Tag Archives: Fear

Home Alone and Leading Through Fear or Enthusiasm

Leave a reply

Well, we made it through another busy holiday period. Like many of you, we queue up a number of movies we like to watch during the holiday season. One of my favourite is Home Alone, released in 1990 and directed by Chris Columbus. While we tend to focus on the pranks and traps set up by Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), my favourite part is when Kevin overcomes his fear of the furnace in the basement. Kevin runs out of the house to let everyone know he has overcome his fear, only to run into another one.

Too often, we let our decisions be made out of fear. Fear of going over budget, fear of a late deliverable or fear of a key team member deciding to leave. The opposite is to lead with enthusiasm. Leading with fear relies on intimidation and negative consequences to motivate employees, often creating a stressful and unproductive work environment. Leading with enthusiasm inspires and empowers others through positive energy, fostering creativity, collaboration, and higher engagement within a team. Essentially, fear-based leadership focuses on control and punishment, whereas enthusiastic leadership focuses on shared vision and motivation. 

How to spot when you are leading with fear. Think of yourself as a dog, wearing a colour hooked up to an invisible fence. As the dog, gets closer to the invisible fence the collar starts to vibrate and the dog begins to back off. For us, it may be the feeling of anxiousness, loss of sleep or other signs of stress. The effect is that you begin to back off of the opportunities and smart risks that will result in improved results. Look for these signs and start to lead with enthusiasm. Express your passion for the project or goal, communicate it clearly through positive language and body language, actively engage and listen to your team, take smart risks, celebrate successes, and genuinely believe in your team’s abilities.

….and think of Kevin. If Kevin was too scared to come out from under the bed would the results have been the same?

Where do you lead from?

I just finished reading a book by Gabrielle Bernstein – “The Universe Has Your Back”. While the book focuses on teaching us how to transform fear into faith, the lessons can also be applied to leadership. One of the very powerful quotes is “Your purpose is to be joyful. Your purpose is to live with ease. Your purpose is to surrender to the love of the Universe so you can live a happy life. Accept the purpose of love, and your life will radically change this instant.” Now what leader would you rather follow, a leader that leads from the purpose of love or a leader that leads from the purpose of fear.

Leaders that lead from the heart will do the following:

  • Show warmth, an interest in the well-being of others, and a desire to connect.
  • Help others faced with a challenge.
  • Keep their commitments.
  • Appreciate, respect, encourage and empower.
  • Take the time, especially when they don’t have time.
  • Active listening.
  • Treat others’ time as if it’s as important as theirs.
  • Be as passionate about the growth of others as they are about their own.

Leaders that lead from fear often have the following:

  • Lead by using their position instead of influencing behaviors.
  • A track record of employee churn because they do not value people.
  • Have a team walking on eggshells because mistakes are punished, quite often publicly
  • A comfort in dysfunction. Whether at work of home, they enjoy arguing and intimidating others. Unfortunately this usually spills over into family situations.
  • Teams that lack confidence due to shortcomings always being pointed out and always been told what went wrong.