By Maurice Gilbert
I watched a documentary of the Eagles, the legendary rock group that has been alive and relevant for 40 years. In 1994 they resumed performing after a 14 year breakup. When interviewing Glenn Frye, one of the leaders of the band, he expressed fear about getting back together. Fear of not being able to write new songs and fear that they may not draw strong attendance at their comeback concert tour. Ultimately, he made the decision to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and the rest is history.
So how does this relate to you as a leader in business? I think one of your principal roles as a leader is to help navigate your team through those moments of fear which are caused by uncertainty (not knowing the outcome of your efforts, afraid of looking foolish, etc.) A good starting point would be to provide your staff with Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now. In the book Tolle professes that the more you can embrace uncertainty and that uncomfortable feeling, the more liberated you will be to take risk. Taking risk is necessary for professional and personal growth and a necessary component to provide new products and services for the sustainability of your company. Look no further than Apple: they are constantly taking risk and pushing the envelope in development of their products; the iPhone is now in iteration six.
When you consistently take your staff outside their comfort zone to grow individually and to grow your business they learn that being uncomfortable is nothing to fear. After all, how many times have we heard the pilot of the commercial flight say “please put on your seat belt as we expect turbulence until we reach our cruising altitude.”
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Maurice Gilbert is Managing Partner of Conselium Executive Search, which specializes in placing Compliance Officers and Legal Counsel for clients in the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Maurice is also CEO of Corporate Compliance Insights, a worldwide publication devoted to governance, risk and compliance issues. Maurice can be reached at maurice@conselium.com ormaurice@corporatecomplianceinsights.com.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
