Reassurance never reassures

The best way to reassure others is not to be afraid ourselves.

What can founders learn from psychoanalysts? One handy principle is that reassurance never reassures¹. It's easy to remember but hard to apply.

When people share their fears or doubts with others, they unconsciously offer this emotion to another person. Imagine someone on your team comes to you as their manager and expresses doubts that they can complete a project on time.

At that moment, they are offering you their emotions, which will, in turn, evoke emotions in you. Maybe you also have doubts about their ability to complete the project on time and fear it.

What’s happening from an emotional perspective, unconsciously, is that that person is checking with you if their fear is too scary. They are, in effect, asking you to feel it to see if you can handle it.

If you can’t allow this fear to enter your nervous system, you’ll be tempted to reassure them (and yourself) by saying something like, “Don’t worry; of course you can do it!” This happens in a flash, in a split second, often without us noticing.

But what’s being unconsciously communicated is, “Yes, I’m afraid, too, that you can’t complete the project. You may even fail without my extra reassurance.” It’s precisely the opposite of what you say. That person’s fear of not completing the project will grow because now they have “evidence” that others are afraid too, so it must be really bad.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

What’s the alternative? To be present to your own fear. What does it mean for you if your teammate doesn’t complete the project? Will some other project fail? Will you have to explain it to the board? Will you have to fundraise again?

Whatever our fears and other emotions are, we must learn to be present to them and allow them to be as they are. If we can be present to our own fear of missing the deadline, the emotional message we will communicate is, “It’s manageable. It doesn’t have to be scary. We can handle it.”

This ability to hold the emotions of others makes them feel like they can do it, too. However, this is also quite difficult because being with our emotions is a real skill that takes time to learn and is hard to apply.

It’s also one of many reasons why being a leader is so hard emotionally. People are coming to you from all directions with lots of emotions. Just ignoring them and focusing on the numbers isn’t the answer. Being reactive and swayed by others’ emotions is a shortcut to burnout. Yet, being present and open to how others and yourself feel without automatically reacting to it is truly hard—day in and day out.

Does it mean that we should never reassure or encourage others? Not at all. What’s essential is that it’s done from a place of being at peace with the other’s emotions and your own.

What’s actually reassuring is the presence of a person who isn’t afraid and can stay present. This can help us find our own way to be bigger than our fears and the confidence to move forward. That’s the job of a leader.

This is far more likely to help that project be on time than reassurance from a place of fear.

1. “Reassurance never reassures” comes from On Learning From The Patient, a brilliant book for psychoanalysts that all coaches would benefit from reading. I started to learn it from reflecting on many occasions when I tried to reassure my coaching clients, and the effect was exactly the opposite. Sorry, clients!

When I coach and notice I’m tempted to reassure, I try to check in with myself to see whether I am afraid or don’t believe the client is capable. In other words, I try to offer what sounds like reassurance when I have confidence in the client’s ability, and I know they are confident in their ability, so it comes across more as a statement of fact.