It is a challenge to not be fearful these days. Negative news is ubiquitous and delivered through more mediums than ever before. You can learn of the latest batch of bad news from the 24 hour news cycle on cable TV, to the internet on your hand-held mobile gloom device and even the millions of twits who tweet (present company regrettably included). It is ever-present and depressing.
The bad news covers all aspects of our lives, but of late seems to be focused on the moribund economic growth and the accompanying weak job market. Not a day passes by without some pundit or another editorializing about the coming “double dip recession” or the “lost decade” or the “jobless recovery,” blah, blah, blah. Of course, none of these prognostications have to be correct. They simply need to be stated with authority.
The result is fear. In the workplace, this fear can be both debilitating and paralyzing, at the exact wrong time. Challenging economic times require leaders to be innovative, engaged and active. They need to align and motivate their employees to perform above and beyond their expectations. But fear mucks this up.
Leaders are fearful to hire and invest in employees because of the slow economic growth they hear about daily and despite the contrary evidence in their P&L. Employees are fearful of losing their jobs because of the never-ending commentary about the horrible job market. So leaders attempt to create breakthrough performance with an understaffed workforce who are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. Not exactly a crucible for innovation and high performance.
I applaud those executives in business who look and listen past the the noise and lead boldly. Who invest in their people and equip them to win. The leader who, in the words of the great Teddy Roosevelt “spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.“