624 | Fear is the Enemy of Progress: Building the Courage to Lead Change

As leaders, when we let fear dictate our decisions, we bury our potential.

Today we're talking about how fear shows up in leadership, how to confront it, and how to build the courage to lead change. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today, we are talking about how fear, fear absolutely can impede progress inside of your business.

And we're going to talk about what it takes to have the courage to lead change as well.

The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) (00:00:53)

But first, we're going to start off with a fantastic parable that Yeshua gave. And there's so much more into this than I'm going to share, but I'm going to just share the basics of it, which is the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, 14, 30.

Now, one of the most powerful biblical illustrations of fear and its consequences is the parable of the talents.

You know, a master entrusts three servants with talents, which was a form of currency. And again, there's so much deeper information on this, but we're using the basic format, expecting them to steward and multiply what they've been given.

Now, two of them invest it, they grow their talents. But the third person, out of fear, buries his talents in the ground. When the master returns, he rewards the two who took action.

But he condemns God, condemns the one who let fear hold him back, calling him wicked and lazy. What is the lesson?

Fear leads to stagnation. It keeps us from stepping into the leadership we are called to. Now, am I saying that every bit of your leadership, God is looking for you to do it without any fear whatsoever?

That's not what I'm saying. But you need to understand what fear does and how it can affect you.

Now, I will give you my caveat, is that there are two types of fear as far as I'm concerned. There is the legitimate fear.

There is the, hey, a lion is attacking you or coming after you or, you know, chasing you down. You should be fearful in this moment. Something's going to happen.

Something bad could happen unless you outrun somebody slower, that's legitimate. But I would say that 95%, maybe 98% of fear is imagined.

That's the second type of fear, the fear that we imagine is going to happen, the fear that we believe something bad is going to happen. And that can absolutely shut us down.

How Fear Manifests in Leadership and Organizational Cultures (00:02:52)

So today we're going to go through five different aspects of things that we should be focusing on when it comes to fear and the first thing that we're going to focus on is how does fear manifest in leadership?

How does it fit, how does it manifest in organization, and how does it manifest in organizational cultures?

So the thing is, is that fear isn't always obvious. It can disguise itself as caution. It can disguise itself as indecisiveness.

It can even disguise itself as resistance to change, which that's really not even a disguise. That definitely shows, like, there's some level of fear. There's multiple types of fear. There's fear of failure.

That tends to be the biggest one that we see in business. You know, you might have leaders, you might have leaders that are hesitant to make tough decisions.

Fear of confrontation, or team members avoid accountability. Conversations that. That is quite a popular thing to experience.

And so many leaders don't do anything about it. They see it, they recognize that it's something wrong, but then they don't do something about it, which we have to get past.

The fear of rejection is another thing. You know, maybe business owners don't pursue new opportunities.

Maybe they don't pursue innovation because they're afraid of, you know, it being a failure and they're being rejected with their ideas or whatever.

And we see fear of rejection everywhere, right? It could be team member to team member. It could be business leader to business leader. It could be team member. All over.

We see these concerns of being rejected. We also see the fear of losing control. We. We can see this in a lot of ways.

Micromanagement definitely shows a fear of losing control when somebody is, you know, that micromanagement creeps into somebody's leadership or even to- into a team member's-- you know, stifling their own growth.

These are all different. These are all different examples of fear. And that's just a couple.

I barely-- I'm not even scratching the surface. There's so many different aspects of this, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

But it is so good for us to put our mind on what do we experience and how much does it shut us down.

So think of like a business owner who hesitates to implement a new pricing structure because they-- they fear losing customers. Instead of adapting and thriving, they stagnate and let competitors surpass them.

I can't tell you how many times, how many times I have helped business owners who were fearful of raising their prices.

Most of the time I see business owners that are so overwhelmed with people coming in and they're turning business away left and right, and I'm like, hey, raise your prices.

Like, oh, I don't want to do that. I, you know, but what if people, you know, I start losing customers?

So think about this. If you raise your prices, say 10% and you lose 10% of your clients, that's going to suck, that you lost those clients. But look at how many clients you have coming your direction.

