Rebels at Work

Chapter 7. Dealing with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

In the last few chapters, we’ve shared a lot of tactical advice. Now it’s time to return to the realm of our emotions. Learning to manage our emotions so that they don’t manage us may be the most important practice for rebels to learn.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt can paralyze us. We worry, “If I said or did that I could lose my job. Have I gotten in in over my head? Am I jeopardizing my career?” Part of becoming an effective rebel is looking inside and facing our doubts and fears.

Our emotional journeys as rebels often start the moment we realize that our ideas about what needs to be done don’t square with our organization’s current direction or the official view of how things work. And the emotional turbulence never really goes away. We know; those are hard truths, but they must be faced.

Some fears might be unfounded and some will carry risk. The challenge is: how can we manage our fears so that they don’t stop us from doing the work we know should be done?

A Heretic at the CIA

I feel very lucky that early on in my rebel journey someone—a stranger, really—warned me about how emotionally difficult it would be. I was at a meeting where government officials and business executives were exchanging best practices. At the reception afterwards, one of the business executives came to me through the crowd and pulled me aside. Her manner suggested ...