Are you a leader who leads with fear? If you’re not sure, check out what this article has to say about signs you’re more fearful than fearless.
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Fear is natural, even in leaders. It is not a bad thing as long as you learn to manage it and put it to productive use by not letting it be the basis of how you act or make decisions.
When a team performs poorly, energy in the environment seems low and employees appear to be disengaged and unmotivated, leaders need to take one hard look at how others perceive them in the workplace and the impact their behavior and action has on others.
Leading from fear, even if unintentionally can have a profound impact on whether people in the organization feel connected, cared for and empowered or pushed aside, constrained to make decisions and held back to voice their opinions.
To be an effective leader, you need to overcome your fears. The first step to improving anything is to recognize and acknowledge it. John Maxwell put this so succinctly « You can’t grow yourself unless you know yourself ».
Remember, leadership is not in the title. It’s in simple acts – shift from me to we, give up control, build trust, genuinely care for your people, learn from your mistakes, accept you don’t know, value multiple viewpoints and seek feedback to learn from your blind spots.
This change won’t happen overnight and it will be hard. You can lead a life of significance and be the leader your people want by learning to recognise these 9 signs of leading from fear.
In The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman describes how self-awareness is extremely powerful for leaders
Once leaders develop self-awareness, they create the possibility for shifting, a master skill of conscious leaders. Shifting is moving from closed to open, from defensive to curious, from wanting to be right to wanting to learn, and from fighting for the survival of the individual ego to leading from a place of security and trust
If you are willing to let go of your ego and be open to face reality, these 9 signs will provide guidance to determine if you are leading from fear and headed in the wrong direction.
Do you feel like you need to be part of every discussion, every meeting, every decision? Will things go wrong if you are not involved? If being in charge gives you the rush, you are dealing with FOMO — fear of missing out.
The desire to be in control every minute of the day stems from a lack of trust in your team and not giving them enough opportunity to step up and take charge.
Without empowering your team to make independent decisions you either need to be omnipresent or run the risk of building an unproductive team that achieves too little and does not grow.
When people in the team need confirmation and approval every step of the way, they do not develop instincts and thinking required to be self-reliant, which hampers their growth in the long run.
If you ignore new learning opportunities, seek simple goals, avoid making hard decisions, and lack commitment to vision and goals, you may be dealing with the fear of failure.
Being risk-averse prevents you from taking up any new challenges with the fear you might fail. Without the courage to even try, you create a workplace environment where safe choices are preferred over creativity and innovation.
When people in the team learn to play safe, the focus to succeed at all costs prevents them from questioning the effectiveness of their work. As active curiosity through experimentation, exploration, and constructive conflicts takes a back seat, learning in the team stalls leading to unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
