Little Miss Muffet and Her Arachnophobia

I'm continuing my series on leadership lessons we can learn from nursery rhymes.  I hope you'll recall the one I posted a couple days ago.

I’m willing to guess that you once again couldn’t get the following nursery rhyme off your mind after reading this title. Let’s say this one together:

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet

Eating her curds and whey,

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away

This is another great nursery rhyme, with another great leadership lesson. Let’s dissect it, shall we (the rhyme…..not the spider).

Fear is difficult to deal with as a leader. Maybe there’s something you (as the leader) fears, or maybe it’s something your follower’s fear. Either way, fear can be what keeps us from becoming GREAT. Fear can be what stands in our way of success. Fear can be a crutch.

Little Miss Muffet can sure sympathize with this fear as a crutch notion. She sits down to enjoy a nice little meal, and what happens? Her biggest phobia nearly smacks her right in the face! That would be scary for anyone.

It’s Little Miss Muffet’s reaction that I want to analyze. She succumbed to her fear. When dealt with a decision, she decided to run from her fear, instead of staying to face it. She had an opportunity to show her friends and followers that her courage as a leader could allow her to “face off” with her fear, but she instead retreated. Hey, there are some fears and battles that we need to run from. It’s up to us as leaders to decide if retreat is the best approach. However, we need to remember that we are being watched, and if we want to convince our followers to “buy in” to our vision; plan; direction (as was discussed in the previous post), then more times than not, we need to stand tall to our fears.

What fears are keeping you from reaching new heights as a leader? What steps can you take to help build that courage needed to stand tall to your fears? Are all your fears worth running from?  Is this one I should run from or face? These are questions you need to ask yourself as you further grow as a leader. “Am I being ‘Little Miss Muffet’ today?”