As a leader is it better to be feared or loved?

LTC (Join to see)
It's better to be trusted and respected. A leader needs to be open to being wrong, gaining knowledge through being open, and be willing to admit it. People follow those they trust and they work harder for those they respect. Respect like trust is earned. It's earned through actions and not words. Having a strong work ethic, getting results, getting in the trenches. People are motivated and inspired by leaders who are action-oriented, self-directed thinkers, do-ers, and learners.

I think you need to find a balance that works. Take care of those who work for you and they will take care of you (most of the time at least). Dont think leading by fear is required, but I do think it needs to be understood that you mean what you say and accept nothing less than the best.

Wanting to be feared or to be loved are just different forms of leadership failure, IMHO. It is better to be trusted and respected by your men; for them to have confidence that you have their backs and that you know what you are doing and that you will not ask them to go into harm's way needlessly.

"Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it, not because your position of power can compel him to do it, or your position of authority." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

For me I think the proper balance between the two is "Respected".

Fear will ultimately fail because in combat a leader who relies on fear cannot create a scenario more fearful than a soldier risking his life. So if his choice is "charge the hill" so to speak or have the leader yell at him, or humiliate him or court martial him, there is no comparison in the fear levels. So a leader who can only motivate soldiers to act out of fear of the consequences will fail.

But even in peacetime, the fearful style has limitations. Soldiers who act based on fear of consequences will only do the minimum required to avoid the consequences and no more. Plus, given a changing or ambiguous situation, they will default to inaction rather than action. They won't want to do anything they weren't explicitly told to do, out of fear of choosing the wrong course of action and suffering negative consequences.

You should be a leader that is respected. A good unit is like a family: A Sergeant should be like a big brother; someone you can look up to and someone that can take care of you, but also someone you don't want to upset. A Staff NCO should be more of a stepfather that is taking care of you. Officers are supposed to fill father figure roles; Colonels and up are more of the grandfather roles. If your men and women don't feel like this is the case, then your doing it wrong.

LTC (Join to see) Sir, I always like a good mixture of both. IMO you can use both to your benefit to get the mission accomplished. But I feel you get your troops to work harder for you if they like coming to work. If they truly hate you, that aint going to happen.

As a team leader I have used fear to get a job done, but normally I reserved this method for brand new soldiers who displayed a hard headed attitude or who was talking back to a soldier put in charge of a class or detail and trying to undermine the authority given by a TL or Squad leader. This method I used sparingly however because if you use it to long the soldier gets resentful. Directly after instilling the fear in a new soldier I began to teach his job and develop raptor and respect very quickly the respect would compleatly replace the fear. Sun Zu said "Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons and they will stand by you even unto death" there is no amount of fear that can inspire this kind of loyalty. Any leader who can ask his men to follow him into what everyone knows is certain death and be absolutely confident that they will follow has tremendous influence and responsibility to his soldiers. For me as a leader this is the relationship I seek to build with all my soldiers. It is by no means a fast method of leadership but it is far more solid and durable than fear the only reason to use fear is to get that initial compliance and lay the new foundation for the trust.

I prefer being cuddled.

LTC (Join to see) right out of AIT, when you still have this picture of DS and PLS smoking you for not having enough water in your camelback, I got here with that sense of fear to NCO's. Then my 1st OIC showed me a whole different version of leadership. Although she left my office in June, we still get in contact because we built a relationship where she lead me with a pure intention of getting the best out of me. In the other hand, my 1st NCOIC used to be an infantry guy, an E7 with lots of combat experience and not a single drop of need of love. From a subordinate point of view, I rather a leader that shows love for what he does even if he/she is not expecting to be loved. Fear is not permanent, duties are not permanent, assignments either, memories are and I rather being remembered with love than with fear.