The fear of failure is pervasive in schools and workplaces. Good leadership can help people overcome it.
This article first appeared in The Straits Times
Audrey, a chief financial officer, rock-solid and confident in front of her team, gets paralysed by the fear of speaking at the board meeting. She wonders if she is competent enough to face the firing squad of interrogators.
Jason, a newly promoted director, begins fretting about the dangerous spotlight and scrutiny associated with the new responsibilities.
The same issue holds Audrey and Jason back from reaching their true potential – the fear of failure.
But it is not just high-flyers like them who get afflicted by this fear. This fear can stop newcomers in companies from speaking out of turn and it is so prevalent and dangerous that it can stop companies from innovating and can potentially stifle their growth.
The good news is that it can be overcome.
Holding back innovation in workplaces
A poll by McKinsey in 2022 found 85 percent of executives agree that “fear holds back innovation efforts often or always in their organisation”.
As a result, instead of being champions of innovation, executives prefer to play it safe and rely on tried-and-tested methods. Often, when new ideas emerge, their fear-driven line of questioning cuts down the ideas in their infancy.
Could the ideas be billion-dollar opportunities in disguise? They will never know.
Certainly, a mistake at work comes at a cost. Sometimes it’s a humbling lesson learnt; at other times, it might be costly and career-limiting.
But the price of playing it safe means that organisations risk becoming obsolete.
The 2021 Corporate Longevity Forecast by Innosights predicts that S&P500 companies today will last merely 15 to 20 years, compared to 30 to 35 years in the late 1970s. This means most of us would see the rise and fall of almost twice as many giant companies in our lifetimes.
The solution to last longer in the game is to embrace innovation.
But innovating without the right culture is easier said than done.
May, an agile coach in a global bank, told me how hard it was for her teams to get the senior management to change. After two years on the job, May was so burned out from the continuous friction that she threw in the towel.
“The C-suite say they want to transform, but they are so risk-averse that it’s impossible for us to try anything unconventional,” May told me.
The reality is that embracing innovation is not some lofty idea or mission on the wall; the DNA to innovate must be present in every member. People need to be curious and open to new ideas, daring to push boundaries, and all that can begin only with adequate psychological safety.
The fear factor
Unfortunately, whether it is young children or mature workers, they can all get discouraged from speaking up by figures of authority.
I once overheard an irritated mother say to her daughter as they walked past me: “What’s the point of your question? Stop asking stupid questions!”
I caught the expression of annoyance on the mum’s face; disappointment and hurt crumpling the daughter’s. I can imagine how asking questions might appear dangerous to the child.
In workplaces, similar interactions play out.
Simon, a cyber security officer, once told me how a humiliating episode changed him. His manager had screamed at him over an unsatisfactory report. It was an open office and all could hear the colourful language and words like “stupid”, “incompetent”, and “useless”. As a result, preparing reports for management subsequently induced stress and anxiety in him.
Such fears can set in early. In 2019, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that students in Singapore have a higher fear of failure than other 15-year-olds. More than 70 per cent indicated failure as a concern in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa.)
Understandably, if the high fear of failure in students is left unresolved, as they progress into adulthood, they will also carry the excess baggage into the workplace. The Ministry of Education is trying to reform the education system and make learning fun again. But it will take a lot of effort to make workplaces also psychologically safe havens, where workers can speak and act without fear.
A joint survey by mental health organisation Calm Collective Asia and South-east Asia consumer research firm Milieu Insight in September 2022 found that fewer than four in 10 Singapore employees feel psychologically safe enough to share their mental health challenges with their managers, making it the lowest in the region.
It all depends on the leadership
I spoke to Ms Chelvin Loh, a public sector leader with over 20 years of experience, on my podcast, Agile Leaders Conversations.
“I’ve worked in workplaces that are psychologically safe and those that are not. The culture, experience and outcomes are clearly very different. It all depends on the leadership,” she said.
Listen to our podcast interview with Chelvin Loh, Public Sector Strategist as she shared the importance of creating psychologically safe workplaces.
