Fearless Leadership: Unlock success using the secrets of the brain

By Richard M Varey

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788031561

Richard M Varey

Richard M Varey has been a leader in education for eighteen years and is a sought-after speaker. His company, Fearless Leadership, deliver training and leadership consultancy in organisations based around his model ‘The Fearless Approach’. Richard retains his role in education and is a successful secondary school headteacher.

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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 praise, developing high levels of communication and balancing the concerns of the task and person. We will also examine the work of Carol Dweck, Michael Finnigan, John Eccles and others to consider how to create resilience through a positive approach. I’ll explain how having an attitude of creative discontent and a growth mindset means that all problems can be solved. The work of John Eccles and others will show us the influence of tectonic plates on the evolution of the brain. Amazingly, it appears that the human rush to bipedalism in evolution resulted in extreme brain plasticity in humans. As a consequence, it really does appear that practice makes perfect and that skills and abilities are not fixed traits but can be improved through practice, hard work and coaching. By combining high-quality relationship skills, a growth mindset, a relentlessly positive attitude and a belief that practice makes perfect, you will encourage resilience in others and find it within yourself. At the end of the section on relationships there will be an opportunity to assess yourself against the first seven of the twenty skills, which make up the first dimension of the Fearless Approach: relationships.

Having assessed the importance of relationships in effective leadership, we will look at the second dimension of the Fearless Approach: resilience. After an explanation of how good bosses create a fearless culture which allows an ethos of resilience, I will go on to exemplify eight examples of resilient behaviour and why these are a vital part of an improving organisation. A fearless leader will create a resilient workforce which is open to criticism, speaks up, stays calm, is assertive and stands up to others. At the end of this section, there will be an opportunity to assess yourself against the next eight skills. These skills make up the second dimension of the Fearless Approach: resilience.

The sports psychologist Michael Finnigan introduced me to an improvement matrix which I use in my work as a management consultant. Michael’s model will help us to identify exceptional performance by measuring personal attitude and personal effectiveness, and we’ll look at the idea that to be truly brilliant you must be highly skilled in each of the three dimensions of fearlessness: relationships, resilience and excellence.

The third and final dimension of the Fearless Approach is excellence. We will examine the four main concepts of excellence, i.e. the ability to be empowered and autonomous, having a relentless pursuit of excellence, modelling behaviour of leadership and class, and being effective. Truly great people are never victims, but rather players who are inspired. As with the other dimensions there will be an opportunity to measure yourself against the final five skills and consider ways to improve in these areas.

In the book, we will meet several people whose stories exemplify the Fearless Approach and how it can lead to incredible success. The story of Martin Ainscough, businessman and philanthropist, is a blueprint for the effectiveness of the Fearless Approach. Martin started in business at the age of fifteen working in his father’s scrapyard. He went on to become CEO of the Ainscough Group and his yellow cranes are a feature of the motorway system to this day. He sold his company in 2007 for £250 million. Being a fearless leader raises the capacity of the people who work for you and can lead to immense success.

By the end of the book you will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses in the three dimensions of the Fearless Approach. You will be able to plot your individual strengths on the three-dimensional cube and examine the characteristics of various people who lie at different points on the cube, but more importantly, ways that you can improve.

Fearless leaders are characterised by positive relationships, high levels of resilience and high levels of excellence. This book will help you to get the best out of yourself and raise the capacity of your employees so that your organisation can flourish. Fearful teams fight, run away and freeze. Don’t make your teams fearful; make them fearless.

Chapter 2:

Fear: Why Fear is Vital for Survival But Can Be Corrosive in the Workplace

In this chapter we are going to look at how we are influenced by fear and how we have relied on fear to ensure survival throughout our evolution. This survival has been won through the development of our fear responses: fight, flight and freeze. As we will see, although our responses to fear have been so vital in our evolutionary journey, fight, flight and freeze can be serious barriers to effectiveness in the workplace. If you can reduce fear in the workplace, you will reduce fight, flight and freeze responses in your people and they will be more confident, more creative and take more risks; in short, they will flourish.

Why Fear Can Be a Good Thing

Fear is the most powerful and important emotion for human beings. Without it, we simply wouldn’t be here; every one of our ancestors would have been eaten at the waterhole by lions or felled by a sabre-toothed tiger on the plains; they would never have got to pass down their genes through the evolutionary timeline and we would never have existed. Without fear, our friendly caveman forefather would have been happily making his flint blades and stone axes while his enemies stalked him and killed him. The early groups of human beings needed fear to shape their daily lives so that their young could be looked after, fed and provided for, in order that they could pass on the baton in the human race for survival.

Early in our development, before our ancestors were ape-like creatures, or even mammals, the foundations of our brains were set down to keep us safe. The early coding in our brains was established to respond to threats to our survival. The scent of fear triggers our most basic responses as creatures: flight, fight or freeze.

Our reptilian brain, so called because it developed whilst our evolutionary ancestors were still reptiles, deals with flight, fight and freeze mechanisms. This part of our brain lies at the top of our spinal column like a small ball in the middle of our heads. This part of our brain was finished perfectly one hundred million years ago and has barely changed since. It is a fantastic piece of kit. It encouraged our cavemen friends to fight off wolves, to run from warlike neighbours in the face of certain defeat and to freeze when confronted with a lion, hoping that it would lose interest and meander slowly on its way. The reptilian brain triggers functions throughout the rest of the brain ensuring that all our attention during times of fear is focused on the right decision about whether to flee, to fight or to freeze. These three responses remain our only responses to fear. They have worked for us as human beings for the last hundred thousand years as we have fought our way against incredible odds to establish ourselves as the dominant force we have become.

The modern human brain is incredibly powerful and has remarkable systems and functions which allow us our creativity, imagination, language and emotions. Unfortunately, these higher human powers to a greater extent aren’t needed in the face of attack. Remembering Wordsworth’s verse about a host of daffodils isn’t really required whilst figuring out your reaction to the mad axe murderer or the escaped gorilla. The reptilian brain isn’t going to let you think about Wordsworth, or football scores, or recipes for vanilla fudge whilst you are in danger. Fear tells the reptilian brain to shut down any bits of the brain that are going to distract you and will ensure that your packet of genes is not in danger of extinction. Fear will inspire your decision-making process so that you can evaluate the incoming information about the dangerous situation. It is going to prompt you to fight, flee or freeze. The fight/flight response is triggered when a group of chemicals called catecholamines, such as epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine, are released by the nervous system. It diverts blood flow from the digestive system to the heart and muscles and, in times of danger, human reflexes become sharper. They help us to concentrate on immediate potential danger, such as weapons or attackers. They can also make the memory of dangerous situations especially strong. As part of your response to fear, your short-term memory shuts down and the reptilian brain boosts the parts of you that are going to be needed to deal with whatever threat is coming. Your body is going to need to react. It is going to punch, kick, scratch, scarper, climb trees, grab weapons, scream, stand as still as a statue, hit the brakes, lock the door and do whatever it takes to survive. It is the way we have operated for a hundred thousand years. And we are really good at it.

Today, fear still pulses through us, motivating us and preparing us for responses to danger. There are times when this is extremely useful, even crucial. The reptilian brain will shut down your human brain, restricting your creativity and memory, literally making you