions of the four types of root fears and poses more questions to help you dig deeper into your own fears in the workplace.
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AUTHOR – Gretchen Reid is the Founder and Chief Change and Leadership Architect for Integrated Growth. She has spent over 25 years coaching leaders and creating award-winning Leadership and Talent Development Programs, directly contributing to multiple awards for her clients, including Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Forbes America’s Best Employers List, Forbes Best Employer for Diversity, and ASTD BEST. She is an Adjunct Professor of Change Management in the Strategic HR Masters Program, Denver University, University College. (MS, Career and Human Resource Development, Rochester Institute of Technology, BA, Psychology & Business Management, University of Rochester)