When employees are afraid to underperform and lose their jobs, they will push themselves to meet company goals, ultimately ensuring a high productivity rate. At least, that might be the first impression for leaders looking to maintain or encourage high performance among employees. While this may be the reality at first, fear-based leadership is damaging in the workplace, especially in the long term. This fact may seem obvious to some leaders. After all, would anyone choose to work somewhere that always demands high stress levels? One would think not, but despite this, fear-based leadership is a method that is growing increasingly common. In a global study of almost 2,500 respondents, “nearly one in three emerging leaders are motivated primarily by fear.” This comes out to represent around 1.3 million leaders in the U.S. Naturally, those who utilize fear-based leadership may not identify themselves as such. Even so, the effects of this leadership style will still make their presence known.
When attempting to identify a fear-based leader or culture, here are three signs HR professionals should look for.
1. Fear of Speaking Up
There are multiple opportunities where employees might feel the need or desire to speak up at work. Reasons can vary from pointing out small mistakes to reporting office misconduct. Employees who speak up could be sharing valuable information with their teams, but this will only occur if they feel safe enough to do so. One recent survey found that speaking up is a “highly vulnerable behavior.” Encouraging employees to speak up at work requires them to feel a certain amount of psychological safety, where they sense the freedom to express themselves authentically without repercussions.
2. Lack of Understanding of Failures
While employees need to be mindful of the quality of their work, mistakes can and will happen. After the mistake has been made and reported, it is up to the leader to address it properly. If employees don’t feel safe enough to share their failures due to fear of punishment, they may hide their mistakes. Some could go unnoticed, but others could cause great obstacles for the company if not handled promptly. At first, mistakes in the workplace may be seen as a hindrance, but they are learning opportunities. One study published in Frontiers in Psychology shares that learning from failures can encourage self-development in employees. Leaders can help with this process by addressing the event with compassion, and understanding, and even sharing previous occasions where the leaders themselves made a mistake. Not only will this help the employees grow, but they will be more secure in bringing any future mistakes to light.
3. Presence of Micromanaging
According to Gallup, a micromanager in today’s workforce is a manager who wants tasks done in a certain way “but provides little context, support, help or advice.” This form of leadership works off both a lack of trust and insufficient effort toward helping to develop employees’ skills. Without proper direction or the freedom to make creative decisions on tasks, employees aren’t able to continue growing in their roles. Although micromanaging is meant to be executed as a way to ensure work is completed correctly, it actually harms productivity levels. Research shows that 79% of employees with autonomy are more engaged at work than those without autonomy. Not only does high engagement affect productivity levels, but it reduces turnover as well.
While people may not outwardly vouch for or promote using fear as a leadership strategy, it can still be present in the workplace and manifest in different ways. HR professionals must be diligent in identifying when toxic leadership styles are at work to address them properly and ensure a safe working environment where every employee can benefit.
