A financial times article on leadership  (subscription required) argues that “Managers need the S-factor to set workers’ hearts a-flutter.” The s-factor you ask? S is for scary.

Based on research done by a fellow named Roderick Kramer, a psychologist at Stanford, the article makes the case for leaders to use fear and intimidation as a key tenet of their interactions. The gist seems to be that by keeping people on their toes, they will perform better.

My favorite bit is where Mr. Kramer makes some suggestions for being  scary:

• Intimidate people by invading their personal space.
• Get angry. Even if you aren’t really angry that some idiot is wasting your time, then you pretend to be angry, which is easy enough.
• Keep people guessing by acting sullen and silent. This means you can change your mind completely (which leaders do all the time) without losing face.
• Know the facts, and even if you don’t, pretend you do. Make them up when necessary and use with complete conviction. People will go along with you.

It’s an interesting script. And some of it may be valid. It seems to me that great leaders know how to adjust their posture depending on who they are managing. Some employees need to be scared into doing good work. Others may have a violently negative reaction to managers who pretend to know the facts (as in #4 above) when they clearly do not.

I also don’t think great leaders follow fad-ish leadership mantras as in this and the previous post. They know who they are and how to leverage what they have to rally people around them and towards a cause.