Embrace Your Fear

Prior to a 2003 playoff game between the Portland Trailblazers and the Dallas Mavericks at Portland’s Rose Garden Arena, a 13-year old girl named Natalie Gilbert stepped onto the floor to sing the National Anthem. Natalie had won a local contest, and her prize was the honor of singing the anthem before the Blazers game. But as she began to sing, the young girl, nervous and fighting a flu bug, promptly forgot the words to the song. In that terrible moment, in front of 20,000 fans, she simply stopped, and time slowed to a crawl as everyone in the building felt the pain of her humiliating moment.

But suddenly, a rescuer stepped forward. Maurice Cheeks, the Blazers’ coach and former NBA star point guard, walked from his team’s bench, put his around the young girl’s shoulder and started singing the words. With his help, Natalie jumped back in and began to sing the difficult anthem. Cheeks stayed by her side, singing along in a voice that bespoke his lack of musical ability. No matter. The players were now singing, and the fans, the coaches, even the referees joined in, and the odds were that the anthem had never been song as loudly and as proudly at the Rose Garden before. Tears flowed from people’s eyes and when she finished, Natalie put her head against Cheeks’ shoulder and got a warm hug. The crowd stood and cheered as Cheeks strolled back to the bench.

And this story, which appears in “Flying Without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success,” is an apt illustration of author Thomas J. DeLong’s theory that leaders in business must overcome anxiety and fear of risk in order to achieve fulfilling and satisfying personal success. One of DeLong’s theories is that high-need-for-achievement individuals are often laid low by their own anxieties and face the challenge of doing the right thing poorly. Maurice Cheeks was not a singer, nor was he charged with the task of coming to the aid of bedeviled anthem singers at home games. But he acted quickly and with courage, taking a risk in a situation that required an immediate response. As he said later, he didn’t think about it and probably didn’t know most of the words himself. But he felt that he had to do the right thing and was willing to put himself in a vulnerable position in order to do it.

As DeLong assures his readers, “You can overcome your anxieties and change your behaviors. You can display the courage necessary to do the right thing poorly: followed by doing the right thing well, and learn and grow from that experience.”

As part leadership training and part psychology text, “Flying Without a Net” takes on the often-overlooked soft side of the leadership vortex, and DeLong’s timing could not be better. In a business world that is volatile, stress-filled and uncertain, high achievers are walking a very thin line these days. Jobs are less secure, competition for promotion is intense, governance and regulatory scrutiny have increased dramatically, and more work has to be crammed into tighter deadlines. No wonder people are anxious. But in the macho-tinged atmosphere of the executive suite, conversation about vulnerability and self-fulfillment is mostly verboten. High-need-for-achievement types suffer in quiet misery, wrecking their personal lives, and wondering at the end of yet another 16-hour day, what it’s all about.

DeLong identifies the Big Three Anxieties: Purpose, Isolation and Significance. He devotes a full chapter to each of these leadership traps and offers compelling examples as well as useful insights that will resonate across a broad spectrum of both young and experienced managers. In the chapter on isolation, for example, DeLong, who teaches management practice in the organizational behavior area at Harvard Business School, points out, “The fundamental questions that individuals ask as they stand on the edge of the group are: ‘Am I in or out? Am I a member of the club or not? Will I ever fit into this group or team or division or organization?’ Certainly some people are firmly ensconced in their organization’s inner circle and feel secure. The majority, however, feel like they are drifting toward the outer edges of the circle.”

It is difficult to make the kind of required engaged commitment to an organization if one feels such isolation, DeLong points out. Even those appearing successful and confident struggle with fears of being disenfranchised, and few know how to confront such feelings.

As in most prescriptive texts, “Flying Without a Net” does not offer a panacea. But most high-need-for-achievement types will see a lot of themselves here, and DeLong is generous with his advice. He boils down his prescription to six basic steps:

1. Stop to reflect, with self-awareness.
2. Let go of the past.
3. Create a vision or specific goal with an agenda.
4. Seek support through mentors and a network
5. Don’t blink.
6. Take action that makes you vulnerable.

In the end, teaching-old-dogs-new-tricks books often feel like warmed-over clichés that somehow keep emerging from business book publishers. But given how every new generation of leaders marches straight into the same traps, a well-conceived, well-executed reminder that being human — with both the strengths and frailties — is okay, even welcome now and then.