How many more clients will you pick up, right? How many more clients are wanting your business that you're turning away? On top of that, here's an interesting thing.

Many times when you do inadequate price raise, I'm not telling everybody, go raise your prices right now.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about when you're in a situation like this where you're overwhelmed with possible clients and the clients that you have and the business that you have.

Many times when you raise your rates, your clients understand. They understand what's going on.

Especially in a time like now where so many things have been affected by, you know, travel prices and, you know, you know, cost of fuel, which, funny enough, that's coming back down.

So that's a good thing. So just things like that where somebody hesitates because of fear, instead of digging in and asking the question, what if, what if I do that? If instead of this isn't going to work or.

And you know, sometimes somebody will say, well, we've always done it this way. We can't change it now. Ask the question. Ask the question, what would happen if we did do this?

What could happen? How could this fail, but how could it succeed? And walk through the processes and asking yourself the question, if we did this and we lost this, and if we did this and we lost this, is it acceptable?

Does it work for what we're doing? Right? So if you're struggling to get. So if you're struggling to gain business, then it's very rarely the time to raise your prices.

I will say the one time you raise prices when you're struggling to get business is if people don't see value in the price of what you're selling.

I could tell you years ago, 20 some years ago, gosh, longer, 25 years ago or something, I raised prices on an event that we were doing because it was so cheap.

And the crazy thing is, the moment I raised the prices, I more than doubled the price.

We went ballistic. And I truly believe it's because people were looking at the price going, well, that's what could I possibly get for that? And once they saw that it was a higher cost, it gave a greater perceived value. And that worked.

Identifying Fear-Based Decisions vs. Wise Decisions (00:07:43)

Number two, we need to identify fear-based decisions versus wise decisions. Now, fear based decisions, they feel like avoidance, they feel like delay. Sometimes they can feel like over analysis.

Wise decisions are rooted in truth and strategy. Now personally, I'm somebody who takes calculated risks and what I mean by that is I spend a lot of time calculating what could happen, what should happen, how could this fail.

I spent a lot of time digging into the information and that helps me to make wiser decisions. So if you're going to take a risk, if you're going to make decisions, try doing calculated versions of it, right?

Spend time, right? Don't make fear based decisions. Don't do something like, you know, not hiring the right person because you're afraid of making a mistake.

If you've done your work, if you've done everything you can in the hiring process and you follow something like what we teach and you've gone through every step, then make the decision right now.

You cannot interview out everything. You can't interview out. You know, people have personal problems that show up down the road, but if you do the best that you can, then you have a high chance of gaining quality people on your team.

Now for wise decisions, take the time to ensure that the like if you're in the hiring process, take the--

So a wise hiring decision wouldn't be taking the time to ensure a candidate aligns with your culture, with your vision, you know, making sure that they're going to be a great fit, that they actually are a team player or a team member, not an island.

Which is the worst hire you can make when it comes to an individual as somebody who only operates and cares about themselves.

Right now a fear based decision might be. Now a fear based decision when it comes to firing people might be delaying firing somebody who is a toxic team member to avoid discomfort.

Once again, I cannot tell you the number of business leaders or business owners that I've sat down with and helped them to get rid of somebody who should have been gone a long time ago.

I think the longest number I heard when I asked the question, you know, do you have somebody on your team that should have been fired a long time ago?

How long have they been on the team? And I think the longest answer I heard was seven years. And that was legit, that they had left somebody in place for seven years because of fear.

Fear that maybe they had too much industry knowledge or fear that they were so important and so valuable to the team. When you find a toxic team member, and again, I'm not telling you, go fire, you know, people right away.

What I'm saying is, is when you know you have a toxic team member. Here's what I can tell you. I can almost guarantee you they're not doing anywhere near the amount of work you think they are.

It appears as though they're doing all this amazing work. I can promise you, I can almost promise you I'm going to keep some safety in here because I don't, I don't want you to go basing decisions without quality information, right?

But I can almost promise you that they are probably not as valuable as you think. They're probably creating more problems than you think. There's probably a morale issue inside of your team.

There's stuff going on and you know it. But you have convinced yourself out of fear that this is somebody you can't get rid of every single time.

