Introduction

Leading Fearlessly involves catching yourself reacting to a situation, rather than responding to it, and then shifting to a more effective response.

Leaders tend to ignore or minimize feedback when they are too afraid to hear it. Fear undermines our capacity to take in feedback and use it to grow personally and professionally, as well as to influence and impact others.

Leading Fearlessly: When people react fearfully to feedback or suggestions for improvement, they often exhibit:

  • Confusion
  • Perfectionism
  • Defensiveness
  • Resistance
  • Discouragement

Question for you:

Which one(s) of these do you exhibit when your buttons are pushed?

Visible behaviors like these are usually the result of underlying irrational fears, brought to the surface by certain situations. The three most fundamental irrational fears that threaten our need to be accepted, valued, and protected are these: Personal Rejection, Role Insignificance, Irreparable Hurt.

Which one(s) of these 3 irrational fears stand out as your strongest fear?

Irrational fears alone would not create your retroactions, however. They simply agitate you. You must also believe that, if you react in a certain way to the fear, it will protect you. Irrational fears combine with faulty beliefs to undermine your response. Faulty beliefs can most easily be thought of as “if, then” statements that start with the belief and end with the false promise of protection. They direct your ineffective behaviors.

Here are seven common faulty beliefs; which one(s) seem to be like those that drive your ineffective behaviors?

From where do fears, faulty beliefs originate? Faulty beliefs develop in the same way irrational fears are born--in a moment of upset from early childhood. When a fearful event occurs in childhood, we feel the fear and quickly construct a theory about how to protect ourselves.

Why do fears and faulty beliefs persist into adulthood, even when we identify them and are on the lookout for them? Anchor lies tell us why we are fundamentally unacceptable to others. This helps explain the habitual, intractable nature of our fearful reactions. The five anchor lies are:

  • Abandonment
  • Shamefulness
  • Invalidation
  • Hopelessness
  • Alienation


Which of these five lies do you think underlies and sustains your fears/faulty beliefs?

The key to Leading Fearlessly is to understand fully the role of lies, irrational fears and faulty beliefs in making you stumble, and then to catch yourself when you begin to react thoughtlessly as a leader. The components of breakthrough behavior as a leader are these:

  • Identify catalyst situations and events
  • Be alert for your “early warning” symptoms
  • Ask yourself what is causing you to feel irrational fear, or hooking your anchor lie
  • Get perspective on how important this is
  • Reinforce your healthy beliefs

Conclusion

In a leadership role, the key to leading fearlessly is to recognize that certain people or circumstances may bring out the worst in you, but you can have control over your reactions.

Recognizing your irrational fears, faulty beliefs and/or anchor lie(s) can help you stop reacting. Shifting your response to one based on healthy beliefs creates opportunities for high performance.

Reflection Moment

Think about the ways in which you get in your own way as a leader of others.  What will you apply right away from this learning module to help you lead more fearlessly and effectively?

INSTRUCTOR

Bruce E. Roselle, PhD

Organizational Psychologist

Bruce E. Roselle, PhD is an organizational psychologist who brings a breadth of experience and a deep sense of purpose to the task of helping leaders become more authentic and fearless. Founder and President of Roselle Leadership Strategies, Inc. (1995), he has coached executives, managers, and individual contributors and has facilitated leadership workshops and team sessions for organizations in the for-profit, non-profit, educational, and governmental fields. Prior to starting RLSI, he worked as a senior consultant for PDI/Korn Ferry for seven years. A recognized expert in the field of leadership development, Bruce has been a frequent speaker at professional conferences and corporate events. An Emeritus Psychologist in Minnesota, he holds a PhD in Counseling from the University of Minnesota. He earned his Psychology BA at Northwestern University. The various services he and his team provide are described on the Roselle Leadership website: www.roselleleadership.com. Bruce currently writes a regular online column for the American City Business Journals (https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/bio/35592/Bruce+Roselle.) In the past, he has written and co-written articles that appeared in various professional journals in the field of leadership development and talent management. He has published four books, including: Vital Truths (2002) and Fearless Leadership (2006), which won two awards from independent publishing organizations--Best Business Book (bronze) and Best Self-Help Book (silver) in 2007. His third book, The Fraud Factor, was published in 2016. The Great Leader Handbook was published in 2019.

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