On Love, Respect, and Fear in Leadership

Interrogating the meanings of each, and what is needed for effective leadership.

I listened to a podcast in which the host broke good leadership down into three primary attributes, organized in a triangle: Love, Respect, and Fear. The host believed that a strong leader keeps themselves right in the middle, balancing all three. This makes sense: Placing yourself in each extreme position would achieve little in making someone follow your orders when a situation goes downhill.

If you were only respected, people may be loyal in the best of times, but when it comes down to their needs and yours, they’ll desert you because there were never any perceived consequences for a failure to perform.

If you were only feared, people will only perform when you’re around, because consequences only exist when you are there to enforce them. Performance drops in good and bad times when the feared leader is out of town.

For the third one, love, it’s hard to say. The podcast host didn’t really delve into what love is in relation to leadership. But I know that when it’s there, it’s there. When you hear of beloved leaders, you hear of all their good qualities, and quite little about what they’re missing.

But what behaviors change when someone only loves a leader, but has no respect or fear of them? I believe duty comes into play. Duty, in my own head, is the loyalty to a larger concept that requires them to serve someone loved, even if they don’t seem to deserve the performance.

The most modern example I can think of is former American president Jimmy Carter, who was loved as a simple leader, but not respected at all for his lack of command over the 1970s recession and gas crisis. People like him in concept, but will breath a sigh of relief when a true leader takes control again. The American people followed Carter because of their duty to American democracy, not because of how much they respected or feared him.

A completely fictional example comes from the TV show Game of Thrones, where Joffrey Baratheon is a total monster of a king, but the people still had a duty to the order of their kingdom, which let a lot of his behavior slide. Sure, fear exists in this situation, but I’d argue that the fear is not of the child king, but a fear that there will be no one in the kingdom to protect someone from Joffrey’s wrath. It was a fear of the structure of power itself rather than fear of the individual leader. They follow him in their duty toward the kingdom.

In a way, I could say that love—as it relates to leadership—is just misplaced respect—they respect the system in which this leader exists, but don’t have to respect the leader as an individual.

Honestly, I have to question why love should exist in this leadership paradigm. I can’t think of a time that I loved any leader I’ve had. I’ve certainly had respect and fear. I performed accordingly when they were on either extreme.

The only reason I can think that someone would include love is due to a hope of personal validation in their work life. They hope that they can not just be respected/feared by their subordinates, but liked for who they are as a personality.

What’s the purpose of being “loved” in a work setting? Besides some kind of attempt at a fraternity/sorority system of the pre-2000’s, where middle managers would say their employees are like “family” until they get fired or quit for a more practical job?

Is the actual word to be used in this triangle Adoration or Devotion? That someone absolutely looks up to the leader? But can you look up to a leader you don’t respect?

I interrogate these words because I don’t find enough strength in differentiating love and respect when it comes to leadership, especially when you have to introduce the concept of duty to really explain what’s happening. The triangle unravels itself with Love.

Here are some ways to you can encourage Respect: Show that you can and will do exactly what your subordinates are being charged with; they understand that while you can do it—and probably better—you are busy with higher level things that they personally can’t do at the moment. You aren’t just making subordinates do shitty things that you wash your hands of.

Also, be accountable to yourself and your subordinates; they will understand that if the “supreme leader” make mistakes and openly admits them, it is a dignified thing to do.

Respect and Dignity are intrinsically intertwined. You are given respect when you provide dignity to the work of the people below you. When you’ve done the task, can still do it, and will still do the task at times, you are giving dignity to that task, whether it’s cleaning toilets or entering data into a spreadsheet. When you don’t perform your duties and openly admit it, you are giving dignity to self-accountability.

It’s too easy to encourage a culture of cover-ups because the only dignity found is when someone is acting perfectly, thus encouraging the employee to hide all their imperfections.

Perhaps Fear is taking away dignity as a consequence for underperformance. This is why people don’t want to be recognized for their incompetence, and will work so hard to hide it. They don’t want the indignation of punishment.

Fear is only useful when the loyalty derived from Respect starts to cause blindspots in performance: A subordinate performs well for the most dignified tasks, but starts to forget their duties to less-recognized work. Fear keeps them well-rounded and on top of visible and invisible tasks that are key to a team’s success.

But Love continues to be an anomaly in this whole equation of leadership. I can still only point to Duty as the most useful factor of Love. But then I’d replace Duty with Love.

I thought Daniel Quinn had a good dissection of Respect and Fear in his book My Ishmael:

This might be described as a strategy of erratic retaliation: 'Give as good as you get, but don't be too predictable.' "In practice, give as good as you get means that if the Emms aren't bothering you, don't bother them, but if the Emms do bother you, then be sure to return the favor. Don't be too predictable means that even if the Emms aren't bothering you, it will be no bad thing if you make a hostile move against them from time to time. They will of course retaliate, giving as good as they get, but this is just a price to be paid for letting them know that you're there and haven't gotten soft. Then, once the score is even between you, you can get together for a big reconciliation party to celebrate your undying friendship and do some matchmaking (because, of course, it doesn't do to breed endlessly within a single tribe).

Tying it back to leadership, I think that not being “too predictable” is a useful exercise of power. Power is not intrinsic, and the muscle to enact power can become weak without use. At times, mandates of competition and better performance can help flex the muscle of power after some time not using it. Without the inspiration of Respect and the Fear of indignity, people can start to sit on their hands, as there are no forces pushing them forward.