Facing Your Fears As A Leader

Leaders share their fears and how they have dealt with them

Everybody has fears and leaders are no different. Especially in today's changing world of work, leaders are struggling with all sorts of difficult emotions. This can also affect relationships with their teams.

To learn about the common fears leaders face and ways to overcome them, we approached CEOs and other business leaders to share their experiences/thoughts. From "Not Being Able to Sustain the Business Financially" to "Losing Control Through Team Growth", there are several fears that leaders have faced and solutions used to overcome them.
 

Here are 13 types of fears these leaders have been able to overcome:
●    Being Unable to Handle Difficult Situations
●    Losing Key Employees
●    Losing Control to Others as the Team Grows
●    Not Being Able to Provide for My Employees
●    Being Inflexible and Intimidating
●    The Fear of Not Being Good Enough
●    Making the Wrong Decision
●    Not Being Able to Sustain the Business Financially
●    A Number of Rejections
●    The Fear of Being Held Responsible
●    Making Mistakes While Trying to Lead
●    Lack of Cash Flow
●    Fear of Public Speaking

Being Unable to Handle Difficult Situations

One of my fears as a leader is being unable to handle difficult situations. However, I have learned how to overcome this fear by practicing mindfulness and meditation. By focusing on my breath and observing the present moment, I can stay in control even when things get tough. Keeping a positive attitude has also helped me cope with difficult situations. Johannes Larsson, Founder and CEO, JohannesLarsson.com

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Losing Key Employees

My greatest fear above all others as a leader is losing key employees. Some team members can be replaced, but we have a number of employees that are major stakeholders with key responsibilities that would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to replace. To prevent this from happening and mitigate any potential fallout, we’ve done a number of things. For one, I pay these individuals incredibly well in terms of direct pay, benefits, and fun perks. Secondly, I now require that they cross-train their subordinates to ensure there would be some kind of handoff if they left. John Ross, Chief Executive Officer, Test Prep Insight

Losing Control to Others as the Team Grows

As my business grew, I feared giving up control of the work I used to do myself. Since it’s impossible to grow while performing every task myself, I reframed how I felt about losing control and started to see it as a positive, not negative. Bringing in new teammates may mean losing some control, but by training employees and hiring reliable people, we quickly built trust with each other. Even better, team expansion also meant better diversity of thought -  a broader perspective we pull from to come up with even better solutions to our biggest challenges. John Li, Co-Founder & CTO, Fig Loans

Not Being Able to Provide for My Employees

My number one fear as a business owner is that I would fail to provide for my employees. My family, my staff, and their families all rely on this business succeeding, and it’s mind-numbing to think of how many months are fed because of this business. If for some reason this were to go away, there are so many people who would be put in a very difficult situation. That’s my biggest fear, and I do my best to overcome it by taking steps to secure our future as a company. Rick Berres, Owner, Honey-Doers

 

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Being Inflexible and Intimidating

One of my fears as a leader is to lose all flexibility and wind up managing through intimidation instead of inspiration. I have overcome this by always looking for new learning opportunities, in both my personal and professional life. Getting out of my comfort zone has helped me feel more empowered, confident, and in control. I keep myself open to new ideas and ways of thinking by reading, attending workshops and listening to podcasts. I find that when I am surrounded by like-minded people, it inspires me to be the best version of myself. Farhan Advani, Co-Founder, BHPH

 

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The Fear of Not Being Good Enough

This probably extends to more than being a leader, but one of my fears is not being good enough. Not having enough time for people, not taking enough responsibility, not being kind and empathetic enough, and more. I've read and learned as much as possible, and more importantly, I learned from past mistakes. Practice makes perfect. Being kinder to myself also helps too. Ravi Davda, CEO, Rockstar Marketing

 

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Making the Wrong Decision

Leaders face decisions on a constant basis, and being faced with so many can sometimes make me postpone or even delegate making important decisions for fear I will make a mistake. I have overcome this fear by understanding that even the best leaders make bad decisions sometimes and that when I do, I will use this as a learning opportunity. Instead of fear and regret, I  look upon my mistakes as an opportunity for growth. Georgi Todorov, Founder, ThriveMyWay

 

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Not Being Able to Sustain the Business Financially

One of my biggest fears is not being able to sustain the business financially and so letting people go, who started with me and are a core part. During periods of recession and global pandemics, it is difficult to make ends meet and at some point, it looked like we had to either resort to cutting costs and letting people go, or bootstrapping and risking my own finances to keep the company going. I chose the latter and thankfully, it worked out well. For the future, we’re looking into getting funding to help us stay afloat during difficult times. Nicole Thelin, Founder, Low Income Relief

 

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A Number of Rejections

Getting a no from a sales prospect. An excellent candidate taking another job. Learning that a large customer has churned. These are all rejections that a startup founder or any leader might face every single day. It's taken me years to not take them personally. My mantra is to stay calm and understand that the ride might be like a rollercoaster, but as long as the trend is heading up, rejections are not the end of the world! James Sear, Co-founder, Avion

 

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The Fear of Being Held Responsible

This is my greatest fear as a leader. The old adage goes that with great power comes great responsibility. The first step in accepting accountability is realizing that your leadership is both the problem and the answer to what really matters. Change becomes possible the minute you stop being afraid and start taking responsibility for your actions. Billy Parker, Managing Director, Gift Delivery

 

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Making Mistakes While Trying to Lead

One of my greatest fears as a leader is that I will make a mistake while trying to lead. I am always working to improve my skills, but I know that sometimes there are things that cannot be helped. Sometimes it's hard to see the bigger picture. I have overcome this fear by trusting in my team and surrounding myself with people who believe in me and want me to succeed. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but we should focus on what we do best rather than dwelling on those things we aren't good at. Ilija Sekulov, Marketing & SEO Consultant, Mailbutler

 

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Lack of Cash Flow

As a CEO of a startup that is in the process of scaling, my biggest fear is cash flow. As we're working with clients, we depend on them paying us, and us paying our employees. But I think that is a problem of every startup - coming to a point where we become less dependable on every client, and have some space to breathe at the end of the month. Our current mission is finding funding and discussing investments. And of course, being thrifty to reduce risk. Maja Krištafor, CEO, PRojekt

 

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Fear of Public Speaking

My biggest fear would be public speaking. I worked through this by consistent training. I had to really put the work into how I wanted to represent myself. This started with defining how I wanted to show up as a leader. If I could not look up to who I wanted to be, who else would? Now I get to share the story on how I overcame my fears, public speaking being one while I am publicly speaking! Ryan Zofay, Keynote Speaker | Transformational Coaching | Executive Consulting, Ryan Zofay / We Level Up

 

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Author Bio

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - of Terkel.io Connect Brett Framiloe