CEOs can’t do whatever they want. They often try – but they exist in complex webs of stakeholders, in an even bigger ecosystem. Their actions have tremendous consequences. And nowhere is this clearer than when dealing with fear-based leaders.
Fear-based leaders are, for lack of a better word, asshole founders. They’re rigid, hierarchical, top down, and bad listeners. They don’t care about the people around them – only themselves.
If they were contained in a cone of silence where no one could hear them, this wouldn’t be a problem – but they’re surrounded by tons of employees, who then feel stressed, tense, and like they have to walk on eggshells.
I call people like this “fear-based leaders” because they are leaders who deep inside are incredibly insecure, and full of fear. At night, their subconscious panics – will I ever be enough? Will anyone ever love me? Why don’t I feel happy yet? And because their fear is what motivates them into frenetic action, they then use fear to motivate the people around them, too.
But this doesn’t serve them well. Fear-based motivation just doesn’t work. If someone wakes you up in the middle of the night and screams, “Get up and run ten miles!” You’re probably going to freak out, trip on the stairs putting on your shoes, and run half panicked down the street. You might run fast at first, but unless someone is chasing you the whole way, there’s an initial sprint, and then you’re bleary eyed and slow. On the flip side, if someone calls you, invites you to run with their running group tomorrow, and says, “I’m so excited you’ll be there; we’re going to have a great time.” You’re going to wake up, prepared and steady, and set a new pace buoyed by the people around you.
A lot of the work I do in my coaching practice is teaching founders why being fear-based isn’t the way. Motivating others through fear, threats, or other types of extrinsic motivation gets short term, shoddy results, because the people around you just don’t feel comfortable doing their best work. Would you reach your highest potential if there was a sword hanging above your head all day? But many of the founders – the ones I refer out to other coaches – are too far gone.
They’ve decided that they are the kings of their worlds, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
When I say kings, I’m not exaggerating – they see themselves as being on a pedestal, with their C-suite around them serving as their feudal lords. Once you’re in their sphere of influence, they believe they own you, and your fealty, like a possession forever. The cult of the founder builds up around them, until they are surrounded by sycophants, who insulate them from any type of accountability and oversight. So, their bad behavior – name calling, unilateral decision making, micromanaging – runs unchecked.
Everyone in their orbit is left tiptoeing around them as they compete for the biggest valuation, the highest raise, the shiniest names on their cap table, with no regard for the human cost of their relentless pursuit of power. To them, the people around them fit in two categories: tools, or sheep. Tools can be used to get them something they want, and sheep are basically useless, except to sell things to.
This mindset is in part because of the unwavering self belief required to believe that only you can save the world from your product’s target pain points. For you to think that you have to be the one to make the company a reality – that no one else can do it – requires a certain level of dismissiveness of naysayers, or inability to hear the people around you. This is especially true of category creators. But, in most cases it also requires an almost pathological level of arrogance. And that’s where things start to go wrong.
When founders see things as “me against the world”, almost any type of action becomes justifiable to them – and in their mind, they are the victim. To them, they think no one else around them gets it. They feel chronically misunderstood, undersupported, and lonely, even as the people around them do their best to support them.
Ironic for people who claim to love innovation, it’s this leadership style that starts to choke off success and growth.
To build the best products, with the best ideas, people have to feel safe sharing outlandish brainstorms, raising important issues and questions, and feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves, that genuinely matters.
This is why I’m convinced that outside of AI labs, we’re about to go through a cycle of limited innovation. We’re in a new, gloves-off era of permissiveness to be a fear-based jerk, and everyone is going to suffer for that. Executives will focus on short term results rather than interesting, riskier long-term bets, because they won’t have room to fail. Junior employees won’t feel safe sharing their ideas, insights, or mistakes, because it will be clear leadership doesn’t want to hear them – and collectively, as a society, we will miss out.
If you struggle with these tendencies as a founder, you need to lean into opposite action. Try:
- Asking twice as many questions, as you make statements. This balances your voice with others’.
- Resist the temptation to fire people who challenge you. Surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to disagree.
- Regularly engage in activities where you are not an expert, to remind yourself that while you might be experienced in one area, you still don’t know most things about most things.
If you are dealing with a founder like this, then:
- Let them underestimate you. When you’re underestimated, you have more freedom to do what’s important to you.
- Choose initiatives to protect, and other initiatives to “sacrifice” so that it feels like the leader gets their way.
- Do not share any information about yourself, your priorities, or your needs with the leader. If they know what you care about, they know how to manipulate you. Be as opaque as a gray rock.
