The Dark Side of Leadership: Why Fear is a Losing Strategy

Originally published July 29, 2014 on LinkedIn.com

Fear can enable your survival, but it will never empower you to succeed as a leader or emerging leader. When people complain about their bosses and workplaces, fear is often the unnamed source of their discontent. This is what fear sounds like in our self-talk and conversations with others, even if the word is not actually used:

Employee Fears
“I don’t want to rock the boat. I just want to keep my head down and work hard.”
“I don’t want to share my idea with leadership, because they’ll probably think it’s stupid.”
“I don’t want to take on any new assignments or projects that might fail.”

Leadership Fears
“I can’t delegate this project to my team, because they might drop the ball.”
“I can’t let my employees work from home once a week, because they’ll probably just goof off.”
“I can’t give the [fill in the blank] department too much credit, because it will diminish the value of our unit.”

Fear can take many forms and will undermine our leadership capacity if we are not mindful. Below are three dimensions of fear that we must confront in order to reach our full leadership potential.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
- Yoda, Jedi Master (and leadership guru)

1. If your employees fear you they will never respect you

Niccolò Machiavelli said that “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” Subconsciously or intuitively, many managers still believe this and some with more sociopathic tendencies actively use fear and manipulation as a management strategy. Employees react to fear-based leadership in one of two ways: they suffer through it similar to psychologically abused, domestic victims or they get out as soon as possible. Either way, direct reports will neither love nor respect these kinds of leaders. As Yoda teaches us, fear brings out the worst in people and causes harm to those who experience it, as well as those who impose it upon others.

Love on the other hand, brings out the best in people and inspires respect and admiration. However, like Martin Luther King, Jr., when “I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional [nonsense].” I am talking about the most powerful force in the universe, which has transformed the world time and again. King also said thatthere is “something about love that builds up and is creative.” Surely, love is more potent than fear in generating employee engagement, greater innovation and better business results.

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear. . . It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.”
- Marilyn Ferguson, author and spiritual innovator

2. If you fear change it will be forced upon you

It is hard to believe that a fifth century philosopher by the name of Heraclitus formulated the timeless insight that “The only thing that is constant is change.” The reality of continuous, infinite change has never been more obvious than than it is in our fluctuating global economy. Although change is as natural as the rising and the setting of the sun, human beings tend to have an instinctive resistance to it. Some resistance related fears include a sense of powerlessness (loss of control), feelings of uncertainty (the unknown), increased workload (more work without more pay), and unintended consequences (ripple effects). These may be legitimate fears, but giving them too much power eliminates our own.

Leaders have a strategic responsibility to drive organizational transformation and not just respond to external market forces. The more you take the destiny of your company in your own hands the less you have to fear the changes that are imposed upon you. And here’s the important thing — you do not need a formal management title to exercise leadership. By “managing up” you can proactively address the challenges that your boss is grappling with by providing valuable information and possible solutions. If you really want to be a strategic thought partner then begin to scour the landscape to identify emerging market shifts, trends and competitors that will potentially disrupt your business, and share that insight with your manager and other leaders in the organization. The bottom line is that when it comes to change, resistance is futile. Instead, master the art of turning lemons into lemonade.

We are social creatures, and so it is natural for us to want to conform to the people around us and the norms of the group. But underneath this is a deep fear — that of sticking out, of following our own path no matter what people think of us. The fearless types are able to conquer this fear.”
- Robert Greene, author of The 50th Lawfeaturing 50 Cent and The 48 Laws of Power

3. If you fear the battle you will lose the war

Leading with love and being a change agent will not always end with popularity and adoration (just ask Jesus, Ghandi and MLK). Being a leader will inevitably take you into the heart of conflict and controversy. Those who fear conflict will often fall into the passive aggressive behavior that is a leading cause of the toxicity in dysfunctional work environments. Fear of controversy will undermine your power and presence, because constructive change, innovation and commitment to personal and/or organizational values often requires taking unpopular decisions. Healthy disagreement and debate is also what makes our good ideas that much greater and fuels innovation.

Though some fears should be taken seriously, I have come to realize that most of the fears that prevent leaders, and those who aspire to be, from taking a stand on important matters are based on imaginary consequences that are typically divorced from reality. Employers are not going to terminate you for speaking your mind and advocating for changes that could make the organization better. They can (and sometimes do) push employees out who have poor emotional intelligence and lack the necessary self-awareness and social skills to interact with other homo sapiens. The key is to find that sweet spot between who you are (your authentic self) and who you need to be (your public self) in order to succeed as a leader in your given context. This is the essence of Executive Presence. Ultimately, you will be respected more for challenging the status quo, than allowing fear to overshadow your voice.

Conclusion

We all have fear, the goal is to acknowledge it and push through. Do not let fear rob you of your opportunity to self-actualize into a bold, visionary leader. If you gain a formal leadership position, you must resist fear and its tendency to transform good natured employees into self-serving, egotistical tyrants. Would you rather be a Darth Micromanagerius or a magnanimous Jedi Master. You can achieve the latter by leading through love, mastering the art and science of change, and choosing your battles wisely.