“Or still prefer a culture of fear?”

Paul Zak’s research reveals that a High Trust organisation produces 50% more productivity than a Low Trust Organisation. The moment I mention that 50% in front of executives, I hear many thinking “yes but can’t you push performance up even through a fear culture?”

Yes, you can! By putting constant pressure on everyone, people will go into short-term survival mode and work as hard (and often as long) as possible. So, as long as people keep this up, and you have built up a kind of perfect control system, you can certainly drive-up productivity through fear, control and pressure as well.

The question then becomes: ‘at what cost?’ Intrinsic motivation only pushes people for a relatively short time. And if a culture of fear is actually created, it comes at the expense of self-confidence, communication, connection and innovation. Of course, such a culture then eventually leads to a series of mental health complaints, burnout and excessive control at all levels.

To better understand this system, I will take you on a journey of discovery into the five fears we often encounter in our leadership/coaching practice.

1. The fear of never being good enough

This fear drives one to perform more and more, only to then find more and more that there are always more people performing even more. This rat race eventually leads to constant disappointment in yourself, causing you to develop more and more self-pity. Am I never good enough then?

This often leads to compensatory behaviour, where the person in question becomes addicted to various possibilities of addictive substances in many small steps.

The antidote to this fear:

• Go in search of your inner calling and mission.
• What are for you the most important five projects at work and privately?
• Then dare to set boundaries: this is good enough! These are my priorities! So, I am not going to do this!

2. The fear of not being accepted

Executives who suffer from this fear do their utmost to be accepted by everyone. As a result, they constantly wear different masks, which is so exhausting that they too end up falling into addiction mechanisms out of self-pity.

The antidote to this fear:

• Dare to say yes to who you are. With all your strengths and weaknesses. But ok to say no to who you are not.
• Take time to identify your unique talents and start consciously using them more at work.
• Instead of always hoping for compliments from others, go ahead and give heartfelt compliments to your colleagues, customers, family members and friends yourself.

3. The fear of being abandoned

Often this fear arises from situations in your life story where people have left you. Consciously or unconsciously. This can lead to you developing an inner conviction that you want to do everything to avoid experiencing this again. You then try to be the very best manager so that your colleagues never abandon you. Or you try to be the best spouse or parent, so that your partner or children never leave you. Often you then develop a “helper syndrome” of wanting to be there for everyone at all times. And saying “no” is then usually not a good option for you. This fear often leads to an overloaded schedule and sometimes to serious burnout.

The antidote to this fear:

• Learn to say “no” to anything that does not belong to your assignment. Don’t take ‘monkey’ assignments that belong to a specific person from others.
• Dare to be ‘lonely’ from time to time. Lonely means: together with the one person you are yourself.
• Grow in assertiveness: the mindset that you respect the other person and their needs as much as your own.

4. The fear of losing respect

This fear often arises from the disrespectful behaviour towards us, in the course of our own story. Parents who treated children disrespectfully. Bullying behaviour at school. This often leads to low self-esteem and a constant quest to be respected. As a manager and driven by this fear, you often start trying to command respect, and easily build a wall around you, so that people are less likely to look in on you and see your fears. This ‘forcing’ of respect can go hand in hand with various kinds of abuse of power and manipulation. And that in turn leads to a broader culture of fear in the organisation.

The antidote to this fear:

• Work on your self-respect. Take the time to discover where the causes of lack of self-respect lie in your story and how you can dismantle them with coaching or therapy.
• Train yourself in respecting the very people who are often less respected.
• Develop a ‘courteous’ respectful attitude towards everyone you meet: in your private life and towards colleagues and clients.

5. The fear of losing control

This fear can manifest itself in many different ways: constantly checking others on the quality of their work, not trusting others that they will commit themselves well to common goals. Giving others responsibility for tasks but not handing over the associated freedom to make choices. In the manager, this fear leads to difficulty in letting go, and a persistent suspicion towards those around him or her. And in the organisation, it leads to uncertainty: are we doing it well enough?

Where will the journey go if our manager does not tell us what the big picture and plans are? And annoyingly enough, this fear is also contagious: more and more people become suspicious, start manipulating, conduct their own power games and ensure that the whole organisation is driven more by fear than by trust.

The antidote to this fear:

• Start with your own team and invest their openness, trust and a culture of celebrating successes together and learning valuable lessons from mistakes.
• Dare to be vulnerable towards some people around you and ask them to give you solicited and unsolicited feedback on your handling of control, letting go and trust.
• Dare to transfer ‘power’ and influence to people you trust and give them the space to make their own choices, build and learn.

How to proceed now?

Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, (1= totally not bothered, 10= constantly bothered) how you suffer from these 5 basic fears. Do you dare? Those who want to tackle their fears must have the courage to face them first. Then ask a trusted colleague to do this assessment of you for you. And then compare your scores with each other. Then choose one of the fears to work constructively with. Choose at least three new habits or rituals through which you will start practising the virtue of the ‘antidote’ in your daily life.

If you want to build a High Trust Organization, please feel free to contact us.

Have fun building a High Trust Organisation,

Blog written by Paul Ch. Donders