The Long Shadow Of Fear

Fear often get's a bad rap. Yet if it weren't wired into the brains of our ancestors to alert them to potential threats to their survival, we wouldn't be here today. It’s just that back in our cave-dwelling days, we weren’t bombarded with reasons to feel afraid 24/7. Even just 15 years ago, we didn’t walk around glued to a device that was constantly alerting us to the potential dangers around every corner or in every encounter.

“It used to be that when you got scary news, it would be via your daily newspaper, or over your neighbours fence,” says Barry Glassner, a professor of sociology and author of the Culture of Fear. Not any more. Today we're assaulted at every turn with reasons why we should hunker down, play it safe and not even talk to our neighbours! We walk through each day with a long shadow of fear following our every step and fuelling our tendency to imagine the worst, however unlikely. The steep rise in usage of anti-anxiety medications reveals how much fear has set up residence in our every day lives. 

In today's culture of fear, we must be extra vigilant to discern between the legitimate fears that are serving us from those which aren't.

Yet long before the rising threat of extremism, climate change, super-bugs, random gun violence or artificial intelligence replacing our livlihood, there have been important things to fear. Like dying of the common cold or a simple infection. In fact, in many ways, we are safer today that at any point in human history. Though you'd hardly know it. The challenge we face in today’s climate of hyper anxiety and uncertainty, is to discern the legitimate fears that are serving us from those which only stoke anxiety, fuel mistrust, stifle ingenuity and amplify xenophobia.

"Real fear is a signal intended to be very brief, a mere servant of intuition,” wrote Gavin De Becker in The Gift of Fear. “The problem, however, is that if one feels fear of all people all the time, there is no signal reserved for the times when it’s really needed.” In other words, being in a constant state of heightened anxiety can leave us less safe not more so. In the process it can exact a steep and hidden tax:

• on our personal wellbeing (depression, disconnection, stress related illnesses, job dissatisfaction etc)
• on our organisations (anxiety erodes engagement and fuels distrust)
• in our communities (fear of 'others' creates division and bigotry)
• in our families (adolescent anxiety is also at an all time high spurred along by hyper anxious parents.)

Like all emotions, fear is contagious. Left unchecked, it can spread like a virus through our minds, down our hallways, into our conversations and across our collective psyche. Fear can rob our freedom faster than any enemy. By driving us to over-estimate risks and focus more on potential losses than on potential gains (what is called "loss aversion bias") it undermines the quality of our decision making and sabotages our efforts to enjoy deeper fulfilment, connection and sense of mastery in our every day lives. 

Interview in Wall Street Journal:

The irony here is that when we are operating from a 'Fear Mindset', preoccupied with shoring up the status quo and fretting about the many dangers that could befall us or those we care about, it keeps us from taking the very actions that would improve our lives and that of others and put us in a better position to deal with legitimate threats.

It's why fear runs most rampant, rhetoric is most divisive and headlines scream the loudest we must be extra vigilant not to let fear hold the reigns of power in our psyche or shape how we live and lead. As former Qantas CEO James Strong shared with me while researching Stop Playing Safe:

"One of the most important elements of great leadership is the ability to confront and overcome fear."

So what does it mean to confront and overcome fear and the power it can wield in your work, leadership and everyday life?

• It means having the courage to make a decision rather than sitting on the fence until you are 100% sure you cannot fail
• It means laying your pride and vulnerability on the line for the sake of meaningful goals
• It means refusing to succumb to the temptation to sort people into “us” and "them” and to loudly reject those who would rather you did. 
• It means spending less time slamming those who see differently than you, and more time genuinely trying to understand why they do.
• It means being slower to criticize and faster to apologize. 
• It means challenging the narrative you hold about why others are to blame for what is wrong and taking more responsibility to make things right. 
• It means embracing uncertainty and challenging old paradigms of power and leadership. 
• It means being someone who can be counted on to do what's right, even if it costs you. 
• It means spending less time scrolling the newsfeed on your phone and more time building meaningful connections with the people right in front of you.
• It means being willing to risk failure and losing face. Again and again and again.
• And last but not least, it means daring to choose growth over comfort, action over indecision and possibility over probability. 

One thing is certain, we cannot rely solely on those who sit in positions of formal power to make us feel safer and fix our problems.We must each step up to the leadership plate and take responsibility for being part of the solution rather than enabling the continuation of the thinking that brought the status quo into existence. To quote Einstein, "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which they were created."

The only thing that has ever preceded significant change has been the collective courage of those who are committed to it. 

So own your personal agency to affect change, starting with whatever problem is right in front of you. Because each time you choose to lay your pride on the line for the sake of something more important, you dilute the power of fear and amplify your own. After all, the most revered leaders throughout history have not ascended because of the power they've been given,  but because of how they've used the power they've always had. The same power resides in you.

Use it. Lest fear win... it's shadow is long.

Margie Warrell is a bestselling author of four books, a leadership speaker, facilitator and coach and the founder of Global Courage. Learn more how Margie can support you at www.MargieWarrell.com