Having the privilege of leading others tends to be a professional forward leap that many individuals would like to accomplish. For the lucky people who get promoted, this is an indication of acknowledgment and appreciation of their abilities.
As such, people soak in the energy of professional success, and they experience anxiety and fear of their new roles, responsibilities, and the new expectations placed upon them by their organizations.
To this end, it is essential to discover approaches to dispose of the trepidation and assume responsibility competently.
Most of the time, these fears come up when an individual starts to imagine a scenario in which they might commit an error, lose people’s trust, disappoint their superiors, or even lose their job.
Let’s discuss five practical approaches to overcoming leadership fear:
1. Recognizing Weaknesses
The initial step in defeating leadership anxiety is recognizing one’s main concerns and weaknesses.
Leaders should always strive to understand their weaknesses and strengths as this helps in understanding the specific areas that should be addressed if one is to overcome leadership anxiety.
For example, if a leader realizes that the main issue is speaking in public, they may decide to take a public speaking course to overcome the fear in other words.
Perceiving one’s weaknesses helps leaders to concentrate on approaches to conquer fear.
2. Being Decisive
One of the essential requirements of a leader is to be decisive. Leaders are required to make important decisions from time to time.
In this regard, some leaders fail to make decisions in time for fear of making the wrong decisions.
However, indecisiveness is as bad as not making decisions at all, as the issue requiring a decision cannot be solved by indecisiveness.
Leaders must trust their ability to make the right decisions and make such decisions on time.
In fact, making decisions helps leaders to learn to make the right decisions, as they learn important lessons from any mistakes they make in decision-making.
However, it is important that leaders consider relevant factors and considerations before settling on a decision.
3. Letting Goals Guide You
Leaders should let their goals guide them in all their undertakings. Maintaining effective and practical objectives on the road to accomplishing an ultimate purpose will significantly help in overcoming leadership fear.
This can be achieved through re-framing one’s objectives so as to create a new belief system and learn new ideas, which may be useful in the development and advancement of one’s profession.
For example, if a leader aims at increasing sales double-fold in one year, they can start by setting small but reasonable objectives to guide the accomplishment of the main goal.
If the leader aims to increase sales by 10% in the first two months, their confidence will be boosted when such objectives are achieved.
This helps in creating a new belief system that they have the ability to achieve their goals.
4. Enhancing Team Coordination
The fourth approach is to enhance team coordination with one’s followers. Leaders achieve through others, and therefore it is important that they maintain and promote a good relationship with their followers.
This serves to boost trust. When there is trust between leaders and their followers, leaders do not have to constantly live in fear, as they are reassured their teams will perform as expected.
In other words, a good relationship with team members helps leaders to overcome fears associated with teamwork.
5. Building Self-confidence
Lastly, to overcome fear while in a leadership position, self-confidence should be built up by interacting with other successful leaders.
By searching out a guide or mentor and fusing rules that apply to one’s unique needs, a leader is able to enhance their leadership skills.
Reading leadership articles and books also broadens one’s view.
This is especially effective when leaders get to understand how other people in their position overcame their fears, as this assures them it is normal to feel this way.
It also provides them with ideas on how to overcome such fears. It is perfectly normal for people in leadership positions to be overwhelmed from time to time.
However, leaders should not allow their fears to compromise their ability to lead effectively.
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How Do You Overcome Your Leadership Fear?
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