Basic Premise

The basic premise of this text is an assumption connected to our personal experience (as coaches, supervisors, management trainers), which leads us to the hypothesis that the emotion of fear plays a significant role in the ability/inability of a manager to apply key management skills in which she has been/is being trained. The emotion of fear is often present in leading and managing other people, and unreflected anxieties and worries in organizations lead to deterioration of work performance, reduced productivity, and worsening of relationships and climate in the organization. Some managers, some teams, or some organizations do not consistently plan, organize, set goals, delegate responsibility, motivate, or evaluate, meaning that ultimately they do not fulfill the basic functions of management, also due to implicitly present worries. Below we attempt to indicate the diverse anxieties we encounter in organizations, using the lens of Gestalt theory and Satir's systemic humanistic model in the analysis.

How the Mission of Management Relates to Beliefs

Let us assume that an organization, team, or manager has a certain basic mission or purpose. In human terms, in the work context we find desires from which needs arise, and for the fulfillment of these needs we organize ourselves, or we organize together with others. It concerns the needs of individuals as well as entire groups. When we are confronted with these very natural needs (for example, to achieve profit or to care for someone), before conscious confrontation occurs, we recall that our reaction in confronting a need stems from our previous emotional experiences, from which beliefs about the world and our role in it developed. What we do is related to how we see things. Beliefs are our conclusions, our evaluation of ourselves, of the other person, or of the situation. Some of our beliefs, which are for example unconscious or unacknowledged, that is, beliefs about ourselves or about others, condition our emotion of anxiety or a specific worry. Expressed through an example: my need is to agree with a colleague on how we will divide the work. However, the colleague reminds me of my sibling, with whom I experienced several disappointments in the past and we were unable to agree on a fair division of household chores. I have an irrational fear that similar situations might repeat themselves, so in communication with my colleague I react excessively defensively and I am unwilling to negotiate, or at the slightest misunderstanding I respond aggressively. I may thus unconsciously block the negotiation process, while my view of the situation grossly or partially distorts reality.

How Do Beliefs Associated with Worries Arise?

The answer is simple – most of our beliefs about the world and ourselves originate in childhood. The key question is whether we are open to examining our own "childhood" beliefs, reflecting on them, and possibly replacing them with other, new, perhaps more mature and especially more functional beliefs that will better serve us in our work and relationships within it. What is, what comes, we can perceive as something we are open to, something that can be a challenge, or something we want to perceive, reflect upon, something we can freely decide about based on our own experience. With such behavior, our conclusion, our belief, is open to correction by our own experience. The phrase that applies here is: "Aha, it can be different too!" We creatively adjust to what comes, we respond to our own needs in accordance with the possibilities of the environment we are in. We are "healthy" managers, functional teams, open organizations.

On the other hand, some needs within us (individuals, teams, and organizations) evoke dysfunctional cognitive schemas that are not accessible to our consciousness and are associated with worries, fear, or anxiety. This is because from many similar negative experiences in the past we have formed conclusions shaped into rigid, fixed beliefs about ourselves and others. To what comes, to what is a challenge, we – as an organization, team, or managers – react through the veil of these experiences – that is, with distrust, with worries. Our capacity for creative adjustment stagnates, new situations represent primarily a threat; it is not about how to live well, but rather about how to survive. We feel anxiety about the new, we preserve the current, the old familiar, while finding various strategies to avoid perceiving what we feel threatens us, to avoid noticing what we often irrationally fear. Our experience remains inaccessible to consciousness, only the defense mechanisms are visible, through which we attempt to distort the perception or interpretation of reality. We thus recycle our experiences and are repeatedly "confirmed" in their validity by the reactions of those around us. We offer an example added for illustration by consultant Frans Meulmeester (2010). A manager who, based on his negative experiences, concluded that he must explain everything to his employees in the smallest detail, because otherwise they would never do anything, was constantly being confirmed in his belief. The moment he did not provide detailed instructions, people waited and did nothing. "We don't know what to do... he didn't tell us anything." And the manager simply sighed: "See?!" This experience represents a conserving systemic circularity: behavior elicits behavior.

The path to behavior, however, is a quick yet sufficiently long and complicated one. A manager fixed the originally creative adjustment (she sometimes had to explain things in detail to achieve what she needed) and the associated belief (she generalized the experience – you have to explain everything to people in detail, otherwise I won't get what I want) so firmly that she uses it even in situations where she does not have to. She did not know how to use something new, to find a new perspective, or she was afraid to.

What Are Managers, Teams, and Organizations Afraid Of?

One possible worry is associated with fear of and resistance to acknowledging something. For example, acknowledging a need or a wish. Individuals, teams, or organizations tend not to perceive themselves and what is happening within them. At the same time, they do not want to and do not perceive signals from the environment; they are as if "cut off" from reality. If someone offers them a picture of their organization or team, typical responses include:

  • We don't have such problems.
  • Maybe we have such problems, but it's not that bad.
  • Maybe we have such problems, but who doesn't these days.
  • We have such problems, but that's normal. No one can do anything about these difficulties.
  • Yes, we have these problems, but nothing can be done about them because...

Managers or teams, due to their anxieties, are not in contact with themselves, with others, or with the topic that is the subject of action, behavior, or leadership and management.

Another form of fear is fear of the other person, of the unknown, or of difference. Some managers or groups in organizations are firmly identified with their "truths," crammed into rigid beliefs, and thus cannot perceive the needs or arguments of the other side. They are afraid that if they do not dominate others and are not victors, they will be "destroyed" – their self-worth or identity will be threatened. This is an irrational fear based on the assumption that "the other" (another team, other clients, another organization) can harm us, and therefore if we are not ruthless, we will not achieve fulfillment of our need or our safety. Behind the attitude "I'm OK, you're not OK" there is therefore fear for oneself. The basic defense mechanism is projection. Kets de Vries (2006) calls institutions with frequent projections the paranoid organization.

Another alternative of a dysfunctional relationship in management is the situation of a submissive, yielding managerial worker who, instead of leading or managing others, gives in. She does not perceive her own needs and wishes, does not represent her team and organization, relinquishes authority and legitimacy to decide, and ultimately excessively accommodates the needs and interests of others (e.g., colleagues, lobbyists...). This attitude is driven by fear of being rejected, of being in conflict, of being "the bad one" and unpopular, simply of losing the relationship, or of being seen in a "bad light." At the systems level, we then see teams and organizations with low energy and activity. Excuses prevail, thinking along the lines of "if only we could...", or the attitude "we'll wait and see"; action is lacking. The most common defense mechanisms are introjection, denial, or repression. This type of manager turns negative feelings inward. Kets de Vries (2006) describes depressive teams and depressive organizations composed of this type of manager and their colleagues. At the individual and team level, as well as throughout the entire organization, we observe feelings of inferiority, incompetence, hopelessness; people have negative self-evaluation and are incapable of change. Fears of confrontation and action paralyze such organizations.

Sometimes managers, out of fear of being in contact with others but also with themselves, flee to formal procedures, regulations, prescriptions, and binding norms. These often bureaucratic "crutches" help them maintain the illusion of objectivity, of what and how things should be, while reducing anxiety and fear of the unknown and of creative action. Fear of assuming responsibility and risk leads to a rigid bureaucratic structure and a strictly impermeable formalized hierarchy. An example may be the employees of a state organization who, in order to maintain the illusion that they are working diligently and are truly irreplaceable, dealt with very "important matters." It turned out here that managers direct the work of their subordinates down to the smallest detail and almost immediately "with good arguments" reject anything their people do or write. Employees thus have good reason to redo their work again and managers have another opportunity to check and ultimately create new procedures and regulations for "improving" performance. Contact between managers and subordinates is limited to formal actions; rules protect and are frequently referenced. In such relationships, fear of acknowledging the needs of the organization as a whole, of oneself, and of the needs of the other is strongly present, with the goal of avoiding any risk. There is a fear of even the smallest change, innovation, idea, and excessive uncertainty.

What Helps Not to Be Afraid?

In addition to a clear vision and strategy of the organization, an appropriate organizational structure, an organizational culture oriented toward both performance and relationships simultaneously, a clear concept of organizational management, and sufficient management skills of managerial staff, it helps managers cope with anxieties arising from psychodynamic processes at both the intrapsychic and organizational levels if they are convinced that the world around them is fundamentally OK. It is therefore not about formal knowledge or specific skills, but about a primary starting point – an attitudinal quality. It helps if managers, teams, or entire organizations value, appreciate, and accept themselves, if they believe in what is important to them, if they are willing to understand the other, if they value and accept the other (colleague, client, superiors), if they are willing to engage in dialogue and thus bear the risk. It helps if they are convinced that while we do not have complete control over life, relationships, and others, we are not powerless and we can, within the limits of possibility, be aware of the course of things and subsequently influence it. On such an attitude, adequate management skills, management systems, and subsequently functional organizations can then grow.

Author: Mgr. Vladimír Hambálek, Coachingplus List of References 1. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries (2006) The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People & Organizations. Wiley. London 2. Frans Meulmeester (2010) Změna přijde, když se zastavíš. Drvoštěp. Dobříš

The paper was presented at the International Conference on "Management in Social Work and Case Management," held on June 21, 2010. The conference was organized by St. Elizabeth University of Health and Social Work.