When you embrace your worries instead of fighting them, challenges turn into major opportunities.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
—Eleanor Roosevelt

I recently attended an executive team retreat with my colleague, Kevin. A wonderful thing happened. At the beginning of the session, we had a bunch of chocolates on the table, and much like fortune cookies, they each had a message inside of the wrapper. I opened my chocolate, and saw the message: “Be fearless.”

The team we were working with was dealing with major challenges. They were defeated, tired, afraid of their CEO, afraid of their upcoming shareholder meeting, and afraid of looking bad, speaking out, their job survival and just about everything coming ahead. I had been excited about the session not because of the situation they were facing, but because of the opportunities for change that happen during a crisis.

Kevin asked the group to begin: “Tell us a story of when you have been fearless.”

• “I was on a boat off the coast of Maine, and we were in a storm. I was an OK sailor, but I was really afraid. Somehow, I just got up my nerve and went out there and worked to get us home. We’re here to tell about it!”

• “I had an ethical problem with my last employer. I couldn’t stand going to work, because I felt like he was cheating our customers. I felt like I couldn’t say anything, but finally I was going to quit, and I thought to myself that I didn’t need to leave without saying something, so I did. I went to him and told him I couldn’t face working for a company that took advantage of employees and exploited their non-English-speaking customers. My voice was shaking, and I couldn’t believe I said it out loud. But I felt good, and I know he really thought about it, because my friends who still work there say he changed.”

• “I shut down a division of my former company, because I knew it was the right thing to do.”

• “I am deathly afraid of heights, and I had to replace the shingles on my roof.”

• “I was in downtown New York on September 11, but I had to stay calm to get my friend out of there.”

What’s so wonderful about these responses? They are all about facing fear and transcending it, and about using the energy of fear to achieve things we think we cannot.

Great leadership requires us to transcend our fears—to go out on a limb and take the risk of being responsible not just for ourselves, but for others. Leadership requires us to cope with challenges, and even with fearful situations.

Here are some top leadership fears I hear every day from our executive clients: letting people down; not knowing how to cope with crisis: terrorism, worker safety, violence; losing face; getting fired or ousted; being found out as a fraud; and failure.

Fear is a great deflator of peak performance. If our fears take over, they stop us from being our best. Fear makes us defensive, uncomfortable and reactive, and it stops us from being strategic, smart and focused on the right things.

It’s a myth that at a certain point in your career, you will know everything, and you will no longer fear the unknown, the challenges and the politics. As most of us grow and develop as leaders, we have to cope with the truth that we are mortal and fallible, and we are blessed with a healthy dose of fear that can either stop us from achieving our goals, or become an asset that we can use to be great at what we do.

How can you learn to befriend your fear and use it as your ally? Take these five steps for a start:

1. Stop reacting, start breathing. Take a deep breath before you react. Deep breathing activates your autonomic nervous system, and shifts you from “fight or flight” responses to your executive functioning brain.

2. Take control. Make a list of your fears. How realistic are they? What can be done to negate any possibility of their happening? What plans are in place to avert crisis? What do you need to do in order to know you can focus through fear? Fear is clarifying—it can help you understand your risk and how to get through tough times.

3. Build alliances. Leaders who are surrounded by an aligned team have less reason to fear, as well as more backup during hard times. Positive relationships are a grounding force that can nullify fear.

4. Tell the truth. Often during fearful times—a terrorist attack, a downturn in the economy, after workplace violence—people want to be reassured. Don’t tell people everything is fine when it’s not: Be honest. More than hollow reassurance, people want to hear the authenticity in your voice, and feel trust that you will tell them what’s really happening.

5. Shift into a positive gear. Use fear as a positive. Challenges, heartaches, losses, failures and crises are opportunities for learning, growth and change. If you can remember this and communicate it to your organization, they will thank you.

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KARLIN SLOAN, M.A., is founder and president of Karlin Sloan & Co. (karlinsloan.com), based in New York City and Chicago, which provides executive coaching, team-building and leadership development services.

Resources:

Fearless Leadership: Conquering Your Fears and the Lies that Drive
Them, Bruce E. Roselle, Ph.D. (Leader Press, 2006)

Freedom from Fear: Finding the Courage to Act, Love, and Be, Forrest
Church (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005)

The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker (Dell, 1998)