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Leadership Styles: Love or Fear

"Here is a question that arises," Machiavelli once famously penned: "whether it is to be loved than feared, or the reverse." He continues,
The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved....Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.
One of the lessons learned from positive leaders is that they evoke loyalty from those they lead, in part, by virtue of their vision and clear concern for their followers. This kind of leader need be neither feared nor loved by his or her followers because it "serves their advantage" to follow by giving them clear purpose. It is reasonable to think that Machiavelli is right when he says that men will forsake or betray a leader if it serves their best interest, if they believe their lives are at stake in a risky war, for instance; but I think of the same problem taking place in the case of a leader who uses a more Machiavellian-esque leadership style. Among the many assassination attempts on the life of Hitler-- a leader whose government relied on both repression and consent (see Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany) was one conducted by a German Jew named Helmut Hirsch in late 1936, who was executed the next year. If others had heard of this execution, it certainly did not stop them from making further attempts on Hitler's life (think Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1943 and Operation Valkyrie in 1944). It is one example of why it is at least equally dangerous to be more feared than loved as it is to be more loved than feared.

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