Feel the fear and do it anyway.

To be human is to know failure. It’s an inevitable part of life. One of the frailties of the human psyche is our fear of failure. Yet without overcoming fear, we can’t innovate, create, or push forward as we are paralyzed by it. Fear-based cultures are averse to innovation because of the possibility of failure. These cultures erode trust, destroy collaboration, and stifle creativity.

Many of us have experienced this kind of culture first-hand. Management that does not clarify expectations, instead changing the goals constantly and publicly ridiculing those who do not meet their shifting expectations. Managerial fear overpowering trust, eroding the confidence of even the most capable people. Fear spreads, with a general lack of risk-taking and creativity, leading to underperformance. In a confidence-sapping negative spiral, those who speak up do so tentatively, which makes them appear unsure. This creates doubt in their capabilities, and management interrogates them more aggressively. Their nervousness increases, they become incapable of thinking clearly, and the situation deteriorates from there.

THE FOOTPRINT OF A FEAR-BASED CULTURE

In fear-based cultures, a large portion of the workforce can become disengaged, simply going through the motions each day. People who are reluctant to take risks will not act, even when the course of action is obvious. And if something goes wrong, they can be quick to find someone else to blame.

A workplace culture of permissiveness, blame, and inaction fosters bullying. Pervasive workplace bullying tends to start at the top, trickling down through the ranks, creating an entrenched cycle that is difficult to stop. If leaders normalize this behavior by indicating that it is acceptable—either by implicitly allowing others to join in the bullying or by failing to intervene—the trickle-down effect can be devastating.

A study in Personnel Psychology found that supervisors who perceive being excluded from decision-making (being ignored or denied the opportunity to offer input) often demonstrate abusive behavior toward their employees, generally in the form of angry outbursts. In the same vein, in research published in the Academy of Management Journal, University of Minnesota psychologist Theresa Glomb, PhD, found that when a workplace establishes a bullying norm, other work-group members are more likely to act aggressively. Moreover, the people most likely to bully are those who feel bullied. “As such, one person’s sense of being bullied can quickly engender a toxic workplace in which bullying spreads,” she says.

In fear-based cultures, leaders use aggression to gain control over their situation, and that manifests in bullying.

A toxic culture is easy to spot, as telltale signs manifest:

• Autocratic leadership that refuses to include employees in key decisions.
• Stifled decision-making as power coalitions focus on serving their own interests.
• Fear of failure and being wrong as any setbacks are catastrophized and employees punished. ul
• Culture of blame and scapegoating as everyone strives not to become a target.
• Lack of risk-taking and a desire to remain invisible.
• Lack of two-way feedback mechanism between leadership and employees where leaders talk about collaboration, but no-one takes them seriously.
• Low-level griping and gossip about a common enemy rather than constructive dialog to resolve issues.
• Increase in employee sick days due to stress in the environment.

The underlying assumption of a fear-based culture is that stability and control are to be valued, largely at the expense of innovation, flexibility, and discretion. Fear doesn’t bring out the best in people, but rather mutes their performance, as they take fewer risks and make overly conservative, safe choices. The cost of complete safety is the complete loss of freedom.

Lack of trust becomes endemic, and after a certain point, the organization is at the mercy of the law of diminishing returns, as productivity is diminished and risk-taking is avoided at all costs. Employees who care deeply and want to make a difference find themselves at an impasse as they are unwilling to share great ideas. And in a place that repeatedly violates their values, they are mistreated by their friends and colleagues in a bizarre attempt to gain favor with management.

ALIVE AND DEAD

Schr?dinger’s cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schr?dinger in 1935 to demonstrate quantum mechanics. In simple terms, Schr?dinger stated that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat (a radioactive atom) in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so that until the box was opened, the cat was (in a sense) both dead and alive. This is used to represent how scientific theory works. No one knows if any scientific theory is right or wrong until it can be tested and proved.

In the organizational context, a similar paradox can occur, as we unwittingly seek comfort in familiar discomfort. Efforts to please fear-inducing managers exhaust employees in the team, and many of them break down over time. As disengagement sets in, they are less inclined to be creative or innovative. Instead, they do the bare minimum to survive, while staying as invisible as possible. They are present physically, but out of necessity of self-preservation, and to protect themselves from the toxic environment, they become emotionally absent. Schr?dinger’s cat was imaginary, but the team’s situation is very real, and a sad demonstration of being trapped in a situation in which they feel both alive—and dead. Alan Briskin wrote in his book The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace: “The tragedy of individuals who have never known work to be anything but demeaning is that they begin to disintegrate physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”

BREAKING OUT OF THE BOX

Fear is an inevitable emotion. We encounter it in all aspects of our lives, at work, at school, and at home. The key to success lies in how we manage fear. For leaders, consistently overcoming fear is essential. Being tenacious in spite of fear takes courage of conviction and a strong belief in our choices. Leaders who are paralyzed by fear cannot fight for their causes and cannot fight for their teams. Fearless leaders are ironically, never truly without fear; instead, they know how to find the silver lining in spite of it.

Be resolute.

Motivation is not enough. Sheer willpower will not keep you motivated to stay the course. Effective leaders know that being motivated will get them started but won’t get them through the rough days that lie ahead. Real dedication is the only thing that can empower this journey. And to find this, all leaders have to ask themselves just how resolute they really are. By understanding their level of commitment to the path and the reason for taking it, these leaders can tap into this internal resource when times get tough. Holding onto their “why” helps them power through fear, and speak up to overcome it if necessary.

Identify challenges.

Visionary leaders anticipate setbacks. They are realistic about obstacles getting in the way of their goals, and they are ready to meet these challenges head-on. Some challenges are unavoidable; others are within our control. Leaders who recognize the difference put plans in place to overcome those that are in their control and minimize or accept those that are unavoidable. They assume there will be bumps in the road so as to be as prepared as possible to deal with them.

Practice positivity.

A positive attitude buffers fear. Accomplished leaders know that a single negative event is not part of a never-ending pattern of defeat. If they mess up, they admit it, learn from it, and move on. Shifting our focus to a positive perspective breaks the paralyzing cycle of fearful rumination and galvanizes us back to action.

Detach from the outcome.

Jack Canfield wrote: “If you want to remain calm and peaceful as you go through life you have to have high intention and low attachment.”?Effective leaders know that not always getting what they want or having things go their way is just a part of life. They are skilled at letting such things go, while maintaining forward momentum in the direction of the goal.?By detaching from a particular outcome, leaders remain agile, embracing alternate possibilities and seeing opportunities that may otherwise have remained hidden. They are also less likely to resort to bullying to get the results they want.

GETTING UP IS UP TO US

We all deal with fear every day. The challenge is to feel that fear and move through it. We’re all going to fall occasionally, and sometimes we find ourselves in a fear-based culture that threatens to overwhelm us. Getting back on our feet when this culture knocks us down is up to us. Helping others to do the same is just as important. What a gift we give ourselves, our colleagues, our teams, and our communities if we can push through our fear and see the world of possibility that exists in every interaction, every relationship, and every experience of our lives.?Fear has two meanings: Forget everything and run, or face everything and rise. The choice is yours.

Excerpts of this article are from Taming the Sabertooth: Resilient Leadership in a Stressful World