Listen to the episode here.
Some workplaces have cracked the code.
Ms Loh shared how her first CEO created a psychologically safe environment with a simple principle: All opinions are valuable in broadening perspectives.
“He didn’t believe that young officers should stand in the back because they have no value to add. He also believed everyone should have an opinion. That sets the tone in the organisation where people are not afraid to speak up because there’s value to your opinion, even if it’s not the same as everybody else’s.”
“Compared to workplaces that are on the other extreme, where the staff are told to share opinions only when they’re 120% sure – it’s very hostile. In environments like that, nobody talks other than the boss. When there’s only one voice, there’s no diversity of ideas. Without diversity of ideas, there’s no innovation and excellence.”
In the Leaders People Love Global Survey, I wanted to uncover how managers can raise employees’ happiness. Four human-centric, behaviours garnered the highest votes: a) Recognises me for my work; b) Trusts me to do my best; c) Empowers me to do work my way; and d) Cares about me as a person.
Mr Syukri Azman, Head of Learning and Development in the retail industry, shared how getting in touch with good leaders shaped his career choice.
As a teenager, he did not do well in school. Often ranked at the bottom of his class, he felt like a failure at times. However, an outdoor training instructor saw his potential and invited him to join her team of freelance facilitators.
“Sometimes people around us see the value in us even before we see it in ourselves. As a young person who didn’t do so well in school, that was a pivotal moment that made me see the possibilities in myself, despite my academic ‘failures’. This was the defining moment that kickstarted my journey to become a trainer,” he said.
Trust and empowerment continued to be a theme in Mr Syukri’s life as he grew his career and found the confidence to take on challenges even when he was not entirely sure of himself.
Mr Syukri was just two months into his job when his manager entrusted him to conduct his first solo internal training session overseas. This was brought about by an emergency and he was given just six hours’ notice.
Initially overwhelmed with thoughts of imminent failure and embarrassment, he changed gears and the session went well.
He was gratified that his manager had trusted him.
Mr Syukri told me, “After I came back, all my manager said was, ‘I’m pretty sure it went very well for you’, without getting into micro-level details. To me, not micromanaging is a way of showing his trust in me and whatever happened in the session, he trusts that ‘I got it.’”
Listen to our podcast interview with Syukri Azman, Head of Learning and Development as he shares the importance of being a human-centered Leader.
Listen to the episode here.
Celebrate differences
A study in the US in 2004 by Elliot and Thrash found that the fear of failure can be transmitted from parents to children. Undergraduates whose parents have the fear of failure not only experienced the fear of failure, but also are inclined to avoid daunting challenges.
We are now seeing the effect in our adults and working class. But all is not lost.
A wise education leader once told me when I was a young teacher, “We cannot control the family circumstances of our students, but we can, as educators, create the best environment that nurtures them.” These words ring true for workplace leaders, too.
Helping people overcome the fear of failure in the workplace can sound like a tall order but it isn’t; it is the small actions that compound and make the difference.
To begin, forget about stop-gap measures and training only for skills. The reboot the system needs is a change in our mindset – the most valuable and rewarding upskilling we can have.
A simple one you can start today: seeing differences as natural advantages.
You can try with the following questions:
What’s your current belief about differences? How do you react when something is out of your expectations? Do you feel threatened and hence, retaliate, or are you curious and eager to broaden your perspective? How open are you to the idea ‘your way is not the only way’?
Differences among people represent the natural diversity of our human genome. Let’s celebrate them and no longer keep people on the sidelines, silenced by the fear of failure.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Take advantage of Chuen Chuen’s extensive experience coaching leaders worldwide. Her deep expertise in designing agile leadership corporate training will benefit your teams. No matter which stage of leadership you are at, we’ll partner with you and meet your business needs.
Explore our executive coaching programs, and corporate training courses. You can also hire Chuen Chuen as your speaker at events so that your organization will become agile, adaptive, and future-resilient.
Leave a Reply