Some people get a rush out of being scared. In 2019, there were 32 horror movies released in the United States, earning $983 million. That’s nearly double from three years earlier, but not the all-time record. The most profitable horror movies ever made were Jaws in 1975 ($1.15 billion in 2019 dollars) and The Exorcist in 1973 ($996 million in 2019 dollars). Initially inspired by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, these stories and then movies have flourished over nearly a century. The macabre and supernatural are often the focus—nightmares, fears and terror of the unknown. They’re not for everyone, but a segment of the population loves to be scared for entertainment.
What scares you? No, not the movie legends of ghosts, vampires, vicious animals or even clowns (who many readily admit can be scary). Really, what do you fear in life? Phobias—irrational fears of things that are unlikely to harm you—are a common mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association says about one in five adults has a phobia. There are hundreds of recognized phobias, from the most common, fear of public speaking, to hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which is—you guessed it—the fear of long words. On some level we all live with fears—ones we are born with, ones that develop in our lives, and others that manifest themselves when we least expect it.
Horror is on a hot streak for the movie business, and diverse millennials may be to thank for the surge in ticket sales. Horror fans also go to the theater more frequently than audiences of action films, comedies, or other genres.
Fear can be paralyzing. As a leader, when fear grips you, it can keep you from making crucial decisions, seeking good counsel, or even being able to voice the concern before you. For a segment of the population, being really scared can be entertaining, but for a far bigger majority, including most leaders, fear can be damaging and debilitating. Fear is a tremendous stopping force, for life, business, marriage, family and so much more. Learning to understand fear, and to face it, is among the most powerful weapons in your leadership arsenal. To do this, you’ll have to tackle something deeply personal, because fear is a function of the mind, and every man’s mind is different, unique.
Let’s look at four common fears for leaders. And coincidentally you’ll find these fears represented in the classic horror movies. Directors and producers carefully construct their narratives to prey on the feelings of unease these fears evoke in the viewer. So these fears are common, applicable to the broad audience. But since they’re identifiable they are also answerable, in terms of knowing how to conquer them.
Fear of the dark. The greatest vehicle selling a horror movie is to tease what terrible thing may be lurking in the shadows. For a leader, fear of the dark is really fear of the unknown. Leading others down a clearly lit path in the middle of the day is easy. But when you lack direction, or there is unknown risk ahead, your leadership can be frozen with fear.
The movie Jaws used the dark of ocean water to terrorizing effect. Director Steven Spielberg had a problem during filming—the mechanical shark he had constructed for the movie didn’t work. Day after day the technicians worked on the shark, but the crew had to shoot something to keep the production going. So Spielberg decided to put the camera down at water level, where you had no idea what was below the surface, and not to show the shark at all. The idea of what was down there, lurking in the darkness below the waves, was much scarier than the shark itself. He preyed on a common fear. Lurking there just above the surface, with watery darkness covering half the movie screen for nearly two hours, was the hallmark of one of the scariest movies ever made. When we can’t see what’s out there, we get scared.
Fear of the unknown, those dark steps ahead, is conquered through faith. When you can’t see what’s ahead, or what’s below, you have to put your trust in something. Or someone. Author and leader Patrick Overton said of faith, “When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” Faith in its most basic sense is trusting in what you cannot touch or see.
The Bible actually tells us to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Walking in faith means being willing to go into a place where you can’t see the path ahead, and determine to be obedient to God as the path is revealed. Consider Abraham in Genesis 12:1, who God instructed to go to a land that He would show him. Paul continues in 2 Corinthians to explain what walking by faith means:
Jaws the film is adapted from author Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel of the same name, which Benchley based on a series of shark attacks that occurred off the coast of New Jersey in 1916, and after an incident where a New York fisherman caught a 4,500-pound shark off the coast of Montauk in 1964.
“So, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please [God]. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” 2 Corinthians 5:9-10
Walking by faith is not just trusting God to reveal the path in front of us. Rather, it is to pursue the unseen things—aiming to please God, understanding the realities of heaven, Jesus, morality, purity and the consequences of sin—and knowing that God is faithful as we walk in obedience to His Word. When we base our lives on the truth of God’s Word, rather than what the world is telling us to do, we are going against our natural desires and choosing to believe in what we can’t physically see—God and His Truth.
Fear of monsters. On top of darkness, add a scary growl, or a scream in the distance—a noise that makes you wonder what made it, and fear grows. The monster lurking in the shadows can be terrorizing. From a leadership standpoint, monsters are those things before us that we believe are greater than our ability to handle. Leadership monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Monster decisions. Monster conflicts. Monster changes.
The monster-driven horror movie has a formula for these threatening beasts. The core of the monster plot is to hide the creature for as long as possible. A shadow here. A footprint there. A strange sound in the woods. Go back to the terrifying Jaws. The movie played for 2 hours 10 minutes. The shark itself doesn’t make its first appearance until 1 hour 21 minutes into the film—and then not in full view. In fact, the shark in Jaws has a total of 4 minutes of screen time. It turned out the shark’s fin slicing through the water turned on the viewer’s imagination as to the creature attached.
In horror movies, the monster has but one mission—kill the hero. In Jaws, musical composer John Williams chose just two ominous notes to represent the shark. The score set the tone for the creature as a ravenous, unsympathetic, perfect eating machine. A hint of the size of the shark, and a relentless, furious soundtrack, and our fearful minds are off and racing as to the monster hidden under the waves. The key with movie monsters, though, is this: they are designed to prey on our greatest weaknesses.
For a leader, conquering monster fears is a matter of understanding where we are weak, and seeking help to build up that weakness and play to our strengths. Are you predisposed to certain sinful thoughts and actions which may keep you from overcoming leadership monsters before you? Pride, envy, lust, anger, greed—all of these weaknesses can wreak havoc in our leading minds.
