To repair a fear-driven organization, the top brass has to change -- good luck there Dear Bob …In case you haven’t already read it, Liz Ryan did a great job of describing what it’s like to work in a hell hole. Unfortunately, many of her signs match a number of places where I used to work. I had always wondered why I was so unhappy in those places. Instinct told me things were wrong. In some cases, the cause was obvious, but in others, it was more subtle, yet just as demoralizing and depressing.[ Want to cash in on your IT experiences? InfoWorld is looking for stories of an amazing or amusing IT adventure, lesson learned, or war tale from the trenches. Send your story to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we’ll keep you anonymous and send you a $50 American Express gift cheque. ] I don’t know the root causes. I do know that the ego of the owners and senior managers often get in the way of rational thought. I see it far, far too many times. Bring this up subtly or overtly and you get a “you don’t understand my vision, my mission, my strategy” or whatever — nothing more than fancy buzzwords hiding behind fear and inadequacy.What are your thoughts on the subject?– No longer afraid Dear Fearless …The response to “you don’t understand my strategy,” is, of course, “It appears not, but I’d sure like to. Can we schedule some time for you to explain it to me?”Fear-driven organizations are like most other organizations: Their character flows from the top. With a fear-driven organization, the person at the top is fearful of something, and instead of dealing with it internally, he/she tries to get rid of it through sharing. The problem is, when someone shares an emotion the result is more like a Copy command than a Move command. The recipient gets some, but the sender doesn’t get rid of any — so the fear spreads.I don’t really fault Ms. Ryan for not dealing with root causes and solutions. As the root cause is leadership character and the solution is to either replace the organization’s top executives or else to change their character — well, you see the problem.Add to this the modern trend of weak boards of directors (even if the board is in a position to know enough about the corporate culture to know there’s a problem) and the odds that this syndrome will ever go beyond the “Gee, that is a shame!” stage of analysis is minimal. – BobThis story, “The difference between spotting and fixing a fear-driven company,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’ Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com. Technology Industry