Look for These Telltale Signs
that You Need to Take Action
W
E LIVE AND work in an era of rapid change, violent disruption and great uncertainty. In this
type of environment, it’s easy to react with indecision and fear. In fact, perpetual fear is a sane response to the carnival thrill ride that is today’s workplace. And yet, according to Amanda Setili, company owners, leaders and employees alike must learn to productively coexist with fear if we’re to achieve any measure of career success.
“Just as organizations must be
bold, agile and constantly reinventing themselves, so must the individuals who lead and work in them,” says Setili, author of ‘Fearless Growth: Te New Rules to Stay Competitive, Foster Innovation, and Dominate Your Markets.’
“Tat means no matter how tempting
it is to freeze like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk, we can’t afford the luxury. Hiding out in a state of fear for too long will kill a career. Te good news is, once we’re aware that fear is holding us back, we can take action to overcome it. It’s not always
16 WINT ER 2 019
Is FKilling Your Career?
easy, but taking bold action anyway — facing our fears and living to tell about it — is always the path to personal growth.”
Of course, a certain amount of fear
is useful. It prevents us from acting rashly and making ill-advised decisions. Tat’s why it’s not always easy to know when you’ve crossed the line between commonsense caution and career- squashing fear. Tat’s why Setili offers up the following red flags to watch for:
You hold back your good ideas
instead of speaking up. When you are about to voice your opinion, do you often stop yourself, afraid of what others might think?
You procrastinate on the big stuff.
Have you put off acting on important priorities, letting the task slip to the bottom of your to-do list for days, weeks or months on end? Tis can be a sign that you fear that you won’t do the task well, or that it will backfire somehow.
You perpetually play it safe. Do you find yourself taking the safest and
least controversial actions at work, even when you know that the “safe route” is the wrong action to take?
You’re always looking for someone
to blame. When things aren’t going as well as you’d like, is your first impulse to explain how others in the organization contributed to the problem? Fear of being blamed for poor results can be debilitating. You waste time avoiding blame, rather than putting your energy into taking needed action.
You sugarcoat the truth or tell lies
of omission. Tis often happens when we are afraid to deliver bad news. Perhaps you don’t tell your subordinate that she needs to improve performance or you don’t share with your boss bad news you received from a customer. “Too often we are afraid of what people will think and do if we tell the truth, so we gloss over the truth or say nothing at all,” says Setili.
You don’t trust others to do their
part. A department manager at a large manufacturing company worked long hours, yet accomplished far less than he
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