Fear

A reader wrote in his recent comment, “Do Not Fear.”

That statement brought to mind a conversation I had with Dr. Mike Laird, on what motivates principals. As we often do, we picked one criteria and tried to see if it does a good job of sorting great principals vs. everyone else. Here is two hours of conversation, boiled down to a couple of paragraphs.

Principals are often motivated by fear. Many principals fear, “doing something.”

What if I am wrong? What if someone complains? What if someone quits? What if I get blamed? These principals are often good managers, but this type of fear stops them from getting ahead of the big really big issues.

Great principals are often motivated by fear. They fear, “not doing something.”

If I don’t do something, these kids won’t be successful. If I don’t do something, some school will catch us. If I don’t do something, we’ll never figure “it” out. These principals don't set the pace for the pack, they lap the field.

I don’t think we can ever completely overcome fear, and I don’t think we want to. With that being the case, don’t let fear paralyze you. Instead, use your fear to push you and your organization to ever greater levels of performance and success. Fear being guilty of “Not Doing Something,” and go solve problems that the rest of us don't yet know exist.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…