In today’s business climate, you need to be quick and efficient to keep pace with the competition. The following mandates are commonplace: Do more with less, get results faster, reduce headcount, and leverage artificial intelligence.
These mandates have a downside, however: They can breed impatience and fear-driven leadership in the workplace. This can cause leaders to write people off prematurely. They’ll label colleagues as lost causes and disengage from them, often at great cost to relationships and results.
Senior leaders tell me after a colleague misses a deadline, botches a presentation, or goes dark in Slack, “I’m done with them,” or “They’re not worth my time.” These leaders announce their intolerance with pride, mistaking it for discernment. Too often, though, it’s evident that leaders write people off quickly out of fear, not strategic thinking. Specifically, fear of losing control, fear of being wrong, and fear of feeling too much. These mismanaged fears create frustration and churn in an organizational system, not success.
Here are three ways to navigate through fear, resist writing people off, and be a better leader in today’s climate:
Fear losing control? Be a coach
When my client, Ted, the VP of sales at a startup, noticed a new employee spending more time playing ping-pong than hustling to meet his sales goals, he told me, “I’m over that guy. He’s missed his goals for two successive months. He’s got to go.”
Ted might have been right. Perhaps the new hire did have a poor work ethic. But as a senior leader, using blunt force with limited data is problematic and often a sign of underlying fear. In this case, Ted feared losing control. He also didn’t want things to go off the rails with a “lazy bad apple” in the company.
We explored how the employee’s manager needed coaching from Ted around how to set clear expectations, give kind and direct feedback, and manage performance more closely. Yes, this would take time, but it’s a practice that helps all parties. It could also prevent a recurring cycle of firing and rehiring, which claims time and financial resources.
Ted leaned into coaching his direct report despite his fear. He noted, “Turns out the employee interpreted our casual culture as one flexible on outcomes. A serious conversation with his manager turned his focus around.”
Of course, if bad behavior persists, more serious consequences come into play. But before that, senior leaders should notice and temper their fear, which insists, “They’re a lost cause, get rid of them,” and consider if a coaching focus might shift behavior and drive results.
Fear of being wrong? Invite curiosity
A Product VP client, after extensive analysis and research, presented the product roadmap to his executive team. When the chief people officer (CPO) asked, “Is this really the direction we want to move, Jay?” he was livid. He shut down the conversation with, “I’m not responding to that.”
In our next coaching session, he rhetorically asked, “Why was she derailing my plan?” and went on, “My strategy is right. She’s an idiot.”
I empathize with clients: It’s frustrating to have our work challenged after weeks or months of preparation. But writing people off because they poke holes in our thinking is a fear response—fear of being wrong or “found out” as incompetent. As Jennifer Garvey Berger explains in Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps, being right feels assuring and being wrong feels distressing, so we cling to rightness at the cost of learning. In doing so, we dismiss people and perspectives that could make us more effective.
Jay had product expertise but lacked a deep understanding of the company’s culture. In our coaching, we explored how the CPO’s perspective could be illuminating, not derailing, and crafted questions he could ask the CPO to invite learning, build alignment, and get to a better product roadmap:
- “I appreciate that you’re concerned about the roadmap. What’s creating your worry or hesitancy?”
- “Your vantage point is different to mine. Can you share more about your perspective on the plan as CPO?”
- “You asked in the meeting if this is really the direction we want to move in. Can I ask what’s underneath your question? Can you say more?”
By asking questions, Jay learned the CPO was worried about Jay’s capacity with regards to the plan’s ambition. She was trying to be attentive, not derailing.
When leaders notice a desire to write someone off who is poking holes or challenging their thinking, the right thing to do is to ask questions. They might be surprised by what they learn and find a better way to move forward.
Fear feelings? feel them anyway
Sandra, head of engineering, came into a coaching session frustrated about her boss’s reaction to the team’s strategic plan. “It’s excellent,” Sandra insisted, “but my boss tore it apart and claimed it wasn’t rigorous given AI’s evolution. But it is. I’m done with her.”
When I probed Sandra to explain more about her annoyance, she initially resisted. But Sandra soon admitted that because many know her for being composed and rational, feeling her feelings would make her say something she’d regret. In response, she chose to label her boss as clueless and move on.
In our coaching, we explored how feeling and processing her anger, understanding what really caused it, and getting curious about it, could, as Susan David’s research on Emotional Agility reveals, help Sandra get productively “unhooked.” This way, she’ll have more choices available than just storing resentment and disengaging from a critical relationship.
In our coaching session, Sandra allowed her anger to morph into frustration, then disappointment and worry. “My team will be so demoralized by this news,” she admitted. Finally, she accessed curiosity. This, in turn, enabled her to notice and share, “The reality is that my boss is under a lot of shareholder pressure and the uncertainty of AI is rattling everyone.” With this insight, Sandra saw a way to give feedback to her boss without losing her temper, coupled with the clarity and compassion in service of a productive relationship. “I’ll let her know I’m frustrated with the lack of specificity in the feedback, but I also understand she’s feeling intense pressure. I’ll ask what she needs to see more of in the plan,” Sandra concluded.
Today’s working climate is fast paced and complex. There are very real pressures related to artificial intelligence and economic uncertainty. The temptation to write people off, driven by fear and in the name of efficiency, is real. However, leaders who pause to examine their fears and then lean into coaching, ask curious questions, and feel their feelings will move faster and more strategically than those who don’t.
