Leadership & Fear

Leaders do the work of contributing to a better world, though they live with fear and self-doubt.

Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite authors on Resistance wrote: “Self-doubt can be an ally” (p. 39). The questions we ask of ourselves to be sure are often guiding us the direction we need to go. “Can I really do this?”

These days, as I write my dissertation and book, I’m asking myself, “Is my vision really inclusive?”

Yes. It is. I know it is. “Will anyone want to read it?” Yes. Someone will. That part is out of my hands. But I know that I am writing for others, not just for myself.

I am including my past knowledge of years of group psychology in my vision for leadership teams. This requires living with fear and uncertainty.

Why?

Fear and uncertainty are my signals that I am moving beyond what has been. Fear and uncertainty are markers of isolation, even temporary aloneness.

I see these as cues from evolutionary wiring, built into our DNA. In the past, to move beyond the group was to risk one’s life. If we are creative beings, we feel the fear as we are drawn to the threshold to the next thing.

Whether you are a choreographer or an actor, the fear guides you to the next open door to your next creation. Whether you walk through it is up to you. If you have disciplined yourself to move ahead, you will probably do it.

Your experience and self-control guide you through the process. You self-monitor, you check on the resources, and on the well-being of the co-creators. You cooperate for really big projects.

At each stage, there is an element of fear or what Pressfield calls Resistance. Resistance presents a lot of niggling questions. “Can I really do this?” “Can I enlist help?” “Can I explain this?” “Can I sustain this thread of agreement?” “Can I encourage others?”

This is not about being personally able to accomplish and envision the work, it is about meeting all the little stages successfully that draw in others to co-create: communicating, persuading, encouraging, and helping others to grow into the vision which you are creating.

So I embrace the fear and uncertainty as a sign that I am onto something significant and worthy of attention.

Thanks to people like Steven Pressfield I understand Resistance as a sign that I am approaching something worthy and worth developing some discipline to accomplish. So I adhere to a daily healthy discipline of showing up and moving ahead, no matter if the fear comes and goes. And if I weaken, I rest and move ahead, renewed and refreshed, knowing that I have accomplished the task of overcoming Resistance again. I have continued past the fear, discouragement, or self-doubt that is hard-wired into this DNA, past the voice that warns me not to move outside the cave.

Reference
Pressfield, S. (2002). The war of art: Break through your blocks and win your inner creative battles. New York: Warner.