Imagine, you are asked to provide 360
feedback on a manager with whom you have a difficult relationship. Or imagine you are leading a team and no one
is saying what they really think – you perceive that people are holding back
their opinions.
Or what about a situation where leaders are
physically closing doors … an acquisition has been recently announced but you
and your colleagues know little about what the impact will be on the business. In all of these situations, most commonly, and
not surprising, the overwhelming response is fear.
In my day-to-day work, I find myself in
situations where training or leadership development is expected to be the
answer. However, when one starts working
with participants or a team, really trying to understand the issues, what often
emerges is that there is a larger, unspoken issue.
Few are courageous enough to name the
problem, or perhaps some have tried and been ostracized, or some others are
trying in very indirect terms to expose it. Instead what wins out and what we commonly
experience, is people acting out – with unproductive behaviours – as a means of
coping with fear.
In my opinion, fear is a strange thing. Strange because it is so strong in its sudden
and sometimes intense expression, but also pervasive – as in, people will draw
on it and generate stories from it for considerably long periods of time. It feels somehow safer to expend energy on a
version of my experience (largely fueled by fear) because then I can avoid
conflict and hurting anyone, and at the same time not expose my fear, my
vulnerability.
Truth is, fear keeps us trapped in this way.
Now I know this is nothing new. We all know it. However, what might be useful is to take a
personal audit of where you are exerting effort and energy around covering up or
holding back because of a fear, and then ask yourself, what is the worst thing
that can happen?
Some of you may know Chris Hatfield, the
Canadian Astronaut who has been speaking recently about his incredible journeys
into space. He makes this point that we
ought to discern for ourselves the difference between danger and fear. Many of our fears are not about significantly
dangerous activities, I mean, life-threatening dangerous. Many of our fears, in this way, are foolish
and irrational.
Instead the all-consuming fear we
experience is likely grounded is something much less dangerous, like a feeling
that we don’t belong, or others may perceive we don’t have the answers. These feelings of inadequacy are perceived by
our delicate ego as extremely scary. More
likely what is rushing through our brains are questions like “am I going to be
ok?”; “can I handle this?”; “am I equipped to change?”; “what will be the
ramifications of this change?”; or “what will people think?”.
Key to understanding why these questions
arise for people are two truths: 1. human
beings are intensely hard-wired to avoid threats and 2. human beings are
creatures of habit—many of us don’t like change.
Reality is we can through greater
self-awareness manage our responses to threat: really analyze the danger there and what might
be possible. Imagine, what if you could
re-frame a threat into an opportunity?
That’s what some of the most resilient and
optimistic minds out there do – come on, you know at least one. They’re probably that really annoying friend
whom you continuously marvel at for their ability to stay positive. There is something there for us to try. In addition, we can also purposefully put
ourselves into change situations or situations of discomfort regularly to build
resiliency.
So, yes, I am suggesting that you should
seek out situations that cause you discomfort and engage in them anyway because
you know it is building your “wheelhouse” for adaptability and resiliency. In my opinion, this is what great leaders
instinctively know to do.
The next time you get the burning “fearful”
feeling, why not ask yourself: how
dangerous, really, how dangerous is this situation? What purpose is the fear serving? Is the fear really keeping me safe? And safe from what exactly? What opportunity might I be missing by letting
myself operate from fear? What else
might be possible here if I let go of the fear and communicate what I am
experiencing, seeing, feeling?
You may be surprised the impact you can
have on your team, your environment and your workplace in general. Of course understanding how best to expose
issues, communicate and influence others in the workplace is also a critical
next step.
