The Biggest Leadership Issue of Our Time: Fear

The biggest issue of our time isn’t a pandemic, an election, or the number of businesses closing. It isn't an increase in suicide, depression, drug use, or mounting poverty and debt.

The biggest leadership issue of our time is – fear.

In fact, at the core of every single one of the issues above is this pervasive, unrelenting fear.

Fear worldwide has created mass mesmerism that has paralyzed our world, destroyed economies, caused us to walk lockstep, shuttered many small and large businesses, and shattered dreams.

I hear it when I talk with the top leaders we work with each day. They want to move forward, yet their employees and colleagues are stuck. There is resistance to new ideas and bold moves. People are mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. 

And yet what are we as leaders doing to lessen the fear in our organizations?

Basically nothing. 

Too many leaders are buying into the fear and control, fanning fear’s flames, and even profiting off of it.

Still, other top leaders stoically claim that since they aren’t afraid, their employees and colleagues must not be fearful either, doing nothing to actually address their anxieties and concerns.

I believe this failure of leaders to address the fear in their organizations is creating a mounting crisis of leadership.

It is time for all leaders to call out the fear and control blindly driving our world today, address it, and help everyone break free of fear’s mesmeric hold.

And we can start doing this within our own teams and organizations.

?For over 20 years at WorldBlu, my team and I have studied the impact of fear on a leader’s ability to think clearly, lead others successfully, and make good decisions, particularly during stressful times.

Research shows that when we are in a mindset of fear, the peripheries of our brain shut down, we get tunnel-vision and become myopic.

Fear literally makes us dumber, unable to see the diversity of options available to us.

Additionally, according to research by the Cleveland Clinic and the National Science Foundation, the average person thinks around 60,000 thoughts a day. A staggering 95 percent of those thoughts are the exact same thoughts they had the day before, and a whopping 80 percent of those thoughts are actually negative and fear-based.

In her book, The Fearless Organization, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson calls out the fear in our organizations and the impact it has on overall performance.

We’ve seen the correlation here at WorldBlu as well. My team and I have worked with CEOs and top leaders in over 100 countries, teaching them and their teams our proven method for how to overcome fear in your team or organization for breakthrough results.  

One of our clients, the CEO of a large, multinational company with over 120,000 employees, found himself gripped with fear during a very challenging economic time.

He realized they would need to find a way to save millions of dollars fast, or they would have to lay people off.

Instead of being frozen by the fear or making his employees feel stressed and anxious about the situation, he took a radically different, freedom-centered approach.

Taking to his company-wide blog, he transparently and honestly let his employees know that they needed to find a way to save $100 million fast or they would have to let hundreds of employees go.

He asked for their ideas and he asked for their help.

He didn't know if by being open about their problems he would scare his employee even more, or if they would rally together.

He would soon find out. 

Before he knew it, instead of becoming paralyzed with all of the “what ifs?” his employees rose above the fear.

Hundreds of ideas came pouring forward from every department and every office around the world with ideas for how they could cut costs and save jobs.

The CEO and his core executive team reviewed every idea, determining which ones they could act on quickly and which ones would have to wait.

In the end, they identified 76 ideas that could save the company money – fast.

The result?

Instead of saving just the $100 million needed to keep everyone employed, the fearless ideas from their employees saved them a whopping $260 million – and no one was laid off.

I believe we have a moral, ethical, and fiduciary responsibility as leaders to call out rather than ignoring the fear holding our employees, teams, organizations, and our world hostage right now.

It’s time for us to address fear, hold those accountable for perpetuating it, and model responsible fearlessness in order to keep moving forward.

Fearless leadership is real leadership and our communities, organizations, and our world urgently needs it right now.