At some point, every leader wonders how to overcome fear.
Maybe the fear is making the decision to leave the organization and retire.
Maybe the fear is making the wrong decision in a time of crisis.
No matter what, all leaders will be confronted with fear at some point.
And you must overcome this fear.
Here’s what can happen if you don’t overcome fear as a leader: You will not achieve your goals, you will let people down and you will make mistakes.
When you’re not operating in full confidence, you will make mistakes that can cost time, talent, money and even lives.
This is why you can’t walk in fear as a leader.
Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.
Fear is nothing.
What Leaders Fear
1. The unknown
People are afraid of what they don’t know.
It’s easy to be afraid to make a decision when you don’t know what the consequences will be.
Imagine being in a dark house with all the doors closed and you hear a noise on the other side of a door.
Are you going to open the door?
Most people will not open the door if they don’t know what’s on the other side.
Fear of the unknown has paralyzed more people than almost anything else.
2. Uncertainty
Leaders fear the uncertainty of outcomes.
If you take a step, will it improve your life?
Will it make a difference?
3. Failing, again
The biggest fear for leaders is failure.
You are afraid to take a new step because the last time you did, it didn’t work out.
It’s easy to become paralyzed when you feel like you will fail.
4. What others think
We often get caught up in searching for approval from our coworkers, friends and family.
Sometimes, we don’t make decisions because we fear what they may think of it.
We do things for other people’s attention rather than doing the right thing all the time.
5. Success
Many people deal with a fear success.
You wonder what will happen if you take that big step.
Will success create more problems?
You wonder how you’ll navigate in uncomfortable spaces.
How Leaders Overcome Fear
1. Don’t do it alone
You may be trying to do everything alone, but you can’t.
You can’t rely on your own resources, intellect, knowledge and understanding to make decisions.
You need feedback.
You need support from other people that can give you different perspectives.
This is how you make stronger decisions.
2. Use your resources
You may only be depending on your own resources to make things happen.
You probably don’t have all the resources necessary to execute certain decisions.
This goes back to relying on others for support.
Find people that can provide you with the resources you need to make the best decisions for your organization.
3. Be okay with fear
The last thing you can do to overcome fear is to recognize that you’re never going to overcome fear.
You have to do it afraid.
That’s what courage is.
Courage isn’t having supreme confidence that you can do and overcome anything.
Courage is being afraid but doing it anyway.
As you navigate the fears in your life at the leadership level, I challenge you to move forward.
Recognize the areas you lack and ask for help.
Do it afraid.
There’s no leader that actually wanted to make the decision to go to war because they know bad things can happen.
They know there’s uncertainty and they’ll get criticized.
But they do it anyway.
There are many leaders who are afraid to make big decisions to transform their organizations because of what everyone might say, but they do it anyway.
Those are the leaders we remember through history because they overcame their fear by doing it afraid.
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