The solution is simply to immerse yourself regularly in the Bible, reading and studying to understand not only your weaknesses, but the strength of God in your life. Hebrews 5:13-14 says, “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But meat is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” The lesson is clear—mature in your faith as you build skill in the Word of God. And where does that mature “meat” come from? You guessed it—dead monsters.
Before the film Alien’s release, no publicity shots showing the Alien were ever given to the press and the Alien itself never appeared in the trailers or other promotional material. The producers wanted to shock the audience when they first saw it.
Fear of being alone. Most horror movies start with an ensemble cast, with a few standout characters. The reason is simple—some people have to die. Movies like Scream and Cabin in the Woods make quick work of finding the characters in an eerie location, and then peeling them off, one by one, to meet their fate. The fear of dying alone is nearly universal, and can be haunting when we see it, even in a cinema. In fact this fear is broader than just dying alone. A Today/AOL poll in 2014 revealed that fully one third of people fear just being alone.
During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, the idea of dying alone, in isolation, not surrounded by our loved ones, unable to have human contact in our last moments, is something that makes the virus scary, especially to those most vulnerable—like senior adults in nursing homes, and those who are already sick or are in a situation or job where they come into contact with the potentially ill on a regular basis. Being out there, alone, we feel vulnerable. We have to stand on our own strength and resources, and we believe we are inadequate to deal with the fear in front of us.
A leader conquers this fear by surrounding himself with good people. Trusted friends, wise counsel, smart and talented team members who are strong in areas where you lack talent or experience. Surrounding yourself with the right people also means avoiding the wrong ones. Psalm 1:1-4 says,
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
Do you know people who are wicked, sinners, scoffers? Sometimes in a horror movie the plot is moved along by an antagonist. It’s the character that says, “Go into that dark room by yourself. Everything is going to be fine.” They only have their own best interests at heart.
But where do you find the good people? Fred Kiel, author of Return on Character: The Real Reason Leaders and Their Companies Win, conducted a study of more than 100 CEOs and 8,500 of their employees. Kiel said, “The leaders who attained the greatest financial bottom-line results had strong character habits that involve four basic principles: integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion. They almost always tell the truth, keep their promises, are willing to own up to their mistakes and take responsibility for their choices. They are very forgiving of others. They are all about learning from mistakes rather than punishing. And finally, they care about people.”
The bottom line is this: in order to surround yourself with good people, you have to be a good person—a person of high character. Character attracts character because character reveals character. This ensures you will never walk into a dark room alone—and that you will attract a team that has your back, rather than one who would rather stab you in it.
Fear of what’s next. And finally, suspense is the ultimate narrative device in a horror movie. The horror movie director’s first order of business with the plot is to make you, the audience, anxious. Where fear of the dark is the dread of not knowing what is ahead, suspense rather is the anticipation of the question when? How long before the monster attacks, the shark comes for the swimmer, the psycho comes knocking on the front door? When the stakes are high, timing is everything. Decades of making horror films has taught directors that there is often great dread in the waiting. In fact, the wait can be terrifying.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is widely regarded as the scariest horror movie ever made. The pace of the movie is slow and off-putting to many viewers. Reviewer Ben Sherlock writes of the film, “It’s a movie about an isolated and frustrated man’s sanity slowly slipping away. A fast pace would’ve botched that. A lesser filmmaker would think, wrongly, that the faster a horror movie races through its plot, the better it will be. But Kubrick… realized that the best way to unsettle an audience and tell a spooky story is to eek through the terror at a snail’s pace.”
For a leader, the fear of what’s next is manifested in worry. A leader can have great difficulty trying to lead through a generally anxious existence. The reason so many managers treat their employees as badly as they do and keep them in line with unnecessary rules, policies and punishments is that many managers themselves are in a state of fear. They don’t know who they are behind the business card. Morra Aarons-Mele writes for Harvard Business Review, “How can you lead with authority and strength when you feel anxious? How can you inspire and motivate others when your mind and heart are racing? And if you hide the fear in an attempt to be leader-like, where does it go?”
A leader conquers worry by realizing that first, worry or anxiousness is an emotion. It’s not a fact, but rather a feeling. Aarons-Mele continues, “Decades of research on emotional intelligence have shown that people who understand their own feelings have higher job satisfaction, stronger job performance, and better relationships; are more innovative; and can synthesize diverse opinions and lessen conflict. And all those things make people better leaders.”
“Like with many of these things, the real power of The Shining is in the details. It’s the little things that disturb us as an audience and the attention to detail that Kubrick brought to this film that makes this film so scary. Right from the opening shot, we are shown the sense of isolation the family is about to experience.” —Steve Mellor, betterfilmmaking.com
Many leaders attempt to suppress the fear of worry—to “power through it”. In addition to acknowledging worry, a leader should set his mind to thoughts that relieve anxiety. The Bible says in Philippians 4:8-9,
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
When we purposefully put our heads to thoughts that are positive, God-affirming and praiseworthy, the emotion of worry is eased. And the Bible’s promise is true—when we practice these things, we can know that God is with us. The God of peace, who calms the heart and mind in the midst of fear.
Whatever scares you can affect your leadership. Understanding how to identify and overcome your fears is a sure step to making better decisions, building stronger relationships and bringing along your team as you step through the dark rooms ahead. We are only beginning to unpack the lessons of the pandemic of 2020. But certainly among the most important of them is to understand what fear does to us. It has caused us to question our lifestyle. It has shut down our economy. It has leaders sticking their necks out and making life-or-death decisions with no experience to stand on. To be successful in the near term, and to rebuild for the long term, as leaders we must understand and face our greatest fears. Or just maybe, we’ll be eaten by them.
