Fear, Breakthroughs, and Leadership

Ugh.  The keep-you-up-at-night, belly-aching anxiety associated with risk. 

I know I promised you part 2 of “ The Power of No”,  but you’re going to have to wait just a little longer. Today I’m waiting for an international wire transfer to be completed on my behalf for a significant business investment and I have thoughts and feelings to share about this in terms of leadership. 

It’s been a fearful week of complicated, domino-effect plans to get to this point. Covid 19 makes challenging things even more… well,  challenging.  I’m also waiting for my eldest to get on a plane and start a new business venture here in Mexico with me.  During Covid.  A business venture that requires guests. 

Scary, right?

I’ve had my share of sleepless nights, and I expect there will be more in my future.

There have been some doubters, but most of my network is excited and supportive. I’ve got Plan A and Plan B… and I’m working on Plan C. 

We all have our own ways of coping with fear.  Some of us shut down, some distract ourselves with vices (yes, online shopping at midnight falls into this category!), some of us go on the critical attack of other people’s plans.  Then, we get to this:

This is me to a tee.  And, frankly, I think it’s super healthy!  So if you can’t relate, or haven’t created a corporate culture where this is acceptable – nay, encouraged – let’s unpack it: The best leaders take the time to consider the risks and recognize how a negative outcome could affect the business, the team, the customers, themselves.  When you are making significant decisions, moving through this intellectual process SHOULD trigger emotional responses.  That is the human in us. 

Sadly, many of us haven’t been provided examples of appropriately dealing with emotion in the workplace, and as a result we believe emotions are unacceptable in business!  I say this is PREPOSTEROUS!   

We have learned to squash our feelings down so much that we don’t even acknowledge them to ourselves.  This has a cascading negative effect as a leader because miss out on crucial insights our emotions provide:

1. We miss the cues based on our own intuition.
2. We overlook details that could derail us.
3. We fail to consider what information will be required of our team or customers for buy-in.
4. We fail to consider options that could improve the idea, overall, or reduce risk.
5. We habitualize ignoring our feelings which robs us of other feelings, like joy!
6. Our health and our relationships suffer.

The greatest successes come from taking some level of risk.  We need to challenge ourselves AND be operating from a safe foundation in order to take the leap.  When we create environments that do not allow for processing of emotion, we fail to create environments for bold successes.  In other words:

There is no breakthrough without breaking down.

Think about a boss you’ve had that showed no emotion. Or maybe just one emotion – anger.    Did you trust them completely?  Be honest. Were you certain they would be empathetic if you experienced failure or a personal crisis?  There is no way for you to be certain about that. 

As a leader, you need to add another line item to the list above:   

          7).  People won’t fully trust you!

So, rather than ignoring our feelings, we need to work on a system to process them in a mature, but honest, manner.  We need to role-model that to our teams and our families.  And we need to make it okay for growth in this area. 

We’re not going to be good at managing our emotions at work in a healthy way at first – it takes some fine-tuning, like adjusting the shower settings in the morning! So be easy on yourself and your team. Creating an environment where our very human selves can show up for each other, in daily wins and losses, leads to overall success!

Executive coaching helps you develop these skills.  If you want your work to be a place where your true self thrives, learning to integrate your values, intuition, and humanness on the way to financial success is key.  Reach out for your introductory session today!

In the meantime… I’m going to listen carefully to my feelings today to come up with Plan C for success!