Posted on Feb 6, 2016
Would you rather be feared or respected as a leader?
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Leadership
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Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 35
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I would ALWAYS rather be respected. Respect brings cooperation, which is essential for the mission. Of course, the good leader must be able to generate at least worry and/or apprehension when the situation demands (which is what formal counseling, reading rights, and NJP are for) but having your troops afraid of you accomplishes nothing. Not even Georgie Patton or Erwin Rommel led by fear, and they were probably the most capable of generating it.
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My personal view is that an effective organization has leaders of each type. I like to think that I'm respected, but I know I'm not feared. It's not in my being. I've even tried, and I still come off as approachable. Soldiers often ask me for assistance they should ask their team leader for. I believe that I call out soldiers for minor infractions at least as often as anybody in the company, and I definately hand out more PT than anybody else, but joes don't seem to fear me. Despite the fact that I aspired to be a thunder and lightning NCO, its not in me, and I have come to grips with that. I'll take being firm and fair. And that's what I strive for.
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Fear is the motivator of last resort and is only good in the short term. In the long run you will achieve far better results if your people follow you willingly. For that you need respect. Thankfully I never served directly under a bad leader but I have sure seen some. From a practical point of view if I think so little of you that I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire would you really want me to be who had your six when the stuff hit the fan?
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Leading by fear and or intimidation signals to me lack of managerial experience.
Possible cases - the fear is used to induce a sense or urgency, the leader knows no other way than fear or they are transposing their own fears onto others - I'm scared, so you should be scared as well.
Fear is very destructive for a number of reasons - it kills creativity, leads to group think, and worst of all it creates suspicion, mistrust, and cynicism of the leader. This fosters an environment where everyone is all out for themselves.
Possible cases - the fear is used to induce a sense or urgency, the leader knows no other way than fear or they are transposing their own fears onto others - I'm scared, so you should be scared as well.
Fear is very destructive for a number of reasons - it kills creativity, leads to group think, and worst of all it creates suspicion, mistrust, and cynicism of the leader. This fosters an environment where everyone is all out for themselves.
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It's all METT-T dependent. Nicolo Machieveli wrote a book with his take on this. So did Steven Pressfield. They came to very different conclusions.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/gates-of-fire/
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/gates-of-fire/
If you are sure that none of the above applies to you, and wish us to investigate the problem,we need to know your IP address.Go to this site,don't sign up, just copy the IP address (it looks like: 12.34.56.78 but your numbers will be different)andmail it to us.If that page also shows a proxy address, we need that one too.
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SFC (Join to see)
Sir, yes that is very true, I'm reading a book right now that portraits Machiavelli.
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