Fearless Leadership

M Varey Richard

Description

Fearless Leadership aims to improve leadership and personal effectiveness in any workplace. Drawing on over 10 years of research and work on leadership, Richard M Varey has cultivated a model, 'The Fearless Approach', which urges leaders to create a fear-free culture and atmosphere within their organisations to allow individuals to flourish. He explains how a fearless approach can be used to raise the capacity of others, and also why it achieves this. Supported by evolutionary biology, neuro-psychology theories and a wealth of case studies of successful businesses and leaders, Richard argues that the key to developing fearlessness in the workplace has three dimensions; relationships, resilience and excellence which are represented by the fearless cube. Those three dimensions are in turn dependent on 20 separate business and leadership skills. The book explores each of the 20 individual skills and allows readers to evaluate their existing behavioural traits against these using diagnostic tools, thus identifying areas needing improvement and offers practical methods to better these skills.Fearless Leadership is littered with anecdotes from the worlds of sport and the armed forces, and will appeal to readers of Steve Peters, Carol Dweck and Malcolm Gladwell and to those interested in business management, leadership and popular psychology.

Sujets

• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9781788031561
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2017 Fearless Leadership Partnership

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781788031561

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Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Thanks
I would like to thank Debbie Sutch, Director at Fearless Leadership Partnership , for her contribution and fundamental role in writing Fearless Leadership . It was Debbie’s idea that I should write this book and over the years she undertook much of the research, ordering of the material, editing of the manuscript and indeed shaping and developing the basic ideas here into a coherent approach. Without her resilience, patience and selfless commitment this book would never have been written.

Debbie would like to thank her husband Stuart and her three sons, Danny, Callum and Nicky for their never ending support and encouragement in the development of this book.

Richard M. Varey
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank everybody who has been involved in the writing of this book, whether through direct contribution or their patience and support. Firstly, my thanks go to my wonderful wife Marcella and my three fearless children, Izzy, Eve and Paddy. Thanks for putting up with the long hours of writing and mini dining table lectures on the history of the brain.

