Fear-Instilling Leadership – Is one of your managers a corporate liability?

When we are called to work with leaders who have been identified as intimidators, or worse, bullies in the workplace and are in the process of derailing their leadership career, we begin the process by asking managers to identify the kind of relationship they want to have with their employees. The majority of leaders we work with desire to lead from a relationship of trust and mutual respect and commit to learning and implementing new skills. Yet, many managers engage in behaviors that instill fear in the workplace, whether they intend to or not. In addition to putting the organization at risk for a lawsuit, fear-instilling behaviors deplete the employees’ pride and undermine high quality, productivity, motivation, and innovation. Fear-based leadership also generates negativity, anger, frustration, and, ultimately, turnover.

Before a leader can successfully apply new skills and implement new behaviors, it is critical to identify the fear-instilling behaviors their team members are experiencing and then determine what is going on within the leader that causes them to exhibit these behaviors.

The following are twelve fear-instilling behaviors that managers knowingly or unknowingly use that cause people to be afraid of them.

• Silence
• Aggressive, controlling manner
• Glaring eye contact/”the look”
• Yelling and shouting
• Brevity and abruptness
• Threats about the job
• Ignoring people
• Angry outbursts/loss of control
• Insults and put-down
• Physical threats
• Blaming/discrediting/discounting
• Unethical conduct

Do you recognize any of these behaviors in yourself?

Most fear-instilling behaviors can be traced back to personal feelings of pride and/or fear. We like to ask leaders to think about what they were thinking about or feeling when they responded to someone with aggression, shouting, threatening, blaming, insults or silence and ignoring. Pride and fear is generated by comparing ourselves to others and telling ourselves we are “more than” or “less than” the people with whom we work. More than statements include, “I know more, I have more tenure, I have more experience, I have a higher title, I have more authority, I am in charge.” These statements produce a feeling of pride that can lead to aggressive or controlling behaviors when a leader is met with resistance or an employee underperforms. Less than statements are just the opposite – I am less than, know less than, have less experience than – and result in fear-based behaviors like hiding, ignoring, and silence out of the fear that someone may think we are not capable or competent.

We encourage leaders to approach peers and team members not from a comparative perspective, but rather from an approach to help, serve, and develop them. When leaders take control of their more than/less than statements and thus pride and fear, they are better able to control their emotions and focus on producing successful outcomes. We encourage leaders to consider, “What does the employee need?” “How can I help?” “What can I do to better understand the employee’s situation or perspective?” “What training can I provide?” Employees find it easier to follow leaders who lead out of a desire to help them be successful; as a result, relationships improve and productivity increases.

Productive manager-employee relationships are based on mutual trust, respect, and credibility. Once a leader figures out what is driving their fear-instilling behaviors and takes control of their emotions, we then encourage them to take the following proactive steps to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and support:

Spend time with your employees. A concern that frequently frustrates employees is the lack of accessibility or approachability to their supervisor. If any of the following behaviors sound familiar, take positive steps today to spend more time with your employees. (1) not being receptive to negative feedback; (2) spending an excessive amount of time in the office with the door closed; (3) spending a large portion of time in meetings; (4) too busy putting out fires or working on important projects; (5) on the road a lot slowing down the decision making of people who need answers.

Listen to employees; take time to hear their concerns. Finding time in your busy schedule to listen, really listen, to your employees, is a huge challenge. The benefits in making time to listen to the people who work for you, however, are enormous. Employees who know their manager will listen will share problems while they are in the early stage and not wait until problems have reached a crisis level, and employees who feel valued will often provide valuable input leading to effective and creative problem solving.

Follow through on agreements. Possibly no one other area of management is as critical as this one in building trust and respect with your employees. Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it. Failure to follow through on commitments you have made erodes employee trust and confidence in your ability to lead. Consistently delivering what you have promised, when you promised it, however, builds you a strong reputation as a respected leader, one who can be counted on to follow through, and one people will choose to follow.

Stick to the “aim frame.” When problems occur, stick to aim frame thinking. “Aim framers” ask two questions: “Where do we want to be?” and “How do we get there?” “Aim framers” focus on finding solutions leading to positive outcomes. “Blame framers,” on the other hand, also ask two questions: “What went wrong?” and “Who is to blame?” Unfortunately, no matter how long “blame framers” spend finding fault, no positive outcome is ever reached. “Aim framers,” however, are well on their way to successfully tackling their organizational challenges.

Leaders we have worked with who diligently endeavor to diminish feelings of pride and fear and control their emotions have established new and improved relationships with their team members and have set their leadership career back on track.