Fear Mongering is Not Leadership: How to Handle Fear Mongering in the Moment

Doubting and questioning systems and/or authority are all integral parts of leadership and healthy discourse for a democratic society.  Fear mongering, on the other hand, has no place in healthy leadership.  The fear mongering that is being mistaken for leadership in the media, in the board room, the classroom, and even in conversations among friends is manipulation disguised as leadership.  The insidious nature of fear mongering is that it triggers its audience at a biological level to bypass reason, common sense, and one's own truth. 

The objective of fear mongering is not truth, but control.  It's outward message is usually some variation on the same theme: Don't do X because bad things will happen, They shouldn't do X because bad things will happen, You're/they're doing X hurts others. And because so many of us doubt our power and truth, these overarching, unexamined exaggerations trigger the shame, doubt, and fear that live within us.  When unexamined shame steps in, we generally keep our eyes and heads down or worse, we become agents of the fear mongering and work to shut others down.

Lately, there have been several strategic fear mongering campaigns against higher education.  People have written editorials and articles that have pulled half truths and raised them up as fact the way the leaders of a mob in medieval times raised superstitious symbols above their heads and cried "Witch!"  I don't know how the general public reacted to these calls to fear toward higher education, but I know some of my comrades and colleagues responded with their own fear.  "Keep your head down. Stop doing innovative work. Don't do what you know to be right because it could be seen, misconstrued, and published in the paper." The really interesting thing about this case of fear mongering (the fear that higher education is misspending money) is that  it went from a shot in the dark to running the daily decisions of people engaging in research to ending poverty, cancer, sex trafficking, etc.-- people who are experts in what they do and how they do it.  In this way fear mongering is like an opportunist thief.  It goes for the easy targets and will continue on to the next and the next, not preferring one target over another as long as it is easy. 

Fear mongering is ancient.  It will conceivably be around as long as the world is.  But let's be clear: Fear mongering is not leadership, it is merely an invitation for leadership. People often use it when they have slipped into fear/shame themselves and don't want others to notice.  For example, a fear monger-er points fingers, whereas a leader does the harder (and more risky work of)  proffering solutions.  A fear monger-er may then poke holes in the proffered solution while still having put nothing on the line of himself other than more fear mongering.  How would a leader respond to such continued fear mongering? By naming the strategy being used, and pushing back with questions that lead to clearing thinking and more innovation. 

If you are reading this blog, then you have the power to end fear mongering in your corner of the world.  Contrary to popular mythology, leadership does not start with an epic moment.  Leadership starts with tiny moments -- it happens one courageous conversation at a time. 

How to Change Fear Mongering

1. Be on the look out for it.  The first battle is to notice when it's being used.  This lowers your chances of being triggered by it and allowing it to move you into a place of fear or shame yourself. 

2. Engage the person who has become a vehicle for fear mongering in a healing conversation.  Be sure that your first objective in the conversation is to seek to understand how they ended up being the vehicle in the first place.  Be genuinely curious and use reflective listening ("It sounds like this issue/article/piece of information has caused some concern for you."  "I wonder where they go their information?" "I wonder if there are other perspectives or conclusions?") 

3.  Question your thoughts.  Fear mongering is powerful only when it remains unexamined.  If you have a colleague/friend who can help you examine the thoughts and feelings someone's fear mongering has triggered in you, do that.  If you can't, it on paper.  (See Byron Katie's work "Loving What Is" for four questions that will help you do this on your own: http://thework.com/thework.php)


The world needs people who can not only hold steady during these hinge times but who can help those who have succumbed to the fear that abounds to find their way through.  Let that person be you.