There is a dark side of human creativity and productivity that comes from insecurity, fragility, uncertainty and fear.
The main job of a great manager is to find very talented people and make them feel insecure enough to get them on the edge of excellence, exceptional creativity.
Once humans feel too secure, too certain, too un-afraid, they become mediocre, less driven, complaisant.
If your boss is not making you feel insecure, he is not good enough for you nor for your organization.
‘Action is the face of fear’, said someone.
As an artist, my best work comes from fragility, emotional or physical pain, social or economical uncertainty, fear of shame, but also the desire to overcome all these, and be celebrated as one of the few who get over, and achieve.
A boss who wants to create a feeling good environment, who is excessively nice, comfort people below excellence, are bad managers.
William James, the father of Western modern psychology, said all humans have three motivation engines : feeling of insecurity, feeling of inadequacy, and feeling of inferiority.
Those negative motivators are more efficient than positive motivators.
If you are not ‘bad’ you won’t ever be a great leader. There are more Street names and books written about bad leader than about nice leader.
…. In the meantime…
This post would seldom be understood by those who are not running an organization, are not in a creative endeavor of the highest level, but drunken into new age lullabies!
Those working for a boss would hate it, but would type their message on an iPhone (created by a master Jerk boss) on a Windows or Android or Linux (never thinking about who is Linus Torvald and his leadership style, Bill Gates and his cutting management, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, or Andy Grove of Intel who wrote the book ‘only the paranoid survives’ .).
Those who hate discipline and institutions would even hate it more.
Institutions endures, humans pass. Leadership requires a lot of things beyond inspirational quotes and individuals preferences.
A lot of mediocrity is hiding under ‘follow your heart’, ‘be who you are’, and some out of context inspirational quotes from feeling good new age authors.