Fear is paralyzing innovation. Here’s how to fix it

Let’s be honest: fear is everywhere inside organizations right now.

You can feel it in how people talk about headcount or not. You see it in 10-slide decks justifying one decision. You sense it when smart teams stop raising bold ideas and start hedging every word.

I’ve been in innovation and design for nearly 20 years, working with Fortune 100s through recessions, crises, and COVID-19.  I’ve never seen fear take up as much space as it does now. It’s no wonder why we are here, though.

Headlines are dominated by mass layoffs, inflation, AI threats, climate disasters, and geopolitical instability. The pressure to “do more with less” only seems to grow inside organizations. Where we once saw enthusiastic collaboration and time for ideation, we now hear repeated reminders that “this project is critical” and “the product must launch ahead of schedule.” Remember camaraderie, laughter, and the room to innovate? They have all been squeezed out in the name of efficiency. 

It’s not that managers are clueless about the stressors facing their direct reports. Yet pressure from the board, the market, and the team itself creates a vicious cycle of fear that ultimately leads to a scarcity mindset. Time, money, and opportunity suddenly feel limited. As a result, people stop thinking strategically, long-term visions are discarded, and innovation grinds to a halt.

And yet, I know this from the dozens of companies I’ve worked with in innovation: Teams can still move forward, even amidst great fear. To succeed, they need leaders who can stay grounded, know when to shift gears, and create the conditions for progress despite immense uncertainty. Here are five ways to guide your team out of fear and toward innovation and long-term business growth.

1.  Use empathy to shift your culture

Leaders set the tone of their teams and how they show empathy for their teams is a huge determinant of teams’ success. Prioritizing psychological safety and addressing issues transparently can cultivate a thriving and resilient team. 

I recently led a team through a project with fear at the center—a looming launch date, mandated cross-team collaboration (that wasn’t always so collaborative), and many reinforced “critical” reminders. Our team used simple tactics to focus on voices being heard to bring hope. We set up onboarding calls with every team and created a survey to understand what was on their mind and how they were approaching their work. Providing a space for their voices to be heard shifted their thinking from fear to opportunity.

Another way you can help teams shift their culture is by creating metrics around empathy. Pulse-check your teams regularly. Build in skip-level 1:1s. Prioritize open communication over perfect communication. In times of turmoil, you cannot over-communicate.

Anchoring decision-making in long-term aspirations, not just short-term survival, also helps teams remember that every situation is temporary. Painting a picture of the vision can reshape the entire trajectory of a project. It anchors a team in what feels challenging now but paints a picture of the future that showcases a vision teams can build toward.

2. Build an environment where “truth-telling” is rewarded 

Fear loves to shut down expansive thinking. Studies as far back as the 1950s, including Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments and Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s spiral of silence theory, illustrate how fear can tamper with expansive thinking and encourage conformity. 

Yet the last thing we need right now is conformity. Executives need truth-tellers, people who will stand up and say “no” and give the “real talk” that’s needed.

One executive always asked me to visit when I was in town. It wasn’t because I’d say everything was perfect. Instead, I would tell the truth, ask hard questions, and challenge their opinion if it wasn’t rooted in sound insight. This kind of relationship goes beyond fear and centers on mutual respect and trust.

As a leader, you don’t necessarily need to empower the loudest naysayer in the room, but it’s time to find and cultivate truth-telling. While debate may seem risky in fearful times, leaders need ideas shared widely, not hoarded. For example, you might require teams to bring three hard questions for every share.

If truth-telling feels impossible with current team members, consider expanding the office of the CEO into roles such as a chief of staff, which has seen a nearly 1,934% increase from 2019 to 2022 alone. This role exists to help the CEO uncover what’s really happening. There are experts who can evaluate and support the creation of these roles such as Nova Chief of Staff or Ask a COS.

3. Encourage deep failure

In tech innovation, you’ve heard Mark Zuckerberg’s “Move fast and break things” or read The Lean Startup, which coined MVP. Those approaches are right, in theory. However, in corporate America, I rarely see them play out as intended because failure still feels off-limits.

Yet deep failure, done right, can be a golden ticket.

Start by running small, agile experiments to gather insights, keeping the end user at the center every step of the way. When failure is reframed as data, not defeat, teams become more creative, and solutions get better and improve faster. The Spotify Model treats failure as fuel by being grounded in autonomy, innovation, and continuous learning.

This mindset shift also applies to AI. Too many teams are still blocking generative tools out of fear. Instead, start mandating the use of AI to power rapid experimentation. While enterprise tools like Microsoft Copilot offer a safe starting point, the real value comes from going further. Right-sized, rapid AI tool creation within teams, allows them to customize and solve for their own challenges. 

4. Stop glamorizing a good story

The best final presentations focus less on telling a good story and more on strategy, substance, and outcomes. Teams shouldn’t spend hours editing out words the CEO doesn’t like or redesigning an infographic 10 times because “it just doesn’t feel right.” That’s just fear in disguise, and it pulls focus away from what matters: whether the idea is right, not whether it’s perfectly packaged.

One simple fix? Standardize the format. Require every team to deliver their final presentation as a one-page memo. Everyone knows Amazon’s approach; they’ve been onto something for years. When everyone operates from the same format, it levels the playing field and puts the thinking, not the theatrics, at the center.

We also must let go of outdated ideas about what a “good leader” looks or sounds like. I’ve been told throughout my career that I have “phenomenal executive presence.” For a while, I wore that as a badge of honor. I now realize we should call it what it is: a coded way of valuing performance over substance. 

It’s time to stop prioritizing polish and instead focus on outcomes. What matters isn’t how someone says it but what they’re actually saying and whether it moves the business forward.

5. Consider your leadership legacy 

The phrase often attributed to Maya Angelou—“People won’t remember what you accomplished, but how you made them feel”—is usually reserved for personal relationships. But why should it be any different for an executive?

A retired Fortune 50 CEO once shared my article on LinkedIn. I reached out to thank her and asked to meet. Ahead of our conversation, I watched her interviews and saw someone who was consistently real, honest, and unafraid to talk about the personal and professional challenges of leadership. When we met, she was even more impressive in person, grounded in her values, and focused on creating an impact far beyond the boardroom. Her approach inspired me to think more intentionally about the legacy I want to leave behind as a leader.

Legacy starts with shifting the focus from profit alone to impact. As a leader, you can create large-scale, positive change by championing equity, advancing sustainability or investing in social causes. But figuring out what kind of legacy you want to leave requires reflection. 

Leadership legacies don’t build themselves. As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed.” The same applies here. Set goals around the kind of legacy you want to leave, and check in with yourself regularly. Ask: “What do I want to be remembered for?” and “What will people truly take away from working with me?” While this metric might feel far away from those set by the board during times of intense pressure, they are just as worthy of time and focus.

Perhaps these leadership tips feel basic, but when fear is driving the agenda, the basics are exactly what we need. Leaders need to remember that people power companies and people need their leaders. They need them to model how to lead through turmoil.

Fear divides and creates short-term thinking. Yet empathy, truth-telling, encouraging failure, clear strategy, and legacy thinking can unite teams and drive innovation.