“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince[i]
I once worked for a medium-sized U.S. Government contractor. This particular company had a bad case of what I like to call the Lifeguard Syndrome, or the notion that, if they could just hire the right Chief Executive Officer, or some other high-level exec, that this person would rescue the organization from drowning in its problems. One of the Presidents helicoptered in was rumored to have said, soon after his arrival, that “Every employee should arrive to work each day a little bit afraid.”
At the time I didn’t know what to make of that quote, assuming that he had actually said it. On the one hand, I could kind of see the underlying thought pattern, that the rank-and-file employee would typically not do their absolute best if they were complacent about their long-term futures with the company. On the other hand, I had first-hand experience with a much larger government contractor, where fear of being laid off was both pervasive and intense, leading to a highly toxic work environment, and I absolutely did not want to relive that nightmare. That having been said, there was really no comparison between the smaller company’s overall performance and the larger one: the larger, more fearful (albeit toxic) organization dramatically outperformed the more chill one.
On a more extreme scale, I’ve observed one common element among truly notable champions across multiple sports: they’ve displayed a strong aversion to, or even fear of, losing. In NFL Films’ production America’s Game, the 1992 Dallas Cowboys, Michael Irvin had the following to say about Head Coach Jimmy Johnson:
See, that’s the thing … you can’t lose here. Jimmy made it so uncomfortable losing.[ii]
Many other champion head coaches, like Bobby Knight or Vince Lombardi, were known to become rather, shall we say, harsh towards their players after losses.
I’ve been on high-performing teams. I’ve also experienced my fair share of teams headed by complete incompetents, and it showed. The thing about the poorly-managed teams was that, though the manager had set a sub-optimal (or even unworkable) technical agenda, they would attribute the team’s downward performance spiral and eventual failure to the team’s lack of ability or commitment, and felt at liberty to invoke more harsh treatment of them on that basis. Rather than inspire better performance, these team members would typically (and predictably) resent such handling. The more talented members would seek employment elsewhere, up to and including competitors’ organizations, while the less confident would stay on, enduring the worsening treatment from management, pursuing the wrong technical agenda, and hoping for the best. Were they fearful? You bet. Did it lead to championship-level, or even improved performance? Of course not.
And let’s not forget that, on the other end of the spectrum, PMs who fail to adequately address consistently poor performers are likely to be judged rather harshly by the other members of the Project Team. At some point and at some level, the others will recognize that the presence of poor performers reduces the chances of bringing the Project in on-time, on-budget, and they will most likely have an (entirely reasonable) expectation that the PM will rid the Team of the non-contributors.
For better context, I want to revisit Hatfield’s Incontrovertible Rules of Management #24, which reads:
- The three essential qualities of managerial leadership are:
- The ability to identify the optimal (or at least workable) technical approach to the problem(s). The Team will quickly know if they are barking up the wrong tree, and will become disillusioned.
- To genuinely care about the people on your Team. If you don’t care about them, why should they care about you, or your technical agenda?
- To be willing to pursue your technical approach, alone if necessary.
My previous story covered why (a) is essential, but what about (b), and how does a PM dealing with failure harshly fit into that? Here’s where I want to call upon an enhanced level of nuance. Harsh treatment from valid leadership isn’t about inducing fear of the leader, personally. It’s about inducing fear of failure, no matter who is in charge. One litmus test would be to ask the question, does the individual continue to loathe the thought of losing even in the absence of the harsh manager/leader? I invite GTIM Nation to recall a teacher that managed to inspire their best performance. I have absolutely no trouble admitting that I was at least a little bit afraid of these types of instructors, but there’s something else: they left me with a stronger aversion to failure, not for its own sake, but because I came to expect more and more out of myself.
So, as to the answer to my original question, about whether or not it’s a good thing for employees to show up to work a little bit afraid, I’ll leave an overall response to individual GTIM Nation members. For my own part, I think that, if I ever lose my aversion to failure, if I’m not at least a little bit afraid of falling short, I’m probably in the wrong job. It’s a fear of failure – any other variety may very well lead to a highly toxic work environment, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
[i] Retrieved from https://www.enotes.com/topics/prince/questions/could-you-explain-what-qoute-means-when-ch-17-269368 on February 25, 2024, 17:38 MST.
[ii] From America’s Game, the 1992 Dallas Cowboys, as shown on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6z-Zb6WcHw, viewed on February 24, 2024, 19:39 MST.
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