“Most companies perish while their management is frozen with terror.”

– From the book Primal Leadership by Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee

I grew up in bear country. Both grizzlies and black bears. I’ve encountered more bears in my yard, in campsites, while running or hiking than most people will ever see in their entire lives.

Where I live, nearly every year, at least one person is attacked and usually killed by a bear. I have a healthy respect for bears. But I’m not afraid of them. Not that I couldn’t be – but that isn’t my automatic response.

I’ve developed habits in terms of how I relate to bears – both before I encounter then and during the encounter. Those habits allow me to be comfortable and safe in bear country.

The Habits of Fear

I was recently in a conversation with a number of colleagues in the consulting community. We were talking about the growth and development of our own businesses.

One commented that he recently realized that he had made a habit out of fear. This struck a chord within the group. There was some disagreement over whether or not fear, itself, could be a habit. Was the habit more about how we tended to act in response to fear? Or was it the ways that we tended to approach life situations that generated fear?

I’m not sure that fear, itself, is a habit. However, I strongly resonated with two concepts:

• My mindsets have often led me to experience fear. For example, if I’m locked in the belief that people won’t see value in what I offer and that this would be a personal rejection – I might fear engaging in business development. Since I don’t like feeling afraid, I avoid business development.

However, if I know that I offer something of value, it’s different. I know, through testimonials and observations, that my services have made a tremendous difference in the success of leaders, businesses and non-profits. If someone says, “No,” they are often really saying, “Not right now”. Many people who have said, “No”, later said, “Yes”. I don’t fear business development because I’m really just making friends with people. I can’t lose in that endeavor.

• I have often reacted as opposed to respond intentionally when I felt fear. Fear triggers a physical response in our brains. Without pretending I’m a neurologist, it essentially causes brain activity to shift away from the problem solving, critical thinking frontal lobe of the brain and shift toward parts of the brain that create automatic reactions: Often Fight, Flight or Freeze responses.

I feel the emotion of fear. I need to learn to engage that emotion instead of letting it control me. I’ve needed to learn to step into fear and face it.

When split second timing is the issue, there may be occasions where an automatic response to fear could save your life. However, even in most of those situations you’ll do better if you can quickly choose a better course of action. Most often the impulse to fight, flight or freeze doesn’t lead to the best (or even better) choices.

What Are Your Fear Habits?

What are the things that you tend to be afraid of? Maybe bears are one of them. But what about in your leadership role? I’ve found that leaders commonly hold these fears:

• A fear of learning what others really think about them. 360 degree assessments are terrifying for many leaders. Even if the responses are positive.

• A fear of conflict: Many leaders fear conflict. They view conflict as innately wrong or threatening. This limits their ability to engage new ideas, acknowledge problems or receive feedback. So they either avoid conflict or seek to immediately “win.”

• A fear of being found out as a fraud. Leaders are often required to handle a wide variety of issues. This quickly brings most leaders outside of their comfort zones.

• A fear of failure. Leaders, particularly high level leaders, have made a career out of success. Wins. Accomplishments. Along with this comes accolades. It bolsters our self-image. Failure is perceived as threatening to all of this.

• A fear of rejection. As it turns out, leaders are people too. We want to be liked and accepted. Some of the ‘callousness’ of some leaders is a reaction to needing to make difficult or unpopular decisions. The callousness often develops as a reaction to not wanting to feel disliked or rejected.

• A fear of purposelessness. Leaders need to feel some sense of vision and purpose. I’ve found that the most common reason that leaders overstay in their positions—and delay handing off to another leader is a fear of drifting into purposelessness.

Three Ways to Change Your Fear Habits

1. Habit of Preparation: I’ve had lots of bear encounters. This includes a bear waking us while looting our camp in the middle of the night and being stalked by a bear for over a mile.

I prepare when I go into bear country. Personally, I rarely ever carry a weapon or even bear spray. However, I’ve taken the time to learn about bears. I’ve learned how to interact to minimize surprising them. I’ve also thought through how I would handle a direct confrontation.

None of this means I wouldn’t feel fear if I was confronted or charged by a bear. However, it does mean that I’m not leaving my reactions up to chance.

As leaders, taking the time as a group or individuals to learn about situations and scenarios you are likely to face, to gather and engage with real data and to plan and rehearse effective responses will help you succeed.

Some leaders resist this, however, I find that they easily drift into negative imaginations about what “might” happen.

You need to capture this process. Learn about the situations you’ll face. Get accurate information. Plan and rehearse for effective responses.

2. The Habit of Mindset: Marshall Goldsmith identifies these three beliefs as common to all successful leaders.
   • I Have Succeeded: When facing fear successful leaders take stock in how they’ve handled challenges before. They review their successes in the past – to both encourage themselves and to learn what caused my success?
   • I Can Succeed: When facing fear successful leaders don’t allow the emotion to control decision making. Instead, they intentionally think through what it will take to succeed in the face of the current challenge. What resources, experiences or strengths do they have? What can they pull together?
     • Even if risk or chance of failure is real – successful leaders don’t feel owned by that chance. They see it and work to mitigate it.
   • I Will Succeed: Successful leaders choose to succeed. They follow through with creating a plan or a mental map that will lead to success. They pull together the resources that are necessary. They actively engage real data while defending against fear-based conclusions. They are purposeful in pursuing success. They don’t just hope success will happen.

3. The Habit of Response and Reflection: When we are faced by bad news. A massive shift in the economy or technology or the environment. A change in personnel. We react.
   • How quickly do we move to a place of reflection – evaluating the quality of our reaction?
   • How quickly do we make adjustments – based on reflection?

As we encounter situations that generate fear, the more we make a habit out of reflection (either alone – but even better – with a team) the more aware we’ll become of our tendencies.

As our awareness deepens, we’ll find that we become more aware of our reactions “in the moment”.

This allows us to not react. But to choose. And to achieve better results.

What fear tends to limit your success?

What is one habit you can begin to practice to help you grow?