I spent my whole life around leaders. Good ones, bad ones, loud ones, quiet ones. The kind that inspired people to give everything they had, and the kind that made you watch the clock waiting for 5:00. And if there’s one truth I’ve learned after decades in the retail, antique, and rental world — opening stores, running districts, making deals, selling everything under the sun, running a business, renting to people