26 - Balancing Fear and Value-Based Decision-Making

Have you ever grappled with the tension between standing by your values and managing the fear of what you might lose? In this episode, we tackle this head-on, offering insights into the leader's dilemma of fear versus value-based decision-making.  We explore the brain's predilection for seeing danger over opportunity, and how that can skew our leadership strategies. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of 'at risk' versus 'at stake' thinking and learn how to strike a harmonious chord between the two, ensuring the integrity of both your mission and your team's well-being.

Are you able to dive into your own uncertainty in order to truly thrive while achieving your goals?

If you want to ensure that the decisions you make aren't actually limiting you, this is an episode you should listen to!

To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story

Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST.  Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Every action you take as a leader has a ripple effect, starting with your team, going out to the organization and even out into people's personal lives. Here we offer you the chance to learn from real-life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture, to power and equity, to feedback, to resolving conflict and more. Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want. Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink. Today we are going to be diving into fear and the impact that it has on our decisions as leaders, and really how challenging and complex that can be. Cl writes in with his question. I own a small business with under 50 people and have always tried to make decisions based on our business values. The truth is that I'm finding it really hard to do so. Our vision and mission are based on values and I feel like the culture of the business is reflective of our values, but actual decisions that affect our bottom line don't always line up. It was easier when there was less people, but to make sure that we were able to pay all our staff and stay in business, I find it much harder to stick with idealistic, value-based decision making. I know that people say using our values will bring the company even more success, but it's definitely also riskier. How do I balance that risk? So thank you for sharing your story in that question, cl.

Speaker 2: 1:32

It is certainly a balancing act of figuring out what to do. You're responsible for a lot of the health of your business and I do really appreciate that you have approached this from a place of wanting to make sure that you are responsible for the health and security of your staff in this situation, and I think a lot of leaders actually face something very similar in their roles. They have outcomes that they want to achieve or they want to be able to support people, and they have to balance that with this potential risk that they could be holding and working in addictions and mental health. This is something we talked about a lot and the language that we used around it was at risk or at stake, and so let's just dive into that a little bit more. At risk is basically all the things that could go wrong in the situation, everything you might lose. So, for example, cl talking about maybe I can't pay my staff. That would be a very at-risk place, and then you have this at-stake mindset, and at-stake is, of course, all the things you could gain. What could you get to? What goal might you achieve with that mindset? And I like to think of it as a metaphor, like rock climbing. If you've ever watched someone go rock climbing. Let's say they get up, they get a couple feet up the wall, they start climbing and then suddenly they look down and they cling to the wall. Suddenly it's not about climbing, it's about this fear of falling. And that's very different than the person who continues to look up the wall, keeps working towards that goal, even though they may have some sense of fear. But what's more important to them is reaching that space, getting what is at stake for them. And so very different mindsets and of course there's what our brain prefers. Which one is it? It's the at-risk mindset.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Our brains, as we've talked about before, have this lovely hard wiring to look at the bad or to weigh that risk piece. Because if we look at that rustling bush, we want to make sure that our brain goes might be a lion, so we can take precautions and survive for the next day. Lion, so we can take precautions and survive for the next day. That part of our brain still operates, even though hopefully there are no lions in any bushes near anyone who is listening to this podcast, but our brain still likes that.

Speaker 2: 3:46

So if you think about at risk and at stake, this mindset of almost being like a teeter-totter, right that when you think of decisions, maybe you tip one a little bit more. Maybe I'm a little bit more at risk right now, or maybe I'm a little bit more at stake and you'd think about it oh, maybe this is a pretty balanced thing that sometimes it's going to be at risk, sometimes it's going to be at stake. And if we think about it though this way, at risk, the lever, the point of leverage on our lever, is actually much closer to at risk, which means it's naturally going to want to fall that way and it takes much more on this at stake side to pull it down. Now that we're recognizing that there is already a, let's say, natural disadvantage to thinking about things from an at stake perspective, we need to realize, really, what is happening on both sides of this teeter-totter so we can make a more conscious choice At this at-risk end.

Speaker 2: 4:42

What is weighing us down that we know we might have to counter or be aware of? And generally this end is saturated in scarcity. It has a belief that we will not have enough, so, in CL's case, not enough money won't be able to pay the employees. That's definitely a scarcity of resources and that is driving your decision making, which you said pretty directly. This could also be scarcity of time, scarcity of staff, any sense of not having enough, and this could also contribute to this fear piece, which is obviously this foundation of at-risk, because fear, of course, also includes lovely reactions like fight, flight, freeze. It includes your unconscious emotional reactions and worries that you might have, and the thing that can be really challenging with at-risk thinking is that it is so subconscious and insidious that you might not realize how much you have been making decisions from this place of fear or risk before you really do this digging into it.

