FEAR: Given To You, Driven by You
Entering the brightly lit room with sweaty palms gripping a leather notebook, I nervously asked for a bottle of water to cool my overwhelmed demeanor. With the notebooks slipping out of my hands, I reached for the bottle and almost lost the leather bound note container. I was anxious and my palms were sweaty. As I was waiting, I started to wonder if I was good enough to meet with the person whom I was to meet. Was I on their professional level? Was I going to sound articulate and well-read enough? Did I have the right pedigree in my experience to be in the same room? Was I going to ask the right questions? I was in the office of a CEO of a major sports corporation and could not shake the feeling that I was an imposter in the space. I was seeking counsel and a mentor for an executive role to which I had just been promoted and I had previously had a phone call with him and was looking to meet him face to face about my next steps for engaging successfully in the new role. He had been extremely successful in this work in a previous role and was the perfect person for me to consult. I had no idea why I was so afraid, but I was. As a Black man, I had to explore what about this space made me wonder if I was enough.
At the heart of this experience was a deep, overwhelming fear. My experience in that CEO’s office made me realize that fear must be overcome to step into leadership fully and effectively. If I wanted to become a leader, I would have to treat other leaders as colleagues and as equals, but the fear I was experiencing was paralyzing, convincing me that I was an imposter in the space. I realized that if I could not overcome it, I could never actualize the good I hoped to do. As I explored this, I started to contemplate on whether this phenomenon I was experiencing had been discussed before. I wanted to look for trends, and because of my background, I naturally began by exploring hip hop for clues. I combed lyrics to find thoughts specifically addressing fear and its relationship to leadership.
