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Operator’s Manual
When You’re a Leader, It’s Okay to Be Scared
The opportunity for growth lies in facing down fear and doing the hard thing anyway
Taylor’s discomfort is palpable. “They need to decide what to do,” he says with uncharacteristic energy. He’s angry, frustrated, and, he reminds me, he’s been waiting for them for weeks. His powerlessness is seductive, and I’m drawn in empathically. I sit shoulder to shoulder with him, lamenting their lack of decision. It’s left him feeling more than angry — he seems lost. The confusion and indecision rest heavily, like a fog, enveloping both our minds.
Suddenly, I start to sense that there’s something wrong with this whole picture. “This is a setup,” I say to him but more to myself. “Taylor, you’re the CEO. What the hell are we talking about?”
The “them” he was referring to were his board of directors. And it began to dawn on me what “the setup” here was. His confusion and frustration were a by-product of a relatively simple, but utterly common problem among my clients: The disavowal of his own agency and the projection of his authority onto someone else — in this case, the “adults” who seemed to control his destiny.
“Taylor,” I said, starting to put the pieces together, “I think this whole storyline, this ‘When will they make a decision?’ is a setup, an act, a play.”
“What do you mean?” he said. “They’ve not made a decision. They’ve not told me what they want… ”
Cutting him off I said, “Stop it. It’s not their job to tell you. It’s your job to tell them.” He furrowed his brow in that familiar look of confusion, a look I’ve actually found endearing, triggering in me a wish to tell him what to do. I resist giving him a decision.
“There it is,” I said pointing, “There’s that confused, ‘What should I do, Dad?’ look. Why are you waiting for them to tell you what to do?” I then see it even more clearly, his confusion is a screen for a deeper, more troubling blocker on his leadership journey. He feels a need to not make decisions and to punt responsibility for that decision onto those whom he sees as having more power.
“What’s the benefit of having no decision?”