There is not, let me tell you, there is not a single time that I have helped a business leader or a business owner to get rid of a toxic person that they've ever come back and said, well, that was a mistake.

Every single time they have come back with, man, what a relief. The team is happier, morale is higher. Come to find out they weren't even doing the stuff that they said they were doing.

I've had people come to me, dear friends that are business owners, like this person was working for somebody else while they were on the clock.

In my own business, they've discovered amazing things. So don't make fear based decisions when it comes to getting rid of toxic people.

Wise decisions would be addressing that toxicity quickly, as soon as you can so that you can protect your team. Because here's what happens when you don't.

The team sees it and the team says, apparently that person is more important than I am.

Apparently protecting that person is more important than taking care of me. So, you know, if you're somebody, so if you're somebody who's struggling with this, you've got to look at it from all sides.

Gain high levels of quality perspective. How much is it affecting your team? How much is it affecting morale? How much are you not acting, affecting your business?

And then gain quality perspective. Dig in with the information.

You know, if you are holding the person accountable, if you have quality accountability inside of your business, then I promise you the accountability will ferret the person out and most likely they will leave before they get fired.

I have not had to fire somebody in, gosh in decades. I think at this point because accountability, holding people accountable to the right stuff.

People see that they're going to get fired and they end up leaving early.

I'm telling you, if people don't like the people who stay and that have been with me for a decade, people that have been with me forever, people that have worked with me for 20 years, almost 20 years, 17 years.

I have multiple people that have worked with me in different places. Why? Because they want accountability, they accept accountability.

They don't have a problem with accountability. The person that does have a problem with accountability, they will be gone very soon.

Strategies to Confront Fear Head-On and Lead with Courage (00:13:12)

Number three, make sure that you put together strategies to confront fear head on and lead with courage. So courage isn't the absence of fear, it is taking action in spite of it.

So first thing you want to do, reframe the narrative. Instead of asking things like, well, what if I fail? Ask what if I succeed? Change the question, change the way you're going about it.

If you will do that, what you will find is that crazy negative self talk in your head that says that things are going to go wrong and you're going to fail will actually start to give you problem solving information.

What if I succeed? What can I do about it? Right? Take small steps. Take small courageous steps. Fear loses its power. Fear loses its power when you move forward, even if it's one step at a time.

You know this, you've experienced this in situations in your life that you've not gone through your entire life and not faced fear.

But one thing you have done, and I know that you can look back on your life and discover this is where have you taken steps and it diminished the fear.

Keep in mind, according to me, keep in mind, I believe most fear is imagined.

So if it is and it's negative self talk in your head, then if you change the script, if you flip the script, you'll be amazed at how all of a sudden with the right words, the right focus, the right information, it's not just words, but gaining perspective and information, all of a sudden success looks a heck of a lot more easy than failure does.

Also super, super important, folks, the the old adage, you know, you are the sum of the the five people you hang around with the most.

That is decently accurate. It could be, I could even say it's highly accurate. Who you hang around with.

If you hang around negative people, if you hang around people who are always seeing failure, if you hang around people who are lazy, incompetent, guess what?

You're going to struggle to be successful because that wears off. They have done studies that show being around somebody who is negative literally affects your own brain.

It literally affects the way you operate. It's as if you receive it by osmosis, right?

That being around people who are negative, negative, negative, a positive person can turn negative because they're around that junk. Surround yourself with bold leaders. I'm not talking about crazy leaders.

I'm not talking about leaders who don't think and always shoot from the hip. I'm talking about spending time with people who do not allow fear to control their decision making. Be around those folks.

Spend time with those folks. Find people. This is one of the things we love about our Mastermind program, is that we have folks that are hanging out and growing in their decision making because they're around strong people.

If you're hanging around with your cousin Frank who's always telling you all the problems about your business and he's never actually even led people, much less run a business, then you're probably going to struggle.

If you have a spouse who keeps, I don't know, ripping your spine out all the time, you're probably going to struggle in making quality decisions.

Find bold leaders. Bold leaders who actually have been able to overcome a lot of the fear and the fear of failure, fear of rejection, all those things, and are making quality decisions and spend time with those people.