Speaker 2: 5:46

And I would say pretty much all the teams that I work with, when we start looking at this, realize how many more of their decisions they were making from that space than they thought they were. Because this is a very natural thing that our brains like to do. We're always trying to protect against risk, and so it takes this reflection to be able to shift to a different space. For everyone listening. This is absolutely the first step. Is you want to be aware of what comes up for you when you start thinking about decision? So there might be emotions that come up. Okay, what are those? Are they guided by any particular beliefs or thoughts about how the world works? How could that be limiting you? Is there maybe certain situations you specifically worry about, or a specific negative thought that keeps repeating? Are there specific thoughts, in this case, about fears about growing? Your business Is one of the more common times that I see this at-risk mindset come out, because as organizations get bigger, they often have to think about more of these risks. They have more to lose. Once we are aware of all these pieces that are at risk, we can start looking at this at stake side, because the stake, the foundation of the at stake side, is hope it's. You need to be able to see the world and everything around you as abundant and have this belief that things will work out. So, of course, this is why we had to do the work on the at risk side to really be able to get to this space of hope and abundance that there's enough resources all around you. And because this goes against some of our instinctual pieces of fear, it means that we need to be really conscious and intentional in making these decisions. So that means we have to move away from some of these unconscious fears and habits we might be playing in and then using curiosity it is such a powerful tool to help us not only think about what could be possible, but also this myriad of ways that we could get there, because there's so many different ways that we could potentially solve some of these problems or make these decisions.

Speaker 2: 7:53

And sometimes we don't like to talk about at risk because it can be a little scary or shameful to talk about fear. Right, it's not always support. It feels very vulnerable. But at stake needs not only that vulnerability but also the piece of understanding that comes with being with other people in that space. That comes with being with other people in that space Because we need to be engaged and compassionate with others in the space of at stake. We need to be responsive to who's around us, how those dynamics might impact our decisions, so it can also be a much more collaborative space in that way.

Speaker 2: 8:42

I will warn you that a lot of the traits of at stake decision making can be easily warped or misconstrued, because if you have not done the work previously in the at-risk space to really understand what's happening, the chance might be that you start kind of almost a toxic positivity, thinking that you are working from a place of at-stake. Well, really, you're just kind of hiding problems you don't fully understand. So, for example, if you truly don't believe that you have abundant resources, maybe the time where people to complete a project, but you start talking about how great it's going to be and you definitely have the time, you definitely have the people, you're just disguising this at risk mindset and you're setting yourself up for failure and then of course'll probably be upset and be like, oh no, I was definitely at stake with it. So you need to make sure you really do understand what those beliefs are that might be limiting you, what your fears are, before you take this next step and you may also understand more about what might be limiting your team in various situations. So, for example, if you are having problems getting away from a scarcity mindset around not having enough employees and it's because you do not have enough employees and enough time in the day for them to complete the roles that you're asking of them, you need to solve that problem or it's going to be very hard for that mindset to go away. And, of course, once again, there are different ways to solve that problem. It might mean hiring more staff, it might mean readjusting roles and making sure that people then do have spaciousness to complete these projects. Ultimately, it is still your mindset that impacts your view on the situation, but sometimes you might have to change a system or the environment in order to help support your mindset.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Cl, after hearing all of this, I really encourage you to take this time and do some reflecting. Understand really what's behind this current at-risk mindset as you're making this decision, or as you're making these decisions for your business. If you need to address any situations that's reinforcing some of those fears and beliefs that are happening, situations that's reinforcing some of those fears and beliefs that are happening, then do so. Then have that hope, that intentionality, the curiosity and the belief of abundance that you need in order to make your decisions based on what's at stake and really reach your goals. And although we talked about, obviously, this specific question for your leadership in particular, I certainly encourage you to take this practice to your team. When you're making a decision, talk to them about what different fears and worries and beliefs about what could happen come up. They are also involved in this, they are also impacted by this and they can also bring forward hope, curiosity, maybe different solutions to a problem that you're having. But, once again, no one can do that if they're still stuck in that place of fear, worry and unconscious beliefs.

Speaker 2: 11:25

Cl. I really look forward to being able to continue our conversation with this and, as a reminder to anyone, if you want to share your story with us, we would love to hear it. And as a thank you for that and gratitude, I like to share a session complimentary and so we can talk through the rest of it. Make sure it really is a great growth point for you. You can find the link to share your story in the description below. I do want to thank you so much for being here today for listening with us. We could really change the world if people started looking for more of a place of abundance and collaboration and curiosity, rather from some of these places of fear. So hopefully you can take this out into whatever role you have and keep exploring what might be at stake for you and, as we close, remember to ask yourself what ripples are you going to create this week?

Speaker 1: 12:15

We hope you enjoyed the episode. Make sure to subscribe, comment and connect with Leah at meetleahca.