In High Altitude Leadership, Chris Warner and Don Schmincke cover the top eight dangers in leadership.
What is number one?
Good ol' fear.
"Whether in an office or on a mountain, choosing to stay stuck in the safe world ensures losses of great opportunities to the ultimate strategy killer: fear. It stops staff from making great decisions, stops change agents from disrupting the status quo, and stops leaders from leading."
All of us fear. It is normal. It is healthy. But the doers push past the fear. They 'embrace death' as the authors say. I go into each project knowing it could go terribly wrong. I could get fired on every job. I could be humiliated. I know that. I plan for it to happen (saving my pennies). I accept it. I move forward.
Just because you've done in the past doesn't mean you're a 'doer' now. You can't rest on your laurels. It'll date you quickly.
"We like telling executives that no one wants to be led by a has-been. That really hits a lot of them in the gut. Here they are, business leaders who live in the comfortable world they built for themselves and surrounded by the trappings of success, and someone who has climbed an icy peak is insinuating that they've stopped being the leader they imagine themselves to be. We ask them, 'How often do you take real risks in your career?' 'Are you pushing your team to the limits of your industry?' 'Are you exercising your strengths, so that when a crisis occurs you can act decisively?'"
Take a calculated risk today.
BTW… High Altitude Leadership is, hands down, the goriest business book I have ever read. It is filled with stories of dead bodies and climbers hacking off limbs.