Get a group around you who actually knows what it's like to make quality decisions. Into battle. Fear. Nothing you need to do. You need to anchor yourself in truth.

You need to anchor yourself in truth. Second Timothy 1:7 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

So I want you to think about this. Let's say you're a leader who's struggling with imposter syndrome, which every leader at some point struggles with.

That usually in the beginning of their leadership career, but some folks keep that their entire leadership career. Begin taking small steps.

Begin leading one big meeting, making one tough decision until courage becomes a habit once again. Everything. The caveat to all of this is, is that you're getting quality perspective. You're--

You're taking calculated risks. You're making wise decisions based on truth and strategy. Don't make giant leaps. Don't, don't go do something that ensures that you're going to fail.

Instead, do stuff that helps you to make smart decisions today. What that help you to make quality decisions. One small step at a time. One bold action moving you forward. One step at a time.

Why Boldness is About Action, Not the Absence of Fear (00:18:21)

Number four, you have to understand that boldness is about action. It's not about the absence of fear.

Fear is always present when we step into something new. Fear is going to Be there. When we look at the possibility of failing, fear is going to be there.

If we are concerned and most people are with the opinions of others, fear is going to be there. Boldness is about moving forward anyway.

So if you're waiting for fear to disappear, it means that you're going to be waiting forever. Bold leaders aren't fearless.

Let me say this again. They're not fearless. They act despite fear. They make decisions despite fear. And again, like I say, calculated decisions, right?

Wise decisions. Even the smallest win can build confidence over time. So let's say you're a business owner who's afraid of public speaking.

And that I will say again, working with, I don't know how many business owners at this point. It's thousands and thousands. It may be tens of thousands, I don't know.

But I can tell you this. Most business owners are afraid of public speaking. Why? Because most people are afraid of public speaking.

And that's because we're afraid of people's opinions. I can tell you, back in the 90s, when I started out in ministry, that was. I was somebody who'd never even prayed in public.

I was scared to death of, of speaking in public because of how stupid I might look or people might think that, you know, I, I don't know, imposter syndrome. I'm. I'm gonna say the wrong things or people are going to think I'm crazy, whatever.

I don't even remember, gosh, it was 30 plus years ago, but I made a bold decision. I got so upset because I was asked to do something and I was so fearful of it, I did it, but I sucked at it.

And I was so upset at myself for being so fearful because my fear was affecting other people. I was asked to pray in public for two boys that were struggling with.

I don't even know what they were struggling with. It was just to pray over them and, and help them. And I was so scared to death of how I was perceived.

And I made a decision in that moment. Never again will I be here where my fear is going to affect somebody else's outcome. And that pushed me in the direction of speaking. And I told myself every time I get the opportunity.

Well, it wasn't long after that I was preaching and teaching and doing a lot, and I kept taking those chances and then roll forward later, you know, getting on the stage with, you know, 1,500 people and then 3000, 5000, 10-000, 11,000 people, right?

And it became that happy place for me, not, not being in front of people, I being in front of one person is just as important to me. It was the opportunity to help people without fear and taking that platform and being able to help people.

Just like today, hopefully this episode is helping you to overcome. This is what brings me joy. This is what brings me so much worth from God is being able.

The fact that he's put his creation in a place where I can affect it through teaching, through guidance, through direction, in a positive way, not in a negative way, obviously. And being able to do that took courage. It took boldness.

It helped me to become a very confident speaker. And by the way, when it comes to speaking, what's one of the number one fears? Not being prepared, not being ready.

Right, so here's the deal. Fear is always going to exist, but you get to decide whether or not it controls you. And if you choose boldness, then you have to recognize it's a muscle. Just like fear. You built that fear muscle.

It's time to break that muscle down and build the boldness muscle instead. As you use it, it's going to grow.

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Leaders Who Overcame Fear to Create Massive Change (00:23:10)

Okay, Number five. Leaders who overcome fear do it and create massive change. Every great leader has faced fear, but every great leader chooses courage instead.

