The current crisis has opened a veritable Pandora’s box of fears. Fear is an emotion we are born with and which helps us to take necessary precautions. The problems begin when it paralyzes us, and that’s exactly what is happening at the moment. What many people are suffering from now is toxic fear, a variety of fear which undermines our capacity to act and take decisions.
What are we really afraid of? Fear and motivation are closely related, yet they do not receive the same attention in the media or in company policy. While motivation is accorded a star role in books about management and often proves a read headache to heads of human resources who pursue it as the Holy Grail, fear on the other hand is barely acknowledged in company policy, even though it plays a key role in the day-to-day workings of many companies.
Motivation and fear are two sides of the same coin. Someone who is very success-oriented, for example, will probably try to avoid failure like the plague. Someone who needs to feel part of a group will be terrified if they feel rejected or alone. For someone who likes to influence other people, loss of power will be the worst possible nightmare.
We need to add two equally important fears to those already mentioned: fear of not surviving (not having enough money to pay the bills, in today’s society) and fear of change.
All these fears give rise to lots of others, as the following table shows.
| Main fear | Associated motivation | Seconday fears |
| Non-survival | Basic needs | Fear of losing our job
Fear of not being able to pay the bills… |
| Rejection | Need for relationships | Fear of being different
Fear of success or of standing out Fear of mixing with others… |
| Failure | Achievement | Fear of making mistakes
Fear of taking risks Fear of taking decisions Fear of our work not being appreciated… |
| Loss of power | Power – Influence | Fear of losing influence in the company
Fear of loss of social status… |
| Change | All the above | Fear of a change of job
Fear of having to relocate… |
What is our overriding fear? This depends on many factors: age, our position in the hierarchy, our degree of personal growth, our economic circumstances, etc. In the current environment, the fear of not being able to pay the bills or of being laid off have sadly become all too common.
For managers, the main fear is fear of failure. At any rate, this was the finding of a survey carried out three years ago among over 185 executives in positions of middle and senior management. (Most probably this same survey might well throw up different findings if repeated today.) The results of the survey also threw light on other areas which are worthy of mention. This survey was carried out in Spain which has a culture which values the collective highly. It’s not surprising, then, that fear of rejection also scored very well. And it’s not unexpected either to find that fear of losing power was the least voted. In a country like Spain, it doesn’t look good to say that you like to give people orders.
If we’re not very sincere when we speak about motivation, are we going to be sincere when we speak about our fears?
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September 10th, 2009 at 12:22 am
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February 23rd, 2010 at 12:29 am
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