Episode 2 - Fear in Leadership

The hosts discuss the concept of fear in leadership and its impact on the workplace. They share personal experiences of leaders using fear as a method of control, which they argue is not effective or healthy. They suggest that creating a positive work culture and using motivation and communication are better approaches to leadership. They also discuss the importance of critical thinking and how fear can inhibit intellectual capacity. They mention the concept of fast brain and slow brain, with fear leading to reliance on the fast brain and hindering critical thinking. They emphasize the need for leaders to foster critical thinking and create an environment where employees feel safe to slow down and think logically. Welcome to episode 2 of lead, follow, get out of the way. This is your host John and Chris and today we are talking about fear today Johnny, we are talking about fear in leadership and I think it's important when working and dealing with humans Johnny, not just as a true followership rather as a leader controlling and influencing I guess the concept of fear because I don't know about you but I know in my workplace and in previous instances I have seen, be deliberate or indeliberate for the word, Chris will go of it, where fear has come out from leaders to govern and lead outcomes for an organisation and it's not exactly a healthy way but I think we ought to talk about it because it's quite prevalent. Have you seen it in your passage of work or working life? Yeah, in multiple places. People like to use this term carrot and stick, it's a general thing where they use this old phrase of bring out the stick as a method of fear and in particular behaviour management and people do that from a very young age, people understand when their mother and father bring out the wooden spoon for example, they run away, they are scared and it affects their behaviour. So people take that methodology as a work force and doesn't really work very well. But yeah, some examples I've had of that, when I was in a soccer club I was sent an email about five years ago, complaining about some of the equipment and about the lighting and the system and stuff to be fixed up and then one lady from the soccer club came over and put on a rasp and yelled at me for about 5-10 minutes in front of the soccer team about why I'm here, what I'm doing, why are you complaining, just be happy that you're in the middle of the park. And I was like, why are you trying to embarrass me in front of the kids, just stay away from me, I don't want to interfere with your body. But yeah, that's an example I've had. So it was like, do this or you'll get a warning, that kind of mentality. I've had that example as well. It wasn't a great thing from an employee's perspective. As a leader's perspective, I've never used that kind of thing. I've gone into a meeting with the warning sticker of the first warning and had the employee yell at me or something and say, boy, that wasn't a great experience either. I've definitely experienced it on both ends of the spectrum. And I guess notwithstanding Rob, we're talking about trying to lead people to organisational outcomes and people, I guess using fear or repercussions that if you don't do this or achieve this, then this. Not to be mistaken with discipline, right? But I think you can also use honey, it's a better way of getting people together. Use the honey as you catch the bees. So if you create a good environment and good work culture, you don't have to use the behaviour management side of things very often. Only at the start where you have to set the standards, what's expected from everybody. But most people will come up and use group mentality to make you set the right culture and the right standards for everybody else to do. And most people will just follow along as long as you have, I'd say, a good casting that keeps everybody motivated in the team. With what the leader expects them to do, I think you'll do fine. In a previous posting, and just for your listeners out there, so I'm still serving in the Royal Australian Air Force, and so from a military point of view, I can talk about my experiences. There was a particular posting where I worked for a particular boss who was an engineer, brilliant mind, genius, but I guess socially awkward in some ways, lacked emotional intelligence. And as such, if he wanted to achieve something, his way to get his subordinates, in turn myself at the time, was for the sake of him spitting the dummy if we weren't to achieve it. He would show frustration, cold shoulder, and those negative, I guess, responses that don't make me as a worker or a follower want to necessarily be in that workplace. You lose pride and you lose the want to be able to follow the leader's direction. And so as a leader, retrospectively looking back at it, I don't think he actually stopped and thought as a leader, how am I influencing and motivating these guys to achieve an outcome, and actually having a deliberate process of thinking and a plan with what the team needs, where they need to go, and how to get there. Yeah, I think where people explode is kind of like frustrating on themselves, it's not frustrating on the employees, I think they're disappointed, but there's more frustration on themselves. They haven't thought through the process, they haven't caught it up, they're not being proactive, and if they hadn't caught the problem before, it wouldn't have exploded. Let's say if we're looking for an outcome, let's say it's five, six weeks down the track, we should be like, week two, having a chat and seeing what are we going to reach, and then change the milestones, are we there, are we not, or if we're not, how can we fix any problems to speed up the problem, add more resources, or