Advisory Notes: Boss Fear

I step into his office after a quick knock.

“Is this a good time?”

He looks up from his screen and runs his hand over his bare head. I take it as a good sign and start talking.

“I’ve been thinking and…”

He picks up his phone. Silent. Still, my chest tightens. Damp under my arms. I stop mid-thought.

The meeting itself goes fine.

Later, I wonder why my body acted like it was under threat.

The Social Survival Imperative

We are biologically wired for social survival.

For roughly three hundred thousand years, humans lived in small groups. Survival depended on belonging. Staying in good standing with the group — and especially with its leader — wasn’t a career strategy. It was life or death.

If you lost favor, you didn’t just lose status. You might eat last. Be exposed. Be expelled.

That wiring never left.

Today, when we face authority, our nervous systems don’t distinguish between a tribal leader and a modern boss. The stakes feel existential even when they aren’t. Fear arrives fast; it’s a body blow.

That fear forces predictable results:

It makes us prioritize connection over accuracy.

Harmony over truth.

Safety over contribution.

Especially with the most powerful person in our lives at that moment.

For individual contributors, this shows up as silence:

• Ideas withheld.
• Questions softened.
• Requests delayed.
• Scope absorbed.
• Discomfort swallowed.

Not because people don’t care — but because speaking up feels risky.

For leaders, it shows up differently.

No pushback. No dissent. No warning before problems surface. A sense that people are disengaged, compliant, or “not stepping up.”

But the silence isn’t agreement. It’s adaptation.

Modern work requires dissidence. New ideas. Information leaders don’t have. Early warnings.

Truth spoken before damage accumulates.

Our biology, meanwhile, is optimized to avoid exactly that.

So, the tension we feel isn’t personal. It’s structural.

Manage the Fear

What helps?

First: recognize the fear is normal.

When your heart races before challenging authority, nothing is wrong with you.

If people hesitate around you when you hold power, nothing is wrong with them.

Second: understanding that speaking across power is a skill, not a personality trait. It must be practiced in conditions that feel safe enough to learn.

That’s where my work often lives.

People use conversations with me as rehearsal.

They test language. Feel the fear. Say the words. Adjust. Try again.

As the body learns it won’t be punished, the fear loosens its grip.

Leaders benefit too — often indirectly at first.

When people feel safer thinking out loud, expressing opinions that may be challenging, better information arrives earlier.

Conflict becomes workable instead of corrosive.

Authority becomes steadier, not tighter.

Practical Steps to Reduce Risk on All Sides

Do your homework. Facts calm fear — for everyone.

Choose the setting. Correction in private preserves dignity.

Lead with curiosity. “Help me understand…” invites reflection without confrontation.

Name consequences, not character. “If we proceed this way, here’s what we risk.”

And sometimes, name the human need directly — especially around money: “I need to feel fairly valued to do my best work.”

Once, when a potential client asked me, “Why do you want so much fucking money?”

I answered with one word: “Respect.”

Not bravado. Accuracy.

Respect for experience.

For responsibility.

For the difficulty of the work.

The deal closed.

Fear Didn’t Call the Meeting

If you’re afraid to speak, your body is doing what it learned to do long ago.

If no one pushes back around you, it doesn’t mean they don’t care.

It means the cost of speaking feels higher than the benefit.

Silence is not a character flaw. It’s a signal.

When leaders learn to hear it — and when individuals learn how to move through it — better work becomes possible.

Not because fear disappears.

It no longer runs the room.