What Are We Afraid Of?

Gary Burnison is CEO of Korn Ferry and the author of Love, Hope & Leadership: A Special Edition.

“Does anybody actually enjoy this?!”

A suction tube hung from the corner of my mouth. A tiny mirror pressed against the inside of my cheek. And each time that metal tool scraped, I white-knuckled the arm of the chair.

I sat there, leaning back, focusing on that bright light above… and just knew the drill was coming for me next.

That dentist appointment… It had been on my calendar for weeks, the day creeping closer. There was no avoiding it.

Not expecting the dental hygienist to actually respond to my rhetorical question, I heard her voice over the scraping: “I don’t know. Some people probably fear heights more than this.”

“Yep, good one. Heights. Gotta be up there on the fear list. Flying, too,” I murmured through cotton rolls in my cheek.

“I hate public speaking. Guarantee that’s top ten,” she added.

Under the dental bib, I pulled out my phone and brought in ChatGPT. We actually identified a lot, missed a few, and even debated the merits of others.

But I was surprised to see two: Fear of Failure. Fear of Loneliness.

It’s not that I didn’t agree or even that I couldn’t relate—but it made me wonder. And the more I thought about how different these two sentiments appeared to be, the more it became clear how similar they really are. 

Failure and loneliness are rooted in the same ground—isolation.

“‘I didn’t realize how lonely this job would be.’ That’s what I hear from every first-time CEO,” Angela Castellani, a member of our Board and CEO Services Practice and PhD clinical psychologist told me just recently. “It comes up every month.”

For leadership, as in life, evolutionary psychology offers an explanation. Going back millennia, the fear of failure meant much more than making a mistake. It was also about rejection.

That’s where the fear of loneliness comes in—and far more than the existential angst of being alone. Getting shut out of the circle was tantamount to being ousted from Maslow’s Hierarchy. And that was a threat to human survival.

Failure and loneliness—they’re embedded in our DNA.

“You are not alone. The minute I tell that to leaders—they feel so relieved,” Angela added.

As these four words are acknowledged, our mindset shifts. And that’s where the path to understanding begins. We’re able to dispel our seemingly conflicted, but all-too-connected fears. So, as leaders, what do we do?

Understand the fear. It starts with a question: What are we afraid of? Once we name the fear, we can begin to uncover how it drives our behaviors. Then, instead of merely reacting, we’re acting with intention. And after all, it could be that failure as we know it is only failing to fail.

Reframe the fear. Failure may be in the top 10, but it doesn’t have to isolate us from others. What matters most are not our fears or even the moments of failure—what counts is what we do afterwards.

Give ourselves some grace. No one is infallible—and that includes leaders. Grace moves us forward—elevating not only ourselves, but others. For leaders there is only one road, and that’s the high road.

Amid our fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities, we all have one thing in common: We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And that’s the leader’s job—to ensure a deep sense of belonging reverberates throughout the organization. 

Indeed, what are we afraid of?

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