find another way of solving the problem, so it's kind of using micro milestones to get to the macro goals. And is that process of testing? And that's kind of processing, testing, and iteration that we're getting to there. Most start, some leaders, look at it as a macro view, and not everyone realise that in the employee space, they're working on the micro level, so that kind of having to break it down for the guys, and getting regular feedback, can they achieve it or not, is kind of what a leader should be doing. So test and adjust. Yeah. The dream state of the leader, right, is you want your subordinates to achieve an outcome because they want to achieve that outcome, not because they're afraid of the repercussions of not meeting it, right? That's the pie in the sky that you always strive for. Yeah, that's right, yeah. You always want, as an employee, to achieve the outcome, but sometimes, you don't want to look bad to your employers that can't reach it, or a little harsh to reach it, I always do my job, so it's always going to come to light. But, man, you don't have any other resources, don't know where you're going to find a solution, so you end up like, no, I can't do it, then what do you do with it? If the leader can't achieve his outcome, and you can't do the work, then he's going to have to find somebody else, and you're going to be out of a job. So, that's a scary thought again, right? You end up saying you can do it, and you end up destroying your own personal brand, and saying, no, I can't do it, because it's going to harm, you don't have the skills for it. I do know, and I have witnessed, that when you have fear in the workplace, be it as a leader or a follower, it really caps or inhibits the intellectual capacity of your subordinates as well, and Johnny, you'll be very familiar through your MBA with the terms of critical thinking, and some people, there's the concepts of the different hats to critically think, Google it, if, to our listeners, Google it, and have a look at the hat theory for critical thinking, if you're not familiar, but one thing that, what's the word, compliments critical thinking, is this concept of fast brain and slow brain, are you familiar with that one Johnny? Fast brain and slow brain? You've probably covered it. Yeah, yeah, there's more examples of this fast brain and slow brain. Well, it's, I can't take credit for it, right, so look, it came to popularity in 2011, when this dude called Daniel Kahneman, wrote and then released a book, a popular science book, and this Daniel fella, he's a psychologist, right, and so he broke down human thought into two remits, and there was the fast, instinctive, emotional brain, or thought process, which is unconscious, this is like your final thought, and so, you know, it's where you don't necessarily think about doing something, but you just do it. Yeah, always do something without thinking about it. Yeah, absolutely, and that's the fast brain, but then the second part, or the second mental remit that he describes is the slow brain, which is more deliberate, more logical, more calculated, i.e. all those good constructs of critical thinking. Yeah. And guess what, right, if we say that the fast brain, which is, you know, it lacks thought because it's unconscious, it's instinctive, right, it's try for flight, what would a workplace with fear as the key motivation for its staff be instilling? Yeah, try for flight. And thus, the fast brain. Yes. And so you're going to end up with a workplace full of people where they're not necessarily going to be exercising the slow brain, they're not fostered to use the slow brain, they're not going to be thinking about what they're doing, they're literally, well, they're maxing out their fast brain components, never engaging their slow brain, out of fear. Yes. I've experienced fast brain syndrome. We have a guy on the team, at work, he's fast brain only. You mean from him? Yeah. I don't know if he has a slow brain, but he's definitely got a fast one, and that's how he runs 24-7. So his skill set is rational and bam-bam, they think when they speak kind of stuff. But his critical thinking is not so good. It's rubbish. So it's hard to get people to start thinking more critically, right, when they don't understand. Slow down and think logically and understand what you're doing, versus just living on the moment. If you're a live-on-the-moment type of guy, you live it out of work, you get a sense of out of work, you're going to bring it into work, and that's the role that kind of means that kind of fast-paced guy on the team. That's the self-worth that you have. So that's what you want. So having that critical thinking behind it as a leader, and maybe having guys who are on a fast brain, think it's brilliant, you've got to make it a bit difficult for yourself in a good way. So slow down and think about it in a different way. I've thought about it. Versus just being reactionary. How do I solve this problem? Bang, 150 guys doing this. So you can learn a lot about leadership through self-reflection as a follower. With what worked and what didn't. Yeah, and I know that also self-serving, for example, is Elon Musk. I've seen him in interviews, right? He was sitting there and they asked him a question last week about, do you care what Twitter tweets you put up? And whether it impacts the share price or whatever, right? He goes, and he thinks about it. And you watch him. It's a good 30 seconds of him thinking. That's dangerous, right? And then he goes, he talks about the fairy tale of, random fairy tale, right? And he's like, I don't care. It just banged his heart. That instills a great mind of critical thinking where he actually slows down in the middle of an interview in a high-pressure situation and coming up with the right