Thanks to all at Fearless Leadership; especially Des Callaghan and Gwen Bleasedale. I am grateful to all at the British Library for their care and guidance throughout the research of this book. Thanks to Julie Glynn, Educational Psychologist, for her professional advice. Thanks also to my good friend, sports psychologist, Michael Finnigan, for all his inspiration and to all at his amazing company, i2i. Special thanks must go to Major John Harker, MBE and Martin Ainscough, CBE, for their contribution. I would also like to thank Anthony Ainscough for his kind offer of office space. Finally, I would like to thank my mentor and guru, John Allen; the first fearless leader.
Preface
Why should you buy this book? Well, I think you should buy it because it’s going to help you get the best out of yourself and the best out of those around you. It’s not a science book. However, it does have some science in it. For example, there’s some evolutionary brain science and some psychology, but I’m not a scientist, or a psychologist. If you want to buy a scientific textbook, there are many of them out there. This isn’t one of them.
The book is called Fearless Leadership , but it’s not about that kind of fear. It’s not another version of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. It’s not going to make you more courageous so that you are able to put your head in a lion’s mouth (although there is a lion tamer in it).
No. This book is about the Fearless Approach. You might ask yourself, what does that mean? Well, I am sure that fear is absolutely corrosive in the workplace. It causes stress and it stops people from being brilliant. But when you create a fearless environment; a workplace without fear, you and your people will fly. Fearlessness will raise your capacity for improvement and the capacity of the people you work with. The Fearless Approach is about improving relationships, resilience and levels of excellence. When you get these things right, you will be brilliant. In this book you’re going to meet some amazing people; winners who have achieved incredible things, sometimes making hundreds of millions of pounds.
I don’t think you have to fight to be a winner. Fearless Leaders and Fearless Players win.
Don’t make your people fearful; make them fearless.
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Fear: Why Fear is Vital for Survival But Can Be Corrosive in the Workplace
Chapter 3: The Impact of Fear on Effective Leadership: Good Boss, Bad Boss
Chapter 4: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: How a Fearless Approach Will Fulfil Your Team’s Lower Order Needs and Help Them Achieve More
Chapter 5: How the Fearless Approach Encourages the Use of the Younger Human Brain Over the Older Reptilian Brain, Reducing Fear and Promoting Creativity and Greater Effectiveness
Chapter 6: An Introduction to the First Dimension of the Fearless Approach: Relationships and the Fundamental Role of High-Quality Relationships in Building Successful Teams
Chapter 7: Relationship Skills: Emotional Collateral and Investing in Relationships
Chapter 8: Relationship Skills: How the Effective Use of Praise Can Improve the Performance of Your Organisation
Chapter 9: Relationship Skills: The Importance of Open and Honest Communication
Chapter 10: Relationship Skills: How Success Lies in Combining a High Concern for Task and Person
Chapter 11: Relationship Skills: Human Evolution and How Being Positive, Adopting a Sense of Creative Discontent and Having a Growth Mindset Create Resilience
Chapter 12: The X Axis: A Summary of the Relationship Skills
Chapter 13: An Introduction to the Second Dimension of the Fearless Approach: How Resilience and Resilient Behaviour Lead to Personal and Organisational Improvement
Chapter 14: The Y Axis: A Summary of the Resilience Skills
Chapter 15: The Player: A Performance Improvement Matrix
Chapter 16: An Introduction to the Third Dimension of the Fearless Approach: Excellence
Chapter 17: The Z Axis: A Summary of the Excellence Skills
Chapter 18: Fearless Leadership in Practice: The Story of Martin Ainscough’s Incredible Success
Chapter 19: The Fearless Approach: An Overview
Chapter 20: Where Are You in the Cube?
Chapter 21: Conclusion
References and Bibliography
Chapter 1: Introduction
Fearless Leadership is a book about improving leadership and personal effectiveness in any workplace. It promotes a model called the Fearless Approach that argues for leaders to create a fear-free culture and atmosphere within their organisations in which individuals can flourish. Using evolutionary biology, neuropsychology theories and current business models, I argue that the key to developing fearlessness in the workplace is in a leader acquiring relationship skills, resilience and the characteristics of excellence.
These three dimensions are in turn dependent on twenty separate business and leadership skills that include the ability to praise effectively, to encourage open debate, to ask questions, to seek out and sustain quality feedback and to pursue excellence, to name just a few. The book explores each of the twenty individual skills and allows the reader to evaluate their existing behavioural traits against these using diagnostic tools, thus identifying areas needing improvement. The book offers practical methods to better these skills, supported by a wealth of case studies and examples of successful businesses and leaders as well as anecdotes from the worlds of sport and the armed forces.
This book uses the secrets of the brain to unlock optimum performance potential in any organisation, team or employee.
Fear is one of the most important human emotions and it has been vital to us throughout our evolutionary journey by ensuring our survival. It is fear that triggers our fight, flight and freeze responses in times of danger. However, when we work in a fearful atmosphere or culture, our brain isn’t able to differentiate between workplace fear and fear in the face of danger. Our responses to fear in the workplace are similar to our responses in dangerous situations: fight, flight or freeze. We will look in more detail at the role of fear in our lives and how it is corrosive in the workplace. We work better and in a more creative way when we work in a fear-free environment; when we are fearless.
We will see how good bosses promote the use of your younger, more creative, human brain, or prefrontal cortex, by creating a workplace where, free from fear, you can flourish. This is supported by Maslow and other more recent psychological research. We will see how good bosses fulfil the lower order needs in Maslow’s hierarchy, i.e. survival needs, affection needs and affiliation needs. This allows us to be motivated to fulfil the higher order needs of achievement and self-actualisation. When an organisation adopts a fearless approach, it inspires its workforce to take more risks, achieve more and be more successful.
Looking at Paul MacClean’s three-part or triune brain theory, we will learn about the roles of the reptilian brain, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The reptilian brain is engaged during times of fear. People operating in a fearless environment are more likely to use their younger brain and therefore be more effective. People who are afraid use their older brains to fight, run away or freeze.
We will look in detail at the three dimensions of Fearless Leadership and the Fearless Approach: relationships, resilience and excellence. After examining the importance of relationships in developing a fearless culture, we will look at the importance of investing in relationships, using pra