You seldom hear the word “fear” in management development workshops. Of course the word is not welcome anywhere in organizations. It’s the “F word” in offices and plants. Odd, isn’t it, since fear is always lurking in our workplaces, especially during the last few years of economic hell?

For some inexplicable reason your people think that you aren’t worried about your own job or about the brutal labor market you would be thrown into if you lost it. They think only they have fears. But, as you are of course well aware, employees are not the only ones who experience the raw worry that fires up your adrenalin when you wake up at 3:00 AM. Managers too have been feeling the gnawing anxiety of possible cutbacks and downsizing, even if they try valiantly not to show it.

It takes courage not to show your fears to your people. The poet D.H. Lawrence had this to say:

“The great virtue in life is real courage that knows how to face facts and live beyond them.”

What you do with your own fears shapes the way you lead. It also influences how worried your staff become because they tend to take their cues from the boss. So, here’s the key question: should you share your own concern, or is it best to pretend that you are fine? (Or, as they seem to say about everything in Jamaica, “no problem, man.”)

I think managers must present a blend to their employees. They should be authentic and admit that there is a risk, a potential downside, based on the current environment. They should even admit that they are concerned about this. But then they should share how they are choosing to respond to the situation, things like:

• Working as hard as they can each day to put their department/function and the organization in a position to sustain itself until better times.
• Focusing on what’s possible and on solutions, instead of dwelling on what’s wrong and on problems.
• Keeping in mind all the things we are doing well and what our strengths are.
• Consciously curbing needless negative and “woe is us” talk.
• Adopting the belief that not only will we survive but we will succeed.

Tell them this is the choice you are making. Invite your people to choose likewise.