Do you love Spiders?

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• Transcript

  When I was little kid I grew up in the country and we had a big woodshed. I regularly played down there with friends.  However there were red-back spiders galore in that shed. Now, I’d been taught that Red Back Spiders were dangerous and to be careful. However, the more that my friends and I squashed them, the more that we realised that we were much bigger and uglier than they were and that those tiny little arachnids were nothing to be afraid of!

  Years later, I woke up with a huntsman on my pillow sitting right next to my head where I was sleeping. It certainly gave me a start, but all those years as a little child squashing spiders helped me to very quickly realise I was not in real danger. Yes, I sat up quickly. Checked that my drowsy eyes weren’t deceiving me, I then opened my window and encouraged the spider to fly into the garden outside.

  Now, fear can save our lives. I still feel a sense of fear when I see spiders because I understand that if I am bitten by some of them, I could end up very sick. If I didn’t have that fear, or if I ignored it, my time on Earth could be cut short. 

  Fear is important. Sherlock Holmes on the Stan mini-series says, ‘Fear is wisdom in the face of danger’.  ‘Fear is wisdom in the face of danger’. 

  Bringing us back to the application of fear in leadership. What should we do when we experience fear because we need to make that difficult phone call? What do we do when our revenue is not matching our costs and the fear is rising in our chests? What do we do when that deadline is looming and we know we won’t make it?

  Before you do anything else, it is important to recognise your fear. What? Shouldn’t we spend less time focussed on fear and more time fixing the problem? Yes, we should. However if we don’t recognise the issue we may find ourselves disempowered from acting properly. We may find ourselves making the wrong decisions and in turn making the situation worse. 

  See, our fear is there for good reason. The fear is there because there is some type of danger. I am fearing this conversation, because holding my staff member accountable is going to be difficult. Therefore, I think the conversation over carefully to make sure I communicate well. 

  If the Profit and Loss statement is showing more red than we'd like, acknowledging the initial fear allows me to step back and consider the bigger picture. Is there a valid reason for this? Perhaps the additional marketing expenses are exactly what's needed, and I should stay the course. While there's risk if this trend continues too long, recognizing the situation helps me make informed and wise decisions in the face of uncertainty.

  When we don’t recognise the emotions being stirred within us, we end up reacting out of our emotions. We storm into that team members office and create an even bigger mess. We make rash decisions about finances that will not serve our long term goals.

  I hope you have enjoyed this series about fear and anxiety.  It is a real and relevant issue for us as leaders and for the people we lead.  Please comment or private message me if you have any other issues or thoughts that you would like me to cover in the future.