Think about the last meeting where someone asked, “Any questions?” and the room went silent. Odds are at least one person had something to say and kept it to themselves.
Wingspan Founder Christina Wing wrote about why that happens in a piece for Fast Company, “6 kinds of fear at work—and how to overcome them.” The article is adapted from her book, Unspeakable: The Taboo Topics We Avoid and How to Talk About Them, which looks at the subjects people work hardest to avoid.
Christina’s starting point is that fear drives far more of our behavior at work than we admit. The same fight-or-flight wiring that kept our ancestors alive still shows up in offices and boardrooms. People don’t like to talk about it because it makes them feel weak or exposed, and that’s a problem for anyone leading a team. If you can’t see what’s motivating people, it’s hard to manage them well.
“Humans underestimate how much fear drives our behavior.”
Over years of teaching, advising family enterprises, and working inside organizations, Christina has seen six forms of fear come up again and again. They often overlap and feed off each other.
Fear of punishment
The obvious version is a bad review, a smaller bonus, or losing your job. The quieter version is getting left out of meetings or passed over for the good assignments. Christina shares a story from early in her Wall Street career, when she worked for a boss who seemed to enjoy belittling her. When she finally asked to be reassigned, he worried about how that would look for him and started teaching her instead.
Fear of authority
People pay close attention to who outranks whom, and that awareness keeps them quiet. During a break in one client meeting, a junior associate passed Christina a note telling her she was presenting from an outdated deck. Christina encouraged the associate to speak up, and when the client came back, the associate calmly corrected the materials. Leaders who ask for questions and get none should treat that silence as information they’re missing.
Fear of judgment
This one comes up often in family businesses. Christina describes a real estate company owned equally by four siblings. Three brothers ran it, and their sister, who lived in Italy, sat on the board and kept voting against investments and pushing for dividends. The brothers saw her as meddling. What they didn’t know was that she needed the cash to support her lifestyle and was afraid of how they’d judge her for it. Once that came out, she sold part of her stock to her brothers. It eased the pressure on her and made her more willing to back their plans for the business.
Fear of conflict
When people avoid conflict, proposals sail through with no pushback, even when people have doubts. Christina saw this with two colleagues who disagreed sharply about a project but never said so in meetings. They complained privately, worked around each other, and the project stalled until she brought them together to sort it out. She suggests tools like red teaming, where a group is assigned to poke holes in a plan, and anonymous suggestion boxes.
Fear of failure
Any meaningful goal comes with some risk of falling short. Christina sees this with former students who want to start companies but stay in jobs they don’t like. When she asks would-be founders about a backup plan, many tell her they’d go back to consulting. In her view, that’s planning for failure. She encourages readers to ask whether fear is behind the promotion they didn’t go for, the investment they passed on, or the unconventional hire they didn’t make.
Fear of ambition
Plenty of people are afraid to say they want more. Christina learned this the hard way with a talented employee who always told her she was happy in her role and loved her team. Then the employee resigned to take a management job somewhere else. Looking back, Christina wishes she had asked more pointed questions, described the role she had in mind for her, and watched how she reacted.
Christina wraps up by saying she has never met a great leader who shies away from fear. The people who stand out, with or without a title, are often the ones who speak up while they’re afraid. And organizations that want to last need a culture where people can talk about their fears openly.
Link to the full article below.
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Learn more about Unspeakable at christinawing.com/book.
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