Free Article By Paul Glen of C2
Consulting
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Wages of Fear
(This article originally appeared in
Computerworld USA.)
In the circles of power, fear is often admired
as a potent motivator. In his classic discourse on power politics, The Prince,
Niccolo Machiavelli offered the following thoughts on the question of whether it
is better for a leader to be feared or loved: "If we must choose between them,
it is far safer to be feared than loved. For of men it may generally be
affirmed, that they are thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger,
greedy of gain, devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them,
and ready ... while danger is distant, to shed their blood, and sacrifice their
property, their lives, and their children for you; but in the hour of need they
turn against you."
So naturally, he would have considered
occasional, small-scale cruelty justifiable and wise when it inspired fear and
enabled a prince "to keep his subjects united and obedient."
Ethical issues aside, this seems to work
reasonably well, at least for a while, if your goal is to control the behavior
of a population, quell social unrest or suppress dissent. But if your goal is to
lead a group of knowledge workers to peak productivity, this may not be a recipe
for success.
As a consultant and speaker, I have the
privilege of peeking into many companies, associations and IT departments.
Within each, one can discern subtle attitudes, beliefs and emotions regarding
their leaders.
In organizations where the leadership either
deliberately or inadvertently cultivates fear, I've observed some interesting
patterns. Few of them are particularly helpful for the organization or its
leaders.
Creative energy is misdirected. There seem to
be limits on the creative energy of any group. Only so many hours a day are
really productive for generating the best answers to the important questions at
hand. When a group comes to fear its leadership, a great deal of that creative
energy is siphoned off into questions of how to mollify the manager rather than
how to support the organization with technology.
The staffers focus their attention on what they
feel are basic issues of personal security rather than on organizational
accomplishment. If an employee is worried that you might publicly humiliate her
because she forgot to use the official corporate PowerPoint slide template, then
she's diverted some of that vital energy away from the valuable content.
Offhand remarks are transformed into rigid
policies. One way for staffers to avoid potential confrontations is to try to
get decisions made in informal chats.
Imagine that you are the scary boss. You're
walking through the hall, and a subordinate tells you, "We're going to send you
a status report on Friday." And you say, "Sounds great; the morning is best,"
because you'll be leaving early to visit your grandmother in Schenectady.
Next thing you know, every project manager in
the organization is grumbling, angry and upset, because they've all heard that
there is a new policy that EVERY PROJECT MUST HAVE A STATUS REPORT DELIVERED TO
THE BOSS BY NOON EVERY FRIDAY ... OR ELSE. There are whispers in the hall, "How
come we can't turn them in Monday? Why can't we use the weekend?"
The pressure builds until someone eventually
breaks and blurts out his frustration and incredulity at a public meeting, and
you're left slack-jawed wondering how this all started.
No one wants to talk to the scary boss. You've
announced an open-door policy. All staffers have an open invitation to come to
your office to discuss anything troubling them. Yet, on those rare occasions
when you're not in a meeting, you could hear crickets chirping to the gentle
whine of your hard drive. No one wants to talk to you.
Before long, you don't really know what's going
on. The staff has spent its creative energy constructing a rosy picture of
reality, presented in the most formal settings, designed to avoid your wrath.
And, sadly, you're probably smart enough to
know that you're being snowed, but you don't know quite how to break through to
these people. Eventually, your frustration comes out in a burst of anger -- and
the cycle begins again.
These are among the wages of fear. On the good
side, the staffers have been unified. On the bad side, they are probably unified
against you
