Being a Leader who is Free from the Fear of Failure

 Three steps that leaders can take to develop courage in the face of the fear

 

To begin, we must first acknowledge that fear can be a good thing. In certain circumstances, fear protects us by motivating us to avoid things that can cause us harm. 

 

Still, there are fears that can hold us back from reaching our potential, achieving our dreams, and becoming our best selves. The fear of failure is one of those fears.

 

Being courageous is the best approach to overcoming our fears. Rather than ignoring or dismissing our fears, courage acknowledges it and addresses it. A courageous person is not someone who has no fear; it is someone who acts in spite of their fear.

 

There are three steps that business leaders can take to find courage to face their fear of failure. While these will not do away with the risk of failure, they will help to decrease our stress and increase our capability for success.

 

Overcome the fear of failure by planning

 

Experts say that fear of failure most often occurs when we face new projects. When we have no experience or expertise, the fear of failure looms large. The antidote to this is planning.

 

When faced with a new project or responsibility, plan, plan, and plan some more. As you are planning, think through all of the contingencies. If there are components that seem likely to fail, come up with a secondary plan to address that possibility. Having a backup plan acknowledges and addresses the fear that something will go wrong.

 

Remember that no plan is ever completely foolproof. Sometimes, your battle plan will not survive contact with the enemy. In those cases, be prepared to courageously adapt, improvise, and overcome. Getting free from the fear of failure requires that we build a strong plan, execute on the plan, and be ready with a backup plan.

 

Overcome the fear of failure by building a strong team

 

For leaders, the fear of failure is sometimes tied to our team’s ability, rather than our own. If you do not believe that you have a team that can deliver, then you will naturally fear that your efforts will fail. In that case, we can address our fear by making sure that we build the right team.

 

In general, a winning team is a team that can develop and deliver the best solutions by leveraging creativity and innovation. To build that type of team, you must gather people from a wide variety of cultural and educational backgrounds. When team members come from different backgrounds, they bring different ways of thinking about issues and addressing problems. This diversity of thought can be leveraged to develop the most creative and effective solutions for challenging problems.

 

For teams to succeed, they also must be able to work together. This requires that team members are friendly, have a can-do attitude, possess high levels of emotional intelligence, and communicate well. If you desire a team that is energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate about delivering, you must build it with people who express those same qualities.

 

Overcome the fear of failure by managing your emotions

 

Fear is a basic human emotion. In many ways, it works like an instinct — if you are not careful, fear will make decisions for you.

 

Emotional intelligence is a skill that allows you to understand what you and the people around you are feeling. When you are afraid, emotional intelligence identifies the fear and alerts you that it must be managed. To succeed in spite of our fears, we must develop and leverage emotional intelligence.

 

Once they have identified their emotions, leaders must have a method for managing their emotions. Whether it is mediation, yoga, deep breathing, or taking a break to watch videos on YouTube, having a tool for relaxing and gaining control over our fear is essential to success. 

 

You cannot do away with the possibility of failure, which means the fear of failure will always exist. However, when you learn to address your fear, you can fight through it and develop optimal solutions for your teams, your organizations, and your customers. 

– Michael Gibbs is the CEO of Go Cloud Careers, a global organization that provides training for elite cloud computing careers. Go Cloud Careers is focused on helping individuals achieve their dream technology career by getting hired. Michael has 25 years of experience in networking, cloud computing, and IT security.