Despite the modern rhetoric of empowerment and agility, fear still quietly motivates many workplaces.  From the industrial era’s stern foremen to today’s micromanagers armed with performance dashboards, leaders have long used anxiety and threats to squeeze out productivity.  In the short term, fear can jolt employees into action, triggering the body’s fight-or-flight response and sharpening their focus just enough to meet a looming deadline.  Yet, research across neuroscience, psychology, and business shows that chronic fear damages the brain, erodes culture, and ultimately undermines performance.