Why you need to eradicate fear in the workplace.

During the last few months, the Ethical Quest team has been chatting with leaders from all over the world about their most significant, most immediate challenges.

What’s the greatest test of leadership right now? Fear. With so much unprecedented change and volatility, leaders face the complexity of problem-solving like they never had before. There’s no training manual to reference, and making decisions in a climate where nobody has the answers leads to uncertainty and worry, breeding states of fear.

Understanding the detrimental effects fear has on your team’s performance and the broader organisation is the first step. As a leader, how can you create a speak-up culture and encourage your people to be more open?

The damage of fear

We will inevitably experience some level of stress or worry in the workplace throughout our careers. However, it’s the ongoing, persistent feelings of fear that can lead to underperformance and contribute to negative relationships between leaders and team members.

Fear not only stands in the way of professional growth, but it also hampers personality, creativity, kills motivation, weakens our immune system, and may even lead to depression. The human body reacts to fear by releasing the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, increasing heart rate, and causing our lungs to take in air faster. In some cases, it can cause cardiovascular damage and gastrointestinal issues. While fear offers us survival instincts, we need to keep us safe from harm, unhealthy fear in a workplace setting prevents us from doing our job correctly.

A climate of fear breeds defensive behaviour and stops us from thinking clearly. However, as leaders, we must take a breath. We must focus on opening up the conversation and being as transparent about what information you know.

It’s your responsibility to create psychological safety for the team to feel comfortable enough to ask questions and lean on each other appropriately to navigate unchartered territory better. It’s no easy feat! Under pressure and during times of stress, we all fall into ingrained habits of stress that may see us pushing for results to get things done, particularly if you have to do more with less.

Creating a fearless workplace

A Harvard Business School professor, James L. Heskett, says, ‘fear inhibits learning and cooperation by fostering an epidemic of silence.’ So, how do you create a fearless workplace? Fortunately, there’s a proven remedy. In her book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy C Edmondson delves into more practical ways of allowing your team members to bring their full self to work, welcome their voice openly, without bias or fear, and to encourage them to speak up on work-related issues, questions, concerns, and mistakes. Psychological safety encourages more openness and honesty, paving the way to a workplace of tremendous mutual respect and improved teaming. When a leader addresses the fear in the room, performance and potential are more easily achievable.

How leadership mindfulness helps.

How can you motivate your team to do their best work? How do you inspire, coach, and provide feedback to make achieving excellence a rewarding experience? Start with mindfulness. Respond rather than react by stopping, breathing, learning, and listening. Reflect on the information you’ve gathered and allowed different perspectives. Become curious about taking a different path to get the results. Unnecessary pressure and fixed result orientation closes your thinking and mind to possibilities. No one person has all the answers; that’s the old management method, and it’s impossible. When you allow for difference of views and input, you open a dialogue, and it’s that sincerity where you get the real richness of collaboration, and that’s when the real breakthrough comes. Leadership mindfulness is a practice, and like any exercise, you must work on it as much as you can to improve.

If we can target fear and understand what’s at the heart of stopping people from reaching their full potential, then we will have a more open, high trust, and more enjoyable workplace - with better results.

Get in touch for more information on ethical leadership and practical guidance on what you can do to build resilience and deal with the current pressures and challenges.