Trust and Fear Vs Individual Growth!
Published on October 4, 2016
Key to understanding
life at work is to understand the relationship between power, fear and trust; many
Organizations are run through fear. Trust is a strong fuel source for any
organization, but it is hard for some leaders to build and hard to maintain
trust. It is easier and faster to lead a team through fear than to build trust
into a workplace.
To build trust, you
have to know yourself and you have to tell the truth about things that many
leaders and your peers don’t like to talk about. You have to talk about the air
quality and the feelings of the people around you — as well as your own
feelings. You have to be able to talk about your fears, and that is
something that too many leaders cannot or will not do.
Fear is another power
source that we have to understand. Many organizations run almost completely on
fear. Their employees are motivated mostly by the understanding that if they
don’t do what they’re expected to do, "they’ll get fired."bare
minimum level.
Everybody knows their
place in the organizational chart, and they know that one of their principal
responsibilities is to keep their boss from getting upset with them. Staying on
your manager’s good side is a very different mission with breaking down
whatever barriers that stand between your company and its goals!
Pleasing the boss is
such a fundamental responsibility that it can dwarf a person’s ability to do
real job to their capacity. This is a problem in large and small organizations.
Managers who don’t feel powerful in themselves use the power of their position
to force people to bend to their will.
Management jobs come
with a built-in level of power and control. This is one reason so many
unequipped-for-leadership people end up in management positions. They seek
those positions for the power of the job title and use them to suppress
potential staff.
The petty
bureaucratic power that a manager wields by virtue of his or her job title
seems to fill the hole in the fearful manager’s stomach. When you see managers
throwing their weight around and treating employees badly, it’s because they
don’t feel good about themselves. Some managers are so fearful that they see
every competent person around them as a threat. If you succeed too well, you
could threaten the manager’s power or his or her ability to control you. A
fearful manager wouldn’t like that.
Your boss can get
spooked easily. You’ll know that your manager is on edge is when you
see their efforts to block your forward motion, their words and actions
intended to make you feel bad about yourself or their willingness to
criticize you in front of other people.
These are all
techniques fearful managers use to keep your flame from growing. If your flame
kept growing and you started to feel really powerful, you might do or say
something that would challenge your boss — and for a fearful manager, that
would be a disaster to him!
Real power is not in a job
title. It’s in a person, or on a team. Fake power is the kind that other people
bestow on you. Real power is something you grow in yourself, step by step, as
you find your backbone and use your voice.
Here are five signs your boss
is freaked out by your competence and/or confidence.
1. When you
have a great idea at work, your boss either stomps on the idea or steals it and
calls it his or her own idea.
2. Your boss tries to
restrict your access to higher-level leaders and people in other departments.
Your boss tells you to funnel all communications through him or her, rather
than directly.
3. Your boss used to
compliment and acknowledge your good work, but now he or she seems to find
fault with everything you do. Other people in your workplace praise you — but
your boss never does!
4. You and your
manager used to strategize and make plans together. Now you are shut out and
can hardly get access to your boss.
5. Your manager takes
away your highest-impact and highest-visibility projects and gives them to
other people.
Don’t feel bad if you
recognize yourself in this list — many people including me have walked the same
path! Keep your cool. Don’t twist yourself into funny shapes trying to assuage
your boss’s fears. It won’t work.
At the same time,
don’t engage with him or her and don’t get into battles. Your best path
undoubtedly lies elsewhere. While you’re working at your current job, keep in
mind that you will always run into barking dogs on your path. You don’t have to
stop and bark back at all of them!
LINK
Any employers confuse trust and fear
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