Are You Managing Your Team With Empathy Or With Fear?

Are you leading your people to higher performance or straight for the door?

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When leaders begin working with an executive coach, some must be told they are instilling a degree of fear in their team members. And that is usually met with surprise and resistance: “Whadyamean I scare my people?!”

Absolutely no one thinks they lead with fear. And yet as many as one-third of managers use fear in some ways in their leadership approach, and most are unaware they are doing it (and usually no one offers to tell them the truth).

Part of the problem is the word fear. It conjures up images of a boss straight out of central casting: growling threats as he puffs stale smoke from his stogie. What manager today would intentionally keep their people in a constant state of anxiety like that? Yet explicit threats are far from the only way of instilling fear.

Fear-based managers may utter such motivating comments as, “If we don’t hit our goals next month, I don’t know if I can protect you guys.” And if people feel a little extra pressure, then is it really their responsibility to put it to rest? Other times, fear is fanned when a leader focuses on finding fault more than praising success, when they fall into the trap of looking for someone to blame each time there’s a problem, or when they fail to be empathetic to employees’ personal issues.

Ken Chenault, retired chairman and CEO of American Express, said, “Some people want to present this image of being very tough—they confuse being decisive with being compassionate. One of the fundamental beliefs they miss is this: If you want to be an effective leader, you have to capture the hearts and minds of people.” He added that fear-based leaders do not establish the level of personal connection necessary to be meaningful in their peoples’ lives.

To get a gauge on whether fear may be holding back your performance as a leader, consider this set of common symptoms observed in fear-based teams:

■ Employees feel uncertain about the future of the company and their role in it

■ Communication is mostly one-way (down) and employees do not feel they have much of a voice

■ Employees often feel alone when they get overwhelmed with work and have little help in prioritizing their tasks

■ Outbursts and inappropriate conduct are tolerated, especially from senior people or top performers

■ When someone is called into the boss’s office, the first thought is “Am I in trouble?”

■ Employees do not feel anyone is actively helping with their career development

■ Meetings-before-meetings are common—often to help spin things in the way that leaders will want to hear them

■ Criticism outweighs praise

As one executive told me in a first coaching session, “To turn a company around, you’ve got to show people you have guts, you can’t be afraid to be the hard-ass. I think people admire that about me.” He had just played the: “Badass managers get a lot done” card. As I conducted 360 interviews with his direct reports, comments included: “He pushes and pushes until we just reach our limit,” “He could write a book on micromanaging,” and “He overrules consensus with his own views.” He didn’t sound very admired.

The fact is, people aren’t going to give their all unless leaders drop once-and-for-all the fear-based tactics of yesteryear and display more empathetic behaviors: being transparent and vulnerable; listening to employee voices; admitting their own mistakes; and acting in the team’s best interests. Developing empathy is about helping others grow and sharing the credit; it’s about defining the team’s cornerstone values and insisting on aligned behavior from themselves and their teammates. Empathy is about providing compassionate and honest feedback and having tough conversations when necessary.

When it comes to our daily work, fear is most definitely not the best motivator. Not even close. Research by Glassdoor that found while 81 percent of people say they’re motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work, by contrast only 38 percent report working harder when their boss is demanding and just 37 percent say they work harder if they fear losing their job. That’s because at the heart of fear is doubt, and in doubt-filled cultures—with people wondering Will I be in trouble, get yelled at, be fired?—the constant uncertainty kills motivation, not to mention innovation.

Machiavelli’s famous axiom “It’s better to be feared than loved” is not only wrong but dangerous.