How often have you heard a direct report, colleague or even a boss say, “I would have disagreed, but I was hesitant to speak up.”
For executives, it’s critical your teams, direct reports and cross functional colleagues tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. How can you promote greater transparency?
Fear or anxiety can often drive a reason not to do something. Often the end result is that a poor decision gets made or the decision ends up poorly executed because there wasn’t a strong sense of understanding and/or agreement earlier on in the process. A more extreme example might be the result of an unhappy associate staying in a position for fear of rejection if they went looking for another job, or fear that if the employer found out the individual was looking for another position, they would get fired.
Fear becomes an individual’s “reason”, (i.e., excuse for why one might not take some action). In the executive coaching process, it’s important to encourage leaders to operate at times, outside of their “comfort zone.” Any behavior which may be different from what one is used to doing, is going to carry some level of anxiety. This is especially true for newly appointed leaders in new roles or new organizations.
Executives will often say there are “situations” which cause them to feel discomfort or anxiety. This is of course natural and a good warning system to think carefully before acting. But is it the situation that drives the anxiety? No! It is the individual’s thought process which causes the discomfort. If an executive thinks sharing a point of view will create an argument or create (poor) judgment by others, that nanosecond thought process is what leads to the feeling of fear. The fear is often based upon an exaggeration or magnification of the consequences. While those consequences might be a possibility, the probability of those occurring might be pretty small. The more we “catastrophize” the situation, the greater our anxiety.
The old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice,” is true here. The more we act effectively in the face of anxiety, the more comfortable we get over time. Anxiety is an excuse, not a reason, to do or not do something. It’s important that we act, even though we may experience some level of discomfort. The discomfort will dissipate over time if we think more rationally and we choose to act. It’s a simple concept – but that doesn’t make it easy.
These market insights from Carpe Diem Global Partners are gathered from the firm’s extensive client work leading Board, CEO, CXO, and CHRO executive search engagements for public and private multinational companies. For deeper, custom insights, contact Art Resnikoff at aresnikoff@carpediempartners.com