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Fear of sharing knowledge. Why people think so?

Most of us think that if we share our knowledge, then others will quickly learn and supersede us. We see this in our daily life, especially in IT. Our mentors or leads hesitate to share the knowledge and try to avoid us in sharing and teaching. Let me explain the myth about it and how we can overcome

Find below the most common question that can relate to this post.

What is the fear of sharing?
Why are people reluctant to share their knowledge?
How can I overcome Phobea of knowledge sharing?
How can I overcome the fear of sharing my knowledge?

What is actually 'knowledge' ?

Knowledge is nothing but the information that we gained from books, concepts, and experience. Oxford dictionary states as “ the information, understanding and skills that you gain through education or experience”. So it means the concepts that we learnt. Please note this concept can be learnt by anyone from different sources like us the same way and become knowledgeable. So no one can stop anyone from learning.

Why do people fear sharing their knowledge?

People typically are afraid that by sharing their knowledge, others will learn and supersede them. They think they will overcome and ignore us. So to save our job, position and respect, most people think let’s not share and keep it within ourselves. If you think we can stop people by avoiding sharing knowledge, then you are in deep misconception. It hinders your growth itself. Let me explain how it is in the sections below.

What makes you unique even when you share the knowledge

As explained above, it is a myth that if we share knowledge, we will soon fall behind. Knowledge is a pack of concepts and a collection of information that we gained over a period of time.

When we share knowledge with others so that others don’t need to put the same effort into gaining the same knowledge. That is, they don’t need to reinvent the wheel like exploring for sources of information, spending time reading and understanding it. This will quickly help them to get into the work. So what makes you stand unique is that you share all the knowledge and its “application” of the knowledge.

We all would have learnt the same way from books and gained the knowledge while we study in school and college but what made some of us score good marks and some are not? It’s the application of knowledge while we address the questions in the exam. It’s the same even in the corporate world.

Knowledge is just the book that we prepared by ourselves. What matters is the skill of each individual to apply that knowledge in the work. It varies from one person to another and it’s their unique selling point called USP. So even when you share the knowledge, it’s your uniqueness that makes you the top in the position.

How knowledge sharing helps your growth

Most people think if we keep knowledge within ourselves, others will be our subordinates and respect us as they need to learn from us. People just pretend to be respectable until they gain knowledge from themselves and ignore you when they gain it.

Please note that you cannot stop people from gaining knowledge, it may take a little time for anyone to learn but people learn it. Indeed when you share the knowledge, you will earn true respect from the people that lasts forever. so you will be a true leader.

A true leader is one who shares knowledge and makes others like yourself. When you fill a person in your space, you will find better opportunities around you so that you can move to the next higher position and grow more quickly.