![]() ![]() In fact, it produced the opposite increased fear of authority, generalized anxiety, poor self-esteem and decreased productivity. The punishment didn’t help our academic performance at all. There are still plenty of us late boomers among the executive ranks of corporate America. Come to think of it, I actually was caned at prep school and my brother and I were spanked at home when our school report cards arrived. This was all quite common from a generation shaped by war’s brutality and its military command-and-control philosophy. Personally, I grew up in an era when parents and teachers were stern and to be feared. If we are honest, the question for many of us remains “will this positivity actually produce better results?” ![]() This shift to a leadership style and process that promotes aspiration versus traditional “do as I say” bossism is hard for many people leaders because of how we have been shaped by our parents, teachers and organizational culture. You see it in highly successful organizations, and you see it from inspirational leaders and their psychologically safe teams. You see this with agile project management and with the objective and key results goal-setting framework (OKRs). Too often, this brings out an old-school, bossy persona from people leaders. In the short run, employees do what they are told, but over time motivation, innovation and a sense of agency decrease. These leaders end up with less-capable teams who are too dependent on them and trap them in the weeds. It also becomes harder for leadership to attract and hang on to the good talent in our highly fluid and competitive labor market where company culture is so transparent on social media.įortunately, management may be making progress beyond its punitive legacy as leaders discover better ways to achieve superior performance. Largely, this comes down to a focus on encouraging collective effort and building capability instead of demanding results and compliance to an authority figure. The universal challenge for managers, indeed for whole organizations, is how to maximize results with the resources they have. Most leaders still believe that the way to maximize productivity is to set demanding goals and enforce compliance.
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