High-performance is a product of many factors. Building a high-performing team is even more so. It’s not enough to hire talented and collaborative individuals. As an organization, you need to cultivate an environment that allows them to be at their best while working together to achieve a common objective.
Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions around what leads to high performance. Elaine Pulakos, an organizational psychologist and the CEO of workforce assessment provider PDRI by Pearson, has spent her career researching what it takes to build high performing organizations. She’s also helped many companies implement systems and processes that provide the best chance of success.
Here are her thoughts on some of the most common misconceptions around high performance, as well as research-backed findings on what actually creates a high-performing organization.
Myth one: Fear-based leadership can lead to high performance
Fear-based leadership tends to take place in organization with a hierarchical, top-down structure. Managers with limited people skills might also have the tendency to resort to this strategy, because it can potentially yield short-term results.
In recent years, this type of leadership has become less and less prevalent. But many managers still subscribe to this way of thinking. A 2023 global study that surveyed 2,500 corporate leaders across the U.S., U.K., and Australia found that a third of managers “subconsciously create an environment of fear.” The study found that while applying some pressure can create motivation, leading by fear ultimately leads to decreased productivity in the long term.
“I’ve never seen fear-based leadership work as well as supportive leadership,” Pulakos says. “There’s a lot of stress out there,” she explains, and the idea that adding more stress can lead to higher performance is “unhelpful.” She goes on to say, “When you use management by fear tactics, you actually end up scaring people, undermining their confidence, and pitting people against each other.”
She stresses that being a supportive leader doesn’t mean being “soft.” Supportive leaders aren’t afraid to set hard goals, but they empower people to try and achieve them, she says. “That’s the part that’s not soft. You can stretch people, you can put challenging work demands on them. But at the same time, you have to create a context that enables them to achieve those goals by working together, supporting each other and building trust. All of these things are important to achieve high performance.”
