Below is an excerpt from my book “The Future-Proof Business Transformation Playbook — 5 Pivotal Pillars for 21st Century Leaders”
Even with almost a universal education system, most people are utterly distinct from each other. Some are risk-averse while others enjoy taking a chance. Some people relish the excitement of a new business challenge, while others cave-in and get further inside their shell. This effectively means some of us are more comfortable in awkward business situations.
Since continually challenging the status quo is a constant requirement for top leaders, the acceptance of pain and discomfort has to be supreme. For instance, fear of selling is something that is quite common even for Fortune 500 CEOs. This is especially true for executives who do not have a solid background in marketing or sales. If left untreated, this fear of selling translates towards other critical problems like not reacting fast enough to a changing environment or feeling afraid of approaching a relatively new client.
That’s why top leaders see themselves as salespeople selling ideas and solutions all the time. They work towards creating a stable mindset and try to remove their limitations. The primary goal is to give yourself better opportunities for enhanced performance and timely fulfillment of objectives. For instance, a conventional technique to handle uncomfortable situations is to create a detailed plan of the worst-case scenario and then planning your response based upon the probability of that scenario. Once you have accepted the idea and know what you’re dealing with, you can design and take organized action towards solving the problem. This approach takes fear and discomfort out of the way and has helped many of my clients at critical times.
Check out all the valuable advice in the full publication.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.