Leadership requires leaders to know and control themselves, being self-aware, before it is possible to be effective as a leader. A Key piece of self-knowledge is awareness of the vital emotion known as fear. Leaders not only reognize their own fear but in addition recognize fear based behavior in others. Leaders with fear awareness respond in ways to reduce the negative response to fear in others as they do in themselves. The goal is to take negative responses to fear out of the situation and address the matters at hand. The end result is a win/win situation.

Non-leaders are generally ignorant of the reasons behind their own most basic traits and habits with relation to others' needs. This lack of self-knowledge of themselves, when it comes to fear, becomes the motivator for them to attack another who is fearful the same as the non-leader has been treated by other non-leaders. Without a keen sense of another's fear, a non-leader becomes fearful for his or her immediate well being. The goal for the non-leader is to make all fearful persons more fearful than they, hence issues never get resolved. The end result is not a win/lose but a lose/lose outcome.