Coaching Yourself to Leadership: Five Key Strategies for Becoming an Integrated Leader

Managing Your Fear

Here’s a process for managing your fear and calculating the risk that’s stirring the fear. First, look at the facts—lay out the situation so that you can clearly see it. Then determine the worst-case scenario. What’s the worst thing that can happen to you if you take this risk? What are you most afraid of? Second, think about the opportunities that will be lost if you don’t take the risk. What opportunity might you miss that will be very hard for you to recapture?

Compare the worst-case scenario with the lost opportunity. Which is truly worse? Sometimes when we examine the worst-case scenario, we discover that it’s not really that bad after all. And sometimes when we examine the lost opportunity, we discover that the opportunity ...