"........When Change is the Challenge."

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Conscious Evolution

"Fear Is Just What Happens As You Take Risks and Test Your Limits"

 A manager develops into a leader by changing her priority from getting the work done to developing the people she is managing. Facing this priority shift, manager Suzanne Flores was both aware of the necessity to delegate more work to her team members and worried about doing so.

Could she be assured that their work would meet her high standards? How would she correct them if it didn't? How could she risk her reputation on their work? Since she had already developed appropriate delegation guidelines, only her fear was holding her back.

Knowing that she was about to leave on a rock-climbing vacation, I asked how she managed her fear when she was taking very real risks with her body. She explained that she had started climbing ten years earlier in order to learn that she could "feel fear and live through it."

"Fear is just what happens as you take risks and test your limits! You KNOW you will fall when you are practicing. There is enough give in the rope that when you miss a move, you will fall a little below where you were. You get back on and may be a little frustrated. You have to figure out how to make the next move because what you just tried didn't work."

Suzanne realized she needed to use the same principles when delegating to her team. Give them work that stretched their limits, and "put some give in the rope" by setting very early deadlines that allowed plenty of time for correction and further development of their work when necessary. She recognizes her own fear as the natural result of testing her own limits, and she feels confident that she will survive it. 

Coaching Tip: When a client is afraid to take a necessary risk, ask about their past successful strategies for coping with fear. Old successful strategies can be applied to new situations.

Laurie Weiss, Ph.D. Home

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Copyright 1999, Empowerment Systems. May be transmitted or reproduced in its entirety only, including this copyright line.

Jonathan B. Weiss, Ph.D. and Laurie Weiss, Ph.D. have helped thousands of people make significant changes in their lives. Working together at Empowerment Systems for 28 of their 39 years of marriage, they maintain a coaching, consulting, and psychotherapy practice in Littleton, Colorado, USA.

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