This week’s Friday quote comes from one of the participants in a session I did last week about organizational culture. It was an extended version of my “Organizational Culture in the 21st Century” keynote/workshop, and in this session I was able to talk about organizations that are embracing concepts that move away from traditional leadership (decentralization, transparency, experimentation, etc.), but I also had time to get people reflecting about their own cultures and how ready or able they were to move toward these ideas. At the end, one person came up to me and gave me what I think was a really nice compliment:

Wow. You scared the sh!t out of me!

While fear and leadership generally don’t mix, the one place it works is when it wakes you up. Fear can sometimes get you focused, and as you look at things more urgently, you can discover that what you thought was working, really isn’t. And as long as you don’t let the fear paralyze you, it can actually help get you moving towards making things better.