I once met with a man who was appointed by the Obama administration to oversee the operation of all US military spy satellites. Every morning he received a top-secret report about hostile activities throughout the world. During the meeting I asked him, “What do you wish people knew about our world?” He paused for a long time, and with sustained eye contact, he lifted his hand and touched his fingers to his thumb. “I wish,” he said, then paused again. “I wish people knew just how dangerous this world is and how much risk there is to freedom-loving people everywhere.”

Fear is a powerful motivator. It influences our decisions and our behavior. It affects the actions of children on a schoolyard playground as well as the entire military industrial complex. Fear is prevalent in political debate for both candidates and causes. It is used to pressure people into buying medication, insurance, security systems, and even new tires and toothpaste. Because of its profound influence, sales and marketing organizations routinely contemplate the influence of fear in their clients’ buying process. Marketers know that customers who are afraid pay closer attention, are more likely to buy, and will do so more quickly than customers who are not. No human emotion impacts buying behavior more dramatically than fear.

SMEs often have a front row seat to the fear show. Experts know the specifics of what people should fear and what they should not. They know when uncertainty is high and, conversely, when risk is contained. Furthermore, experts have the luxury of observing circumstances from a position of experience, objectivity, and distance, and consequently, they can use their authority to energetically stoke fear or calmly subdue it. Experts can be the bearers of trouble and anxiety or the bearers of reassurance and peace.

There are certainly times when an expert must frighten an audience. Candor and honesty demand it. The oncologist sows fear when informing a patient that cancer is present. The network operator sows fear when informing management that a server was hacked. The weather reporter sows fear when predicting the path of a hurricane.

While it is true that experts may need to deliver dire, solemn, and frightening news, it is my observation that great experts help their audience move beyond fear. Great SMEs don’t deliver bad news and walk away. To the contrary, they know that fear is an emotional response to uncertainty and can be overcome through logic, reason, reassurance, encouragement, and patience. Great experts recognize fear when it appears and move quickly to vanquish it. The late political columnist Charles Krauthammer once wrote, “The omniscient have no fear.”

The fearful expert may inspire critical thinking and knee-jerk sales in the short run, but relationships built on fear eventually end badly. Fear-mongering experts will be rejected and despised. Experts who only identify and accentuate problems will be, and always are, replaced by experts who identify and accentuate the solutions to those problems.