I’m always setting context and creating meaning…even when I’m not trying to.

I am trusted to skillfully eschew the status quo with a disciplined quest for “what’s next”…even when the uncertainty of it all makes me uncomfortable and triggers fear. When I pay close enough attention, I recognize that the initial uncomfortableness is triggering a very specific kind of fear — not my fear of failure, not the fear of jeopardizing my career, and not my fear of saber-toothed tigers.

The specific fear being initially triggered by business innovation is the fear of the unknown. Then those other fears show up milliseconds later — barging through the door by sneaking in with fear of the unknown. When I don’t pay close enough attention, that compounded bum-rushing fear cocktail will show up in my response: my body language, my words and my behavior. When I don’t pay close enough attention, I’ll wind up setting counterproductive context and misdirected meaning for myself and for the people I am trusted to lead (through the unknown).

Fear that I do not transform is fear that I transfer to everyone else around me. This fear “stampede” is not an uncontrollable consequence of leading through change and transition. It only happens if I choose to let it happen. I’m responsible for the door. I own the door. Dr. Daniel Friedland reinforces that my ownership of the “door” (my brain) and how I experience all forms of fear itself is not unique to me or any one of us: “Our fear/self-doubt unites us. Our struggle to overcome it divides us.”

It’s unrealistic to solve for removing fear. Fred Kofman reminds me that my job is to transform fear of the unknown into confidence. Like a refinery, I have to take the“blackness of fear and turn it into confidence.” I need to be experienced at helping myself and other human beings “confront the natural fear that is inherent in our lives (and in our organizations) and turn it into fuel” so that I/we can more constructively respond and perform in the face of fear.

originally published on http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/fear-knot#axzz3J2Dyomq0