Fearless Leadership

Overcoming Reticence, Procrastination, and the Voices of Doubt Inside Your Head

Alan Weiss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000753554
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The intent of this book -- the author's goal for you — is to understand the baseless underpinnings of almost all our fears. You read that correctly -- almost all our fears -- and therefore to discard them. The author has expertly coached leaders and managers in the discovery of, examination of, elimination of, and sustained freedom from fears.

We all know people who are charming and articulate, but flounder on a stage addressing colleagues; musicians who master intricate scores but can't play the basics when asked to solo; athletes who "choke"; business people who are strong until it comes time to ask for the business; people who consistently feel like "imposters."

We are far better at dealing with external, tangible fears than our own imagined ones. We purchase insurance, watch the safety demonstrations, know how to use the Heimlich Maneuver. But those are responses to rare and often never-occurring emergencies. Our mythical and monstrous fears are daily dark clouds, masking our talents no less than depression or guilt.

It's time to realize there is no monster under the bed, never has been, and never will be without having to check nightly and without needing a weapon on the night table. Picture yourself freed of restraints that you could never properly articulate and were loath to discuss, but which you carried on your shoulders constantly, a dead weight, nonetheless.

Essentially, this book is for entrepreneurs, business owners, and those who seek a better position for themselves and their talents, but who procrastinate, delay, and hang back. It's about isolating and overcoming the internal fears that we generate every day like a geyser, triggered by time, events, or shifts in the environment. We are our own worst enemies and we ignore the practical remedies to escape fear because we use our energies instead on blaming everyone else.

CHAPTER 1

Real Fear and Fraudulent Fear

We should fear certain events and circumstances, but they fall into clear categories and occurrences. Fear is somewhat infectious, in that once it’s in our system it tends to take up residence and spread its tentacles into areas that are completely inappropriate. There’s a metaphoric “guy on our shoulder” (the voice of doubt) whispering in our ear, “Be afraid, be very afraid.”

The Tyrannosaurus and the Tyrant

That wonderful 100-million-year creation of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the T-rex familiarly, is probably the fiercest carnivore and killing machine in history. Its size, enormous teeth, speed, and varied diet were the causes of its incredible longevity, ended only when a giant piece of space junk slammed into the Yucatan.

Modern recreations of the monster depict an agile, feather-covered predator which ruled absolutely. Not many of the young made it to adulthood, but those that did you could probably see growing in front of you, since in a relatively brief time they grew to about 15 tons. That’s as much as ten Bentleys, more or less.

This animal is my starting point for several reasons. First, I want to point out that scientists who study predation have concluded that the success rate of predators—whether the T-rex, a pelican, or a cheetah (and excepting Wile E. Coyote)—was and is about one in ten. That is, they have to go on the attack about ten times in order to bring home dinner for the family.

Second, the T-rex was absolutely frightening, bellowing and screaming, immense, and quite fast.

Third, even the T-rex was helpless against that comet.

Leaders at all levels and people in varied pursuits tend to fear what they shouldn’t (the customer or their own boss or speaking at a town meeting), not fear what they should (being left behind technologically or denying time with their family to work at their careers), and mistake what they can control and not control. The failure to deal successfully with ambiguity is a large part of fear, which we’ll discuss later in the book.

We’ve seen T-rexes in leadership. I’d nominate the late Al Dunlop—“chainsaw Al”—who would cut everything possible in an organization to save money. I was once on a consulting assignment with Bill Klopman of Burlington Industries who would scream obscenities at his top executives and send them running from the room in the aftermath of his fury. Those of us who remember taking history courses when they were required in school remember Hitler and Stalin, Mao and Idi Amin. There are martinets in the arts, in non-profits, and in athletics.

You may be able to feed yourself through predation, but you can’t lead. Tyrannosaurs didn’t travel in packs, had no hierarchy, no corner offices. It was every reptile for itself.

So why is it that leaders feel threatened, frightened, and fearful? Why do the people in power with big teeth, a bellowing roar, and heavy weight often act (or fail to act) out of fear?

Here are the primary reasons:

1. Ego sensitivity. Our egos are often bolted to the front of the ship, absorbing the winds and waves and getting battered. Our ego should be down in the cargo hold, safely tucked away.
2. Ambiguity. We fear the unknown and see grey areas as potential traps instead of potential opportunity. After all, if you’re not sure what’s in the dark why assume that it’s bad?
3. Lack of proportion. We tend to see victory as transient and defeat as inevitable, waiting just around the corner. We overstate risk and believe we’ll have a hard time doing things despite all evidence to the contrary!
4. Poor and low self-esteem. Leaders often feel like imposters, uncertain as to how they’ve had the good fortune to arrive where they are and certain they’ll be “found out.” Almost every Oscar-winning actor you see at the ceremonies is worried about whether he or she will work again. After all, they’ve received awards for portraying someone who’s not them.

Fear Factor

Our default position is to fear, and we have to change it. A question, objection, rebuttal, or adverse reaction are all signs of interest. It’s apathy that’s horrible, but confrontation is actually quite healthy.

