How Great Leaders Create Urgency On Their Team
December 17, 2025
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Fear motivates. There is no denying its effectiveness in getting people to modify their behavior. Since the beginning of time, leaders have leveraged fear at different levels, from kings and generals to coaches and CEOs. It gets people to move. But it rarely helps them grow.
Think back to the first time someone in power used fear to get you to act. Maybe it was your boss, your coach, or even a parent. You probably followed through, but not because you wanted to. Because you had to.
That’s the problem. Fear works, but only in the short term. It delivers compliance, not commitment. It’s a shortcut that erodes trust and slowly poisons the culture of any team or organization.
Fear delivers compliance, not commitment.
The problem is that most leaders don’t have short-term jobs. They are leading for the long term. They don’t lead for a finite game; they lead in an infinite game.
Most leaders don’t wake up and decide, “I’m going to lead through fear today.” Instead, fear creeps in subtly: a harsh tone in a meeting, a threat disguised as accountability, or pressure wrapped in urgency. The higher the stakes, the easier it is to slip into fear.
Fear-based leadership is the lazy road. It relies on position and authority instead of skill and influence.
From a psychology perspective, fear activates the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system. When that happens, the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration, shuts down. So while fear might push people to act, it also pushes out the very things that make a team effective.
When fear enters a team, safety leaves. Without psychological safety, people stop speaking up, stop taking risks, and stop growing.
Fear-based leadership is the lazy road. It relies on position and authority instead of skill and influence.
After years of coaching and studying leaders, I’ve found most managers fit into one of three categories:
Those who use fear constantly to get what they want done.
Those who inspire through belief and confidence.
Those who inspire until it’s hard, then default to fear.
That third category is where most well-intentioned leaders live. They use inspiration when things are good and fear when pressure rises. But that blend doesn’t work. You can’t create a culture of trust when fear is always waiting in the wings.
There’s a difference between healthy fear and manipulative fear. A young child should have a healthy fear of their parents’ authority, just as a person should have a healthy fear of God. But in the workplace, fear has no place as a primary motivator. Adults don’t need to fear their boss. They need to trust and respect them.
The best leaders replace fear with belief and inspiration. Belief that people want to succeed, that mistakes are part of progress, and that accountability doesn’t require intimidation. They create environments where safety and stretch coexist.
It doesn’t mean leaders should avoid hard conversations or consequences. It means they hold people accountable through clarity and care, not control and coercion.
I’ve never been more convinced that fear-based leadership is a trap. It promises quick results but steals long-term growth. It builds followers, not leaders.
Ralph Nader once said, “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” Fear might create obedience, but it never creates ownership.
Coaching question:
Where might fear be influencing how you lead, even when you don’t intend it to?
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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft and The Sales Infrastructure. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.
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