Fear is a reliable killer of corporate culture. It slows down the operation of companies by leading people to hesitancy, increasing stress and preventing them from reaching their full potential. The fear is often not visible at first glance, but that does not mean it is not present. How to find out whether your company is managed by fear? The tlnt.com websiteidentified the following eight symptoms of a corporate culture managed by fear.
Ignoring bad behavior
Managers should clearly show employees what behavior is and is not acceptable when performing their tasks. If bad behavior is not confronted or it is addressed only behind closed doors without clear results, the fear will to come soon.
Promoting employees and increasing salaries only based on results
Good results should be a norm. Higher earnings and especially promotions should, however, be also based on behavior. Even one manager behaving inappropriately may negatively affect the entire company.
Emotional outbursts of managers
Using emotional speeches, managers can motivate employees to work hard. Such speeches should, however, be focused positively. Explosions of critical emotions only reinforce employees' fear.
Keeping unpleasant information away from senior managers
Especially in larger organizations, new ideas and proposals are often presented to lower managers who decide whether they can be presented to senior leaders. That is all right until the time when this procedure is used to make higher managers aware only of what they want to hear.
One-way communication
If managers do not communicate openly with their teams and are not interested in their opinions, you cannot expect a culture based on trust.
Hiding important e-mails
It is very easy to forward e-mails to everyone to see how good you are. However, e-mails that are really important and others including top managers should really know about them, are often not forwarded. The reason is fear again.
Uncertainties regarding work performance
Each employee should clearly understand the strategies, priorities and objectives he or she works on and which should stands on clear values and behaviors. If they do not know what and why they are doing, they naturally feel fear. Managers play a crucial role here again.
Missing definition of corporate values and expected behavior
It is not enough to publish your corporate values on the intranet or on posters. They must be combined with specific behaviors for everybody to understand the values in the same way.
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