Last week, we set a poll asking, “How do you maintain your composure and project confidence when facing fear or uncertainty as a leader?” as a precursor to the first of our 7 Tough Truths of Effective Leadership series. The winning vote was for “Open Communication.” Open communication has many benefits for leaders in managing fear; it creates a shared vision that their team can buy into, which reduces uncertainty and ambiguity; it shows empathy, which creates a stronger connection; it increases problem-solving effectiveness by fostering positive collaboration. All of these reduce the fear of something going wrong. However, it is not that simple or universally applicable for leaders, as their personality type determines the concept of ‘open communication’ in managing fear.
At the core of how well a leader functions is how they process fear, which enables them to do more of the difficult things they need to do to compete. If we think of commercial consequences on a scale of 1-10, with ‘10’ being ‘catastrophic consequences’ such as firing thousands of people, having millions of customers’ personal information hacked, or a career-destroying article in the national press, then most normal people would draw the line well below a ‘5’. However, competitive leaders who can process fear can draw the line somewhere closer to a 7, 8, or 9 – just short of catastrophic consequences. How far they can progress along this line depends on their personality, and where they draw the line depends on their virtues, motivations, and attachments to people. These things can be measured and indicate how well a leader will cope with fear and where they sit along a continuum of being likely to ‘play it safe,’ ‘push the envelope,’ or ‘create catastrophic consequences.’ Knowing whether their leaders can push the boundaries without blowing things up is critical for businesses that compete in high-stakes environments.
Fear is one of seven inescapable universal emotions, yet while this emotion is universal, how each person handles it is not universal. Some people and their personalities handle it better than others. Fear can also be a rational, emotional response to an irrational, imagined, potentially negative experience. The emotion is still rational; the belief about the negative experience is irrational. It is rational to be afraid of a black hole materializing inside your body and crushing you - that would be horrible! However, it is not rational to think that a black hole will materialize inside your body, yet we all fear irrational, unlikely, or impossible things will happen.
As the rules of reality do not govern imagination, anyone can imagine any potential negative experience. If the person believes this imagined negative experience is possible, they can feel fear about it. The more they believe it can happen, the more fear they feel – this is known as anxiety. Fear is not anxiety, as feeling fear is rational. Feeling fear of an imagined unlikely event is anxiety. The emotional and cognitive elements of modern anxiety have also been relabelled as ‘excessive worry.’
Whether triggered by lying to maintain an advantage, having difficult conversations, firing someone, investing in risky ventures, or any other fear-inducing business activity, most people do not like experiencing fear. Fear saps confidence and shuts down extroversion. It also makes people spend time inside their heads, triggering introversion and neurotic thoughts and behaviors people prefer to hide from the world. To counter this, there are five ways in which different leadership personalities handle fear.
Some leaders convert fear into fun. Many people do this when they know they are safe, choosing to watch a horror movie or go on a roller coaster. These are fear-inducing activities, yet the person converts this fear into fun - experiencing it as excitement, enjoyment, and exhilaration. Leaders with psychopathic traits embrace this option, converting fear into fun even when they are facing situations others would not consider safe and secure.
Other leaders enjoy the feeling of fear itself. This is similar to the previous option, yet they do not convert the fear. The leader does not know deep down that they are safe. Instead, they embrace the experience of fear by reveling in the chaos of calamity, conflict, and confusion. Leaders with sociopathic traits utilize this option.
Some leaders deal with fear by planning. You can always do something else if you plan well enough and have enough schemes and choices. There is always another move, so the multiplicity of options can avoid the fear of one thing. Leaders with Machiavellian traits apply this option.
Some leaders process fear by dialing up other emotions to make the fear less prominent. If everything is experienced at level 10, then fear at level 10 is not louder or more potent than other emotions, nor is it unusual—it’s just another emotion. Leaders with borderline traits leverage this option.
Finally, some leaders change what they fear. Instead of pesky things like facts and figures, they fear only things about themselves and their ego. Then, it doesn’t matter if they fail. It only matters if others know they failed—they only fear failure if it changes how people perceive them. Leaders with narcissistic traits favor this option.
These five ways of processing fear and the personalities that employ them are the differences that make the difference in competitive leadership situations. Good feelings, positive actions, and absolute transparency are not always practical policies for leaders who need to operate in highly competitive industries and implement high-risk strategies to counter intense competition from bad-faith actors. Competitive leaders must be able to feel the fear and act anyway.
Leaders are wired differently – they wilfully step into fearful situations others run a mile from. Leaders don’t have the internal protections afforded to managers – they need to make difficult decisions, take unpopular actions, and move closer to catastrophic consequences that paralyze and terrify most people. However, uncontained leaders with a natural affinity for breaking the rules can go too far and find themselves breaking people and even the law. Finding the edge of the line without crossing the line is the domain of the highly effective competitive leader.
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