When I first played Little League^® baseball I drove myself into a panic. How could I hit a ball with a bat? Even though I had been practicing continually, there were adults looking on and I might let down my teammates. I was shaking when I reached the plate and struck out on three pitches. The pitcher wasn’t very good. But I wasn’t about to hit anything in my state of fear.

The same holds true for newly appointed leaders, or those who face a new scenario (addressing the media), or those who feel their entire careers are on the line (presenting to the board), or those who believe they’ve erred and failed (if you’re not failing, you’re not trying).

We encounter people who are afraid to make a decision, despite the urgency of the matter. We deal with people who procrastinate endlessly, less afraid of the criticism they receive for procrastination than the fear of making a decision or taking an action that’s wrong. And then there are the perfectionists who refuse to move unless everything is exactly right—which it never will be. The “threshold effect” occurs when the temporary fear of doing something is outweighed by the long-term pain. So we go to the dentist, accepting short-term pain instead of permanent discomfort. The problem, of course, is that many people won’t endure the pain of a divorce in the moment and instead lead a lifetime of loveless misery.

Perfectionism is the enemy of excellence and is generated by fear of being imperfect. Therefore, you’ll never be excellent, either.

Finally, as a consultant and coach, I’ve encountered leaders all too often who are afraid of acting without the consensus—or, worse, uniformity—of their direct reports. They fear people “won’t be on board,” or will not fully commit, or will actually undermine the project or initiative.

This is an abdication of power and responsibility. I fondly recall the great scene from Indiana Jones where Harrison Ford is confronted by a warrior expertly swinging two horrible swords, one in each hand, and barring the way. Ford pulls out a gun and shoots him.

Now, I’m not advocating armed leadership. But I am suggesting it’s folly to disregard the weapons at your disposal, especially when they can overcome those issues which create fear.

The T-rex had the jaw power to bite through a modern automobile, let alone the bones of its prey. It didn’t need reminding of that, it instinctively knew it.

Fight, Flee, Fright

Psychologists talk about the “fight or flight” phenomenon (also known as acute stress response and labeled by Walter Cannon 100 years ago^*). This can be triggered by a loud noise in the house at night or speaking to colleagues in a business meeting. The terror releases hormones that help deal with the threat.

* He was chairman of the psychology department at Harvard University and published The Wisdom of the Body in 1923 (current publisher W.W. Norton & Co.).

Fighting or fleeing were the two options always recognized, but I’d like you to consider a third: fright. You might consider the fright something that triggers the other two options, but I’ve found it increasingly a third option that paralyzes leadership.

When we face these choices, we experience increases in blood pressure (which is why your pressure shoots up in the dentist’s office), a faster heartbeat, and stressed breathing. The perceptions and connections here are key: We’ve all experienced these conditions simply seeing a police car suddenly appear on the side of the road even though we’re not speeding or breaking any laws!

The positive side of all this is that you should be hormonally better prepared for the challenge ahead. You may prepare better for the presentation or run faster from the perceived mugger. However, these perceived threats and dangers—some real and some not so real because perception is reality—often paralyze us or cause false senses of threat. People develop phobias and have anxiety attacks in elevators, airplanes, and business meetings (“What if I’m called on to give an opinion?”). These conditions undermine performance and mask talent.

This is where my third option “fright” enters the picture. Fighting leads to direct confrontation, physically or rhetorically, and fleeing leads to a rapid departure from the threat. However, we’re often stuck on the third rail, and we simply remain frightened, frozen in place, unable to move, or decide, or recover.

Many of the notorious corporate scandals were rooted in fright: the inability of people to counter the dysfunctional normative behavior around them to either depart or blow the whistle (flight or fight). At Volkswagen, there was active and passive participation in covering up their false emission standards claims. At Wells Fargo the same occurred with the fraudulent customer accounts that were opened and sustained. Enron collapsed because of these dynamics. The space shuttle Challenger crashed because engineers’ warnings went unheeded or were overridden.

Frightened leadership is an organizational toxicity. As much as Mark Zuckerberg is a pioneer launching the now ubiquitous Facebook, he seems frightened about the legitimate uproar over lack of privacy and hateful language on the site. He’s not running from it, but he’s not fighting it, either. He seems caught in the headlights.

Fear Factor

The reason we talk about a “deer frozen in the headlights” is that the deer cannot fight a car and doesn’t flee because it’s too frightened by an unexpected threat. Usually, it is killed.

What are the elements that cause these reactions in leaders to go on the offensive, run away, or simply freeze in place? I think they include:

• Unexpected competitive moves in the marketplace.
• New technology with uncertainty about usefulness.
• Customer revolt over operations (e.g., sources of labor).
• Challenges to longstanding assumptions (e.g., demographic change).
• Unanticipated capacity demands.
• Departure of key talent.
• Media revelations (whether true or untrue).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Other Works by Alan Weiss
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Real Fear and Fraudulent Fear
• Chapter 2 The Origins of Your Current Fears
• Chapter 3 Manifestations of Fear
• Chapter 4 Erasing Past Fears
• Chapter 5 Preventing Future Fears
• Chapter 6 Changing Your Metrics
• Chapter 7 Organizing Fearlessness
• Chapter 8 Your Fearless Future
• Resources
• Self-Test
• About the Author
• Index