Feared, Loved, or Respected: How Do YOU Lead your Company?

Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 01:01pm by David Askaripour in Life

Are all great leaders loved? Are they all feared? Are they all respected? What does it take to be a “good,” “loved,” and “respected” leader? Do you need a level of fear to lead effectively? I’m not absolutely sure, but let’s talk about it.

Machiavelli states:

… it would be best to both be loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find the greater security in being feared than in being loved. Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.

Think about some of the greatest (re: effective) CEOs and founders of our time: Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Martha Stewart, etc… do you think that these people lead solely by love? Nah…. Fear was instrumental in their success and a part of what helped to grow their companies to where they are today.

Of course fear can come in many forms and levels. Fear of disappointment. Fear of being fired. Fear of not being able to eat. Fear of letting yourself down. Fear of you name it.

I’d venture to say that most movers and shakers in the world, whether they know it or not, are feared to some degree and in some particular respect. And is that such a bad thing? I don’t think so.

If all of your employees, team members, constituents, what have you, didn’t have any fear at all, then things could go wrong very easily. People wouldn’t care about the quality of their work; people wouldn’t try as hard as they could; people wouldn’t set high standards for anything.

I’m being hypocritical, because though I’m speaking in the context of business / entrepreneurship, I believe that reaching a level (state of mind) where you no longer fear anything in life, is ultimate freedom. But this hypocrisy also supports my premise: if you are part of a hierarchy in a business, movement, whatever it may be, you will need to adhere to certain standards and guidelines and if you don’t work up to your expectations, then the potential to be taken out of that structure becomes more apparent.

And that, my friends, is where fear is a critical factor to keeping people sharp and on point! That fear of being removed from that community. Without that level of fear, there would be no balance and the support beams would weaken and fall apart from underneath the community, business, following, etc. So, essentially, fear can play a positive role in keeping a company healthy and focused.

But love and respect, in a perfect world, would be all you need to lead effectively. I’m sure that’s what we all want — for everyone to love and respect us, unconditionally. That is the world I’m living for. The world that I’d love to see. But let’s deal with the present and in the present world, things aren’t perfect and many people will show love selectively — when it best suits them.

I’m digging what Machiavelli said and think that leading with both fear and love is perfectly fine. Ideally, love and respect is all I’d want to lead by. And fear isn’t something that I consciously try to embed in the minds of those who follow me, but I’d be naïve if I didn’t recognize that fear is an element that resides in my leadership.

What do you guys think?

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