Leadership 101: Fear

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
April 8, 2012
 

In a recent Facebook post, Dr. Michael Youssef – an internationallyrecognized Evangelical-Anglican pastor – stated, “When we allow fear tocontrol us, it deteriorates our relationship with God.”

That’s a relatively simple truth.

But some of Youssef’s readers responded by asking, “Well, then how do we eliminate fear?”

That was and is the wrong question.

Though most leaders know better, it is surprising the number of people – and I’m talking full-grown, reasonably educated adults – who stillwrongly believe that courage means fearlessness or the absence of fear.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Without fear there is no need forcourage. If we reread what Dr. Youssef is saying, we see that we mustnot let fear “control” us. That’s a far cry from saying we musteliminate fear.

FEAR ATTACKS THE FIVE MOUNTAINS

Fear exists. It’s here. It’s with us always; sometimes dormant andhibernating, but frequently gnawing at our physical, mental, emotional,intuitive and spiritual ramparts. Yes, we’re talking about the “fivemountains” (see http://uswriter.wordpress.com/about/).

Fear is a painful emotion. It’s physically and mentally draining; andemotionally – even spiritually – corrupting. And so we should alwaysstrive to mitigate the draining and corrupting effects of fear wheneverpossible. At the same time we should embrace the rational, responsible,hard-wired-into-us decision-making process that comes from a bit ofproperly channeled fear.

The analogy for leaders I often use when discussing the decision-makingprocess spawned by fear is that of the young Marine rifle-squad leadernot wanting to lead his men down a particular route of a dark ravinebecause (based on good tactical intelligence and his own developedintuition) he reasonably “fears” his squad will be ambushed anddestroyed.  The ever-uncomfortable emotion of fear – fueling andigniting the squad leader’s reasoning – may be saving lives bycompelling him to choose a different route. And that’s a good thing. The different route may also be dangerous, but that is a calculated riskthe squad leader takes, and we all must take calculated risks from timeto time.

So the question is not how do we eliminate fear from our lives. Fear iswith us at times, and it’s going to be with us. Fear can help us, but it can also paralyze us if we give it its head. The question is how do wemanage fear.

IMMEDIATE PHYSICAL DANGER

There are many types of fear (some of which would qualify as anxieties), and we will examine those in forthcoming LEADERSHIP 101 lessons. Todaywe want to look at fear of immediate physical danger (what we refer toas IPD).

Of all the fears and anxieties we leaders have to deal with, fear of IPD is the easiest to manage, and it gives us a baseline for understandingwhat fear is and what needs to be done to mitigate it. We recognize this fear for what it is, and we press on – doing the right thing – in spite of the fear.

I say it’s “easier” to manage the fear of IPD than other types of fear,because IPD is usually a short term fear. If we are skilled atovercoming IPD, we know we will get through the danger (we may evensmell the sweetness of victory on the other side before we move into the danger). And we are usually so busy doing the things that will enableus to survive IPD, we don’t have time to focus on the fear.

Examples of those experiences which stimulate fear of immediate physical danger are engaging in combat (armed and unarmed) and skydiving(particularly the first time). There are other examples, but we willconsider these two because in both cases we clearly recognize thephysiological reactions to fear.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Dr. Matthew Tull, an expert on anxiety and post-traumatic stressdisorders, writes, “When you are in a stressful or dangerous situationand experience fear and anxiety, your body goes through a number ofchanges:

“Your heart rate may increase.

“Your vision may narrow (sometimes called ‘tunnel vision’).

“You may notice that your muscles become tense.

“You may begin to sweat.

“Your hearing may become more sensitive.”

Sound familiar? Just ask any soldier or Marine who has experiencedcombat. Ask anyone who has ever been in a gunfight. Ask anyone who hasever leapt from a perfectly good airplane for the first time.

The keys to managing those “changes” and controlling or mitigating theadverse effects of fear during combat or other high-risk experiences –especially if or when the situation deteriorates – is to literallyover-prepare for every imaginable worst-case scenario.

THE WAY OF THE MARINE

My own Marine Corps is particularly good at this type ofhyper-preparation. U.S. Marines are known for high-intensity training,physical and mental fitness, extreme discipline, attention-to-detail, an embracing of the soldierly virtues, and a developing of the idea within each Marine that he is the toughest, most skilled, most committedwarfighter the world has ever seen. Sounds like a lot of hyperbole tomany civilians with no real frame of reference for what it means to be a Marine. But for Marines, this kind of hyper-preparation physically,mentally, and emotionally – even intuitively and spiritually – saveslives in combat.

How? Because when the situation degrades, when the outcome seems grim,and old man terror comes knocking on the door; the Marine is conditioned to instinctively focus – despite the fear – on the task at hand. Heknows he is good at what he’s doing (probably better than the man who’strying to kill him). He’s confident that his buddies on his right andhis left can be depended on to do their jobs. And he knows that 237years of tradition are following behind him, and he cannot ever failthat tradition.

Again, this doesn’t mean that the Marine is not afraid. In a desperatefight only a fool is unafraid. But when fear strikes, the Marine is able to fall back on all the physical, mental, and spiritual tools given him from day-one in boot camp to the present. Fear is immediately reroutedaway from that which is the Marine’s necessary point of focus, and he is almost magically enabled to do what needs to be done.

The Marine Corps isn’t the only military force that embraces a cultureof preparing the whole man – body, mind, and soul – to deal with fear.I’m just using the example of Marines because – being a Marineinfantryman myself and having been embedded as a journalist with Marines at war – I’ve experienced first-hand this system at work, and it isindeed a magnificent thing to behold.

The channeling of fear and the dependency on instinct driven by extremediscipline and hard training is why combatants in well-disciplinedWestern armies almost never break and run even during the most desperate fighting. This wasn’t always the way. But it is why today U.S. NavySEALs and Army Rangers and Special Forces operators, for instance, willoften say their training is actually far more difficult than real-worldoperations. Fear is there for these men, but the energy generated fromthe fear drives the man forward, while the adverse effects of the fearhave been put in a bottle because the perception of any immediatephysical danger to men who have trained hard to meet it is relative.

BACK TO THE QUESTION

So getting back to the question asked by Dr. Youssef’s readers: Itshould not be how do we “eliminate” fear, because frankly we can nevereliminate fear. The question should be how do we “deal with” fear.

Life is frequently tough, particularly for those of us in leadership positions. And fear is going to be with us on the journey.

We wish we could eliminate fear, but we can’t. So we manage and mitigate fear by drawing on our individual courage which is derived fromconditioning ourselves. And we condition ourselves by becoming bothmasters of our professions and masters of our lives: Life-mastery wewill achieve through either group courses of tough instruction (if weare fortunate to have served in elite military organizations and thencontinue to condition ourselves based on what we’ve learned in thoseorganizations) or individually tailored programs (individual physicaltraining, reading, self-teaching, private counseling, martial arts,devoting more time to worship, meditation, and tapping into ourspirituality). We do these things so that when fear rears its head, wewill instinctively do what’s right in spite of fear. We will act onreason instead of emotion, and we will put our trust in God.

Stay with us. There’s so much more, including a great deal more on fear, types of fear, and how to manage and mitigate fear. Previous Leadership 101 pieces are available here. If you have questions or suggestions,I’m at [email protected].

 

– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a former U.S. Marine rifle-squad leader andcounterterrorism instructor who writes about military/defense issues and has covered war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He directs theU.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team. He is a senior field-grade officerin the Joint Services Det. (S.C. Military Dept.). He is the author ofsix books, a New York Times bestselling editor, and his articles appearin a variety of publications. Smith’s website is uswriter.com.