4 Learning About Fear and Leadership from Dangerous Settings Flashcards
Clearly fear abounds in dangerous settings. the important test for leaders is to understand how fear works, how it influences subordinates, and how to either live with it or
learn to control it in in Extremis conditions
The experience of emotion requires inward focus, a recognition of self, and how one feels… in contrast dangerous settings demand attention to the world around us, not the world within us… they are willing to risk or even sacrifice themselves in moments of extreme danger because for them…
the self ceases to exist. It sacrificed to the outward focused demanded by learning and trying to survive in an extremist environments
is the danger inherent in the environment increases, the self- focus of experienced in extremist leaders
decreases along with the experience of emotion. rather than working to overcome a motion these leaders simply failed to experience them
people can be taught to sharpen your focus and skills, to turn out word and make sense of their environment in periods of high risk, rather than…
getting emotional, dysfunctional he excited, and self absorbed
attempting to control emotions may in some instances cause a leader to focus inward on the emotions themselves rather than continuing to address the threat. And emotions that are recognized are…
very hard to control and even harder to hide from followers
it is important for leaders to understand however that when they feel emotions during high-risk circumstances the reason they feel emotions is that they have insufficient…
external focus. That means it’s time to reconnect with the environment and it with the threat
the relationship between a leader’s personal risk and ability to inspire confidence is powerful but…
it cuts both ways in a dynamic business environment
business is inherently more complex in that it always adds…
third in the two the equation a client or a stockholder. balancing the needs of this third entity pushes leaders to decisions that are suboptimal for some, satisfying for others
what is meant by “defending peace is easier than creating peace”
that it’s easier to continue to stay relaxed, than it is to bring fear or other emotions under control once they have begun to influence the ability to perform
outward orientation is incompatible with …
is incompatible with the self preserving psychobiology that fuels fear and panic— the ultimate collapse into the self
William James understood that if you can establish certain conditions in the individual such as relaxation these conditions are incompatible with…
fear
when the effects of fear make themselves known in a way that’s distracting one word should enter the consciousness of in extremis leaders and followers…
breathe
of all the autonomic responses to adrenaline the one that we can best control consciously is…
respiration
fear is incompatible with functioning…
Slow respiration and relaxation are incompatible with fear. breathe
leaders have to maintain relaxation and stability among followers especially
and immediately in the presence of threat
from the in Extremis prospective, relaxation is not selfish; it’s the opposite:
indicative of an outward focus on the organization and the environment
leader control is lost when people begin to display
the unmistakable indicators of self focus: weakening the group through posturing, finger-pointing, and the abrogation of personal responsibility
the real tragedy behind anger and finger-pointing eye leaders and dangerous circumstances is not that it erodes their power base, which it usually does, or that it reveals a lack of control by the leader, which it always does. The tragedy is that it undermines…
follower confidence and makes operations recovery much more difficult
and dangerous circumstances anger finger-pointing and blame by leaders since the unmistakable message to followers:…
I’m not responsible for your lives, I am not in control; circumstances are now in control of us
a defeatist attitude is really just
an abdication of responsibility and control its un-leadership
negativity is a luxury that cannot be in dollars only in safe and secure places. In dangerous contacts, personal responsibilities in such profound demand that you can’t use your time or energy to complain about…
the environment it’s trying to kill you
leaders must avoid the temptation of encouraging followers to engage in destructive impression management or other forms of faking, panic, or paralysis when things are going wrong. Instead,…
take a deep breath, focus outward, but the situation developed, and act on the environment. Behaving as if something is wrong leads followers to feel that something is wrong. It simply makes it harder to deal with the problem at hand
