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Fear of Job Loss Is Incompatible with Good Management

According to Peter Drucker, outstanding performance is inconsistent with fear of failure in anything. He stressed this point in both his writings and his classes. Although his lectures were on management's need to take risks in decision making, they soon evolved into discussions on job performance and job security. In fact, Drucker's belief about this incompatibility between outstanding performance and fear of job loss would generate a firestorm of comments from his students. They went something like this:

  • “You cannot ignore how your boss will react to your actions, even if ethically and technically they are correct.”
  • “Ignoring fear of job loss may be okay in theory, but ...

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