answer. So it shows what a cover leader he is. It's a good example. I think what that demonstrates is exercising self-control to get there. And so as a leader, if you want to achieve intellectual outcomes of your staff, and that could be applied to anywhere, right? There's something that's nonsensical. It would take a logical mind to identify that and correct it. You need to foster that kind of thought and that kind of behavior. Fear inhibits that. Fear, which, you know, underpins also the concept of anxiety. I mean, how much of life... That's right. It infills anxiety, right? That's right. Negative thinking. Losing people. Yeah. The fear factor. And I find a lot of fear factor happens in the fast brain. That's the thing, right? This Daniel gentleman, this psychologist, his book states that fear is the activator of the fast brain, and the fast brain is dominant. It is strong. It overpowers the slower brain at a whim, and you've got to foster that. I've got a good example. Yeah. So this previous posting where I had this boss, and I may have mentioned about the low EQ, the emotional intelligence, his biggest gripe with me as a junior officer years ago was my lack of critical thinking. And we'd go through reviews of performance, and he was right. I didn't exercise critical thinking. There was a lot of stupid things I did, not because I didn't have the intellectual capacity. I don't like that. They're not stupid, right? Yeah. But through... Under the pressures and anxiety of working with him, he had utilised fear to drive and influence his staff, right? Get these outcomes or else. Here's the outcomes. This is crap. Go do it again. This is rubbish. Rah, rah. Completely belittling, right? It was terrible. So then he'd go and tell me to critically think. I didn't stand a chance. I could not get out of that fast brain. Critical thinking requires it slow. Yeah. He didn't think about fostering that. Yeah. And so for future leaders and current leaders on the air, that are listening to us now, I think some self-reflection about are you getting your staff out of the fast brain? Or at worst, are you actually putting your staff in the fast brain segment? And also following from that, what are you going to do to get them out? How are you going to foster slow brain activity for better intellectual outcomes from your staff? What do you reckon, Johnny? I reckon that's an amazing point. To get fostered people into the critical thinking brain. Um, yeah. But, you know, some people may have viewed that as being, um, what do you call it? Like taking a piss? But like, actually, like, if you work in the fast brain and you make mistakes, say you make a mistake in the same thing five times over by the fast brain, if you just slow down and critical think about what you're doing, you'll never make the mistake again. So, you may make it once, but if you mention the fast brain, the fast brain, you're tired or whatever, you make the mistake. But if you look at reflecting on that, slow brain, how can we do it better? How can we improve it? How do we prevent this from happening again? You understand, you go back and say, I understand what went wrong. And, um, this is how to fix it. So, actually, um, come up with solutions on better problem management. So, I think that's really good. Um, the fast brain, slow brain, in the workplace is definitely better. Even in a high pace environment, the risk and mistakes, you know, the risk of injuries and everything else is there, right? So, you want to slow it down. I know productivity, productivity is a bit off, but, you know, you've got to weigh out the risk of injuries and mistakes, right? So, you want to be a bit slow on the health and safety versus, um, the fast brain. It's a very interesting concept. And, you know, generally the old adage is that the person that's been around your workplace the longest is the one that develops up most of the good ideas or what works and what doesn't and they hold an opinion. But I would argue that it's not necessarily also about experience. Um, because they've been around a long time, um, they're not so much worried or anxious about the workplace. Everything's familiar. They have the ability to enact the slow brain segment by virtue of being there longer than, say, junior staff. Um, it's something worth considering as well. I think leaders need to consider the psychology of the human in their work, right? Because at the end of the day, you're influencing behaviours. Behaviours are driven by experiences, thoughts. Be, uh, involuntary or voluntary. Yeah. A lot of leaders use the creeper thinking. They use the seven W's. So, the what, where, why, how. Yeah. The what. The W's. And they break it down. And then once you use those W's, you find out the, um, yeah, it's, um, what, five, five, five, five W's. Not seven. I'll get over it. Five W's. Um, you can break down the situation, um, pretty quickly. And then from there, you can go on how do we improve it. Um, and so, and so, people don't, um, use that skill set in that part of the, in the fast brain. But you should use it in the creeper thinking program. Hmm. That's a good call, John. Good call. Alright. So, uh, no, this is the end of the episode. Our next episode is going to be on... I think fear versus respect. We can start... Oh, respect is good. I like respect. Next episode is going to be based on respect. That'll be a good one because we can explore the difference between, um, being firm and being light, um, how to balance that, if at all applicable. Because let's face it, right, you can't lead everyone by being their friend because you're going to get people that are going to take the mickey. Alright. Alright, all. Well, uh, yeah, thanks for listening to, uh, lead, follow and get out of the way. Tune in next time. Alright.