"toxic leaders"

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The U.S. Army has conducted a survey in which it sought to identify its "toxic leaders."

The Army defined toxic leaders as commanders who put their own needs first, micro-managed subordinates, behaved in a mean-spirited manner or displayed poor decision making.

It makes you wonder if corporations and smaller businesses, whose idea of leadership is so often based on the mediocre principle of fear, wouldn't benefit from a similar self-assessment.

The trouble with fear is that at the same time it may instill obedience, it also diminishes and under-utilizes the best efforts of those who are afraid: Someone who is afraid is constantly using energy to defend against what is feared and thus taking energy and commitment away from the objective at hand.

And it's not just others who can exercise the fear option: People do this to themselves, I imagine.
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