On Leadership: Sangeeth Varghese

First Rule is to Begin
Leaders have to overcome the fear of starting something new. It is the first step that is important.


All beginnings are difficult. Starting something new is one of the most difficult things a leader can go through. Many times, potential leaders are not able to even convince themselves to take the first step, though all of them desire to drive great changes. There are many excuses: they are busy, they don’t have time, and that the change is irrelevant to them.
But why do potential leaders fear to begin new tasks? Beginnings are difficult because tasks appear difficult from outside. When we look at tasks for the first time, we look at them as outsiders. An outsider’s perspective is coloured by fear — fear of the unknown, fear of risk and fear of unpredictability. We fear the unknown because many things in the new situation are strange and unfamiliar to us. We face new situations, new people, which we have never met in our lives, and hence, we fear making mistakes. We fear risk because we are used to a particular format of doing things. We are familiar with its demands and hence reluctant to leave it. We fear unpredictability because we are not aware of the results, which our decisions on performing this new task might bring about. Because of the irregularities we see, we are not able to ascertain whether the circumstances and outcomes will be favourable to us or not.

Research indicates that there are four ways which leaders resort to while looking toward breaking their initial fears of beginning a task:

Giving yourself permission to begin: Leadership guru Fred Smith says that consciously or unconsciously, people look out for permission before they could begin new tasks. The purpose of this permission is aligning the resources available with the leader, that is, willingness, time, efforts, etc., to the task at hand. This permission could come as an endorsement from an outside entity that they look up to, or from within themselves.

Potential leaders can obtain this permission to begin new tasks broadly in two ways. First, they have to learn to remain positive about the task they intend to perform. For this it is very important that they do not focus on difficulties or failures, but on the positives. They should remind themselves to keep their minds open, trying to discover new aspects of the task. A good example would be constantly trying to work out several ways of carrying out and accomplishing the task. Second, they should try and be in the company of like-minded and optimistic people. This would help in creating a positive rub off and in building enthusiasm. They should take their encouragement positively and their criticism constructively.

Seeing the end in the beginning: The excitement of every task is in the results it produces. A clear vision formed in the mind about the results can be the biggest motivator for a potential leader to begin a task. Sustaining a level of enthusiasm is difficult if leaders have no end in their minds. So, even before beginning, leaders should start thinking about the end results and they should push themselves to be excited about those possibilities.

Giving yourself incentives to begin: Leaders should appeal to their sense of adventure even as they are looking forward to beginning a task. They should motivate themselves by imagining about the new learning and growth opportunities that it would open up and the impact that it would help them produce. They should start viewing the task they are about to start as the greatest growth opportunity in their life.

Using fear to your advantage: Rather than being afraid of losing security, comfort and predictability, leaders should start fearing losing valuable opportunities to drive important changes that can create a positive impact to their organisation or to the world at large. Leaders should start using fear to their advantage. They should use fear to motivate and encourage themselves. They should understand that their fears come with them only till the threshold, beyond that there is no fear, just a clear path towards achieving their objective.


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