What Leaders Are Really Afraid Of

[jisansorkar12]

Modern managers are not afraid of crises and competitors: they know how to deal with them. What is much more frightening for them are vacations, emotions and dead phones. We have collected for you the 7 most common phobias of our time.

Fear of sick leave
We don't like to get sick. But managers aren't just afraid of catching a cold; they feel like the world will collapse in their absence. They don't allow themselves to take a vacation, and if they happen to end up on the couch with a fever, they'll definitely be in touch.

According to the results of a 2019 survey by Online Market Intelligence (OMI), the usa whatsapp list reason for this behavior is corporate culture. Only 51% of Russian companies offer sick leave to those who are sick, 20.7% of employers allow working from home, and in 12.6% of offices it is customary to go to work regardless of how you feel.

Because of this policy, managers tend to take on too much responsibility and deprive their employees of the right to make mistakes. Here you need to stop and weigh: are you really irreplaceable? Most likely, the work will stand on someone else's shoulders for a week or two.

If you are worried, start an experiment in advance: delegate small decisions to your subordinates. Some prepare an "emergency suitcase", and you train the fighters for the work emergency mode. This way you will improve their skill of working independently and make sure that you also have time to rest.

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But if it suddenly turns out that no one is capable of making decisions for you, then, unfortunately, you are the only one to blame. You took on so much that you did not prepare a support. Perhaps the reason is a lack of trust in people and an emotional unwillingness to transfer part of your responsibility to someone else.

Fear of delegation
Managers were once subordinates too: they made mistakes, shifted responsibility to their superiors, did their work half-heartedly. And they remember this. Now they are seasoned experts who do everything “as it should be”. And these experts are very afraid that shifting their work to others is more expensive for themselves.

John Hunt, a professor at the London Business School, conducted a study among the heads of large companies and found that only 30% of respondents believe that they know how to delegate. Of these, only one in three can be said to correctly distribute tasks among employees. It turns out that only one in ten managers has the skill of delegation.

Delegation is a long-term investment. It will not bring immediate results: you will spend time on training, correcting other people's mistakes, looking for the right performers. But over time, you will find that you have hours for new creative projects, and your work will not stop because of this.

Of course, there are questions you can answer. But you need to clearly separate them from small daily problems that only take up your time and do not require your competence. Delegate them to your employees. If you have not done so yet, perhaps you are stopped by the fear of loss.


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Fear of loss
Managers are willing to take overtime just to invest in their employees. They hope for future bonuses in the form of free hours and results, and the employee suddenly leaves for competitors. Time is lost, and the work must be started over.

People are looking for better conditions. Competitors are looking for the best specialists. There is nothing you can do about it, but you can try to reduce the risk. Sometimes human relationships hold you back more than salaries and corporate bonuses. Take care of your subordinates, talk to them. If their salary does not depend on you, you can choose interesting projects for them, help with training, allow them to spend an extra day off with their family. Competitors will simply have nothing to buy them with.