Is it better to be feared or respected at work? Is cracking the whip harming your team’s productivity? Can managers force employees to produce their best work? Or should they instead create a positive and rewarding environment where a team can excel?
If you’re in leadership, the start of a new year may bring new budgets, challenges, and corporate mandates. All this newness and renewal makes it a good time to self-assess, whether by setting fresh goals or trying to change bad behaviors.
One bad behavior common to managers is leading with fear. Making employees fear penalties can be a short-term way to get everyone’s attention. However, studies tell us that this approach is short-sided. It often leads to a toxic work environment that kills motivation and retention. Leading with fear can also hurt the company’s bottom line.
You may not even recognize that you’re a fear-based manager. Seriously, who would have the guts to point it out to you? Managers who lead with fear don’t just carry a big stick and lean more heavily toward punishment than reward, but they also use fear to try to control their workers.
You’ve probably had some experience with a bad manager (or managers). More than likely, fear was a primary component in making the manager bad. But here’s a secret that the manager wouldn’t want you to know: Fear-based managers are fearful themselves. They may fear the loss of control over their employees. They feel like they can't trust their workers, so micromanagement seems like the only option. Because everything in a corporate setting rolls downhill, these managers may be fearful about their job security. Their fear rolls into their employee relationships, the metrics and rules they set, and the demeanor they exhibit every day.
Here’s an example of how fear-based management kills innovation: The manager seeks input about an idea at a meeting where everyone (if they speak at all) voices their affirmation. But afterward, everyone has a side conversation about their true feelings and criticisms. No one feels comfortable challenging or offering suggestions to their manager in this environment. Every company needs people willing to speak up and express an opposing viewpoint. Otherwise, the company ends up with all “yes” people who just carry the party line, even when there are misgivings about what is expressed. The culture of fear has already taken hold.
If you haven’t read The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner, you’re missing out on an insightful glimpse into American life that is just as relevant today as it was when it first came out decades ago. The book is a study of fear as a manipulator in politics to create support for war, in advertising to drive consumerism, or to create other kinds of political, cultural, or workplace behavior.
Today, mass media is even closer than when Glassner wrote his book; our news feeds are real-time and hand-held, giving way to endless anxiety. Glassner’s goal was to make consumers critical of the stories that surround us and recognize that our fears are being manipulated for profit and political gain. This kind of manipulation works in both subtle and blatant ways in our culture. But how does fear impact the workplace when a manager uses it to bully his or her employees? If you’re a manager, what are the primary ways you’re trying to manipulate your employees into doing their jobs?
If you’re living in a management culture of fear, it can be hard to see a way out of it, whether you’re the boss or employee. Changing the environment starts with recognizing the behaviors that created it.
There are three primary ways that employers intimidate managers and managers manipulate employees in a culture of fear:
Fear-based cultures are characterized by:
If you’re a manager seeking long-term growth, you may recognize some of these scenarios. You may have created these environments, but the root cause may be because all of corporate culture is driven this way. Getting to the bottom of a fear culture requires that you recognize the motivators within yourself first. To do this, ask yourself these three questions:
Living in a fear-based culture kills joy. It also prevents exciting innovations that help companies attain greater market share. If you think your emphasis on carrying a big stick is somehow helping you get the job done, check out what the research tells us.
We still haven’t established why leading with fear is all that bad. In the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink describes seven problems with fear culture in the workplace:
While you may consider these seven deadly sins as opinions, there is a strong body of scientific research showing that leading by fear does not help organizations in the long run. For example:
To get the most from your employees, they need a safe space to share their ideas. We know that innovation requires making mistakes. Creating a culture that shuts down ideas and punishes mistakes will not save your company, it certainly will not endear you to your employees, and it won’t help you retain your top talent. If you’re starting to finally get the point that leading with fear is a bad idea, here are some ways to start shifting your leadership style.
Change can start now, with you. If you’re a manager in a fear-based culture seeking to change interactions with your team, Forbes reports some best practices that you can initiate at the department level—no matter the size of your team or the bureaucracy around you:
Making a change toward a more positive leadership style will create an environment where your employees want to give you their best work. If you still feel a need to resort to scare tactics, maybe you’ve hired the wrong employees. If that’s the case, there are still kinder ways to deal with new hires that don’t work out without resorting to fear-based management.
If you’ve been trying to change the culture of fear at work but the corporate environment is too entrenched, perhaps it’s time to make a job change. Artisan works hard to ensure the best jobs for top candidates in the creative field. Whether you’re a hiring manager or someone looking for your next gig, we’d like to help you improve your workplace environment in the new year.