In Being a Leader: Winning Hearts and Minds

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
- John F. Kennedy

An author once wrote that leaders when given the option of being  feared or being  loved, it is better  to choose to be feared. That man was the infamous Machiavelli, the author of the handbook of dictators. He theorized that  to wield the  iron hand is necessary to secure order and enforce those orders efficiently. In his way, to win the battle of hearts and minds, fear is the best resolve and inspiration could come latter.  Yet, do you agree? In your way, would you inspire or would you strike fear? But before we go ahead with ourselves, let us first examine  the reality we live in.

People ,unlike numbers, cannot be predicted by solutions or equations.The human behavior is more complex to understand than simple x + y. One cannot say that what would yield obedience in one person could bend the knees of another. Like an  army, it could march in pristine order in one day and then would be in mutiny the next. You cannot also say that the leadership approach would be applicable to all situations. Some require brute strength, others a soft touch of love. So with these complexities, how does a leader use his leadership to better achieve his aims and yet at the same time able to sustain the satisfaction of his followers? 

A key to any leader’s success is the ability to generate an emotional response. An example is Moses who put the fear of a wrathful God in his people and got them out of the desert  or the African-American activist Luther King whose nonviolence stance  inspired his people and millions more to rally and support  the Civil Rights movement.  Inspiration could allow  leaders to persuade people to give their best. The postmodern ethos  is empowering people  to work on their own. They are considered as team members or equals, and not subordinates. Yet as I said not all people are cut from the same cloth, some view inspiration with affection, some see it as weakness. And weakness is most of the time taken advantage of. In situations  it could lead to anarchy. No society, organization or a group of people in the history of mankind  was able to function without a semblance of order.

Thus it could not be denied that fear is sometimes necessary, albeit in the most difficult times. Sometimes  the old school 'fear of the boss' is needed to ensure that things are done in the quality that it should be,  driven by the knowledge that one’s performance will be judged by the highest standards and failure to meet a high level of achievement will not be tolerated for long. This dictatorial attitude allows people to be disciplined opposed to  leniency that when abused could result to chaos and mismanagement. But increasing pressure could boil down to dissatisfaction and unhappiness.As history has taught us, the least happy are the less productive .

Fear and inspiration when applied to leadership have both their own advantages and disadvantages. It could benefit and at the same time harm both the leader and his followers. Yet in the matter of deciding which is better, the decision rest upon to you but one should remember that in making a decision one should look into its consequences and weigh them with the benefits.

Sources:
Machiavelli, Niccolo.(1513). The Prince.
Nursing Leadership, Management, and Research notes
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leader.html
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/12/leadership-101-fear/