If you look at Abraham Lincoln, he faced massive opposition, but he led with conviction. If you look at Walt Disney fired from his first job for lack of creativity, that just that still to this day just cracks me up.

But it also tells me that there was a God aspect there of God moving him in the right direction. Same with Lincoln, right? He persisted.

If you look at the biblical example of Gideon, Gideon was actually called by God while he was hiding in fear. But he led Israel to victory when he stepped into his calling.

So think of a business owner who resisted firing that toxic person, that toxic so called top performer because of fear. When they finally took action, the team's morale and performance skyrocketed.

Went ballistic, right? The truth is fear is universal. But overcoming it separates good leaders from great ones.

Action Steps: Building the Courage to Lead Change (00:24:21)

So here's some action steps you can take today to build courage and lead change.

Number one. Identify one. Just one. Just one fear driven decision you've been making. Write it down, identify it.

Number two. Ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen? Often fear exaggerates reality.

So make sure that you're asking the solid question, what's the worst thing that can happen? I usually ask people on a scale of 0 to 10, how bad could this be? And they're almost always like an 8.

And then I say, okay, now let's think through the action steps and the pieces. And then it's like, okay, now what's the worst?

Oh gosh, maybe a two. When they get to quality perspective, it's like, no, it's not even that bad.

Number three. Take one small bold step today. Do something today. It could be a tough conversation, it could be a new strategy, it could be stepping out, it could be stepping outside of your comfort zone. Take one small step today towards something bold.

Number four. For the love, please choose to surround yourself with courageous people. Fear is contagious, but guess what? So is courage. Find courageous people. Doesn't mean that there are people who don't experience fear.

As a matter of fact, I will tell you this. If you're finding, if you're following somebody who was boisterous and you know, always talking about how amazing they are and how great they are and all that kind of stuff, that's probably not the person to follow, right?

Because that's probably inflated ego. Find somebody who is self efficing, right? Somebody who is. It's not about me. It's not about me.

But is bold, courageous, makes strong decisions and battles fear and makes wise decisions, obviously, right? Surround yourself with those people.

Find a good group of people who is going through the same stuff you are, but is putting things in place to make sure that they overcome it.

Number five. Pray and meditate on second Timothy 7:1 7. Remind yourself daily that you are called to lead with power. Remind yourself daily that you are called to lead with power, with love and with wisdom.

Additional Resources (00:26:31)

So some additional resources you need to go through.

Episode 621 which is Bold Leadership VS Resistance, Breaking Cycles and Leading Effectively. It's part one of the boldness series that was-- It's part one of the Boldness Series and:

Episode 622. Boldness versus-- Boldness VS Burnout Reclaiming Your Energy to Lead with Confidence. That's part two. So we get into a lot of fantastic information that will help you to overcome fear.

Conclusion (00:26:56)

Now, at the end of the day, fear will always knock at your door. But leadership is about whether you open the door or you stand firm. You do not have to open the door. You do not have to allow fear to exist.

You have. You can battle it in your brain over and over again. Crush the lies with truth. Gain quality perspective.

Make decisions to move forward. Take those chances. Like I said, I was scared to death just to pray in public when I was a kid. And I made the decision, never again. I will take opportunities. I will put myself in situations, and I will. And I will overcome.

And praise God. That's exactly what happened. And it allowed me to change so many more lives. I'm doing this show. I've done podcasts, I'm doing this show.

I've done shows for, geez, 17ish years, something like that. 16, 17 years. I don't know, something like that. Because I took that step. I took that step and chose courage and chose boldness and. And God backed me up in the process, and here I am.

So your business, your team, your future, all of it depends on whether you lead through fear and allow fear to hold you back or you push forward.

So which area of your leadership has fear been holding you back? Write it down. It may be many areas. Let's start with one. Take a step now. If today's episode resonated with you, if this is helping you, do me a favor so that we can help more people.

Share it with a fellow leader who needs encouragement. Give us a rating on iTunes. Help us out so that we can reach more people.

As always, keep taking steps to become the leader you were meant to be. Whether it's in your business, whether it's in your family, whether it's to people around you, keep taking those steps.

Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for today. I hope this has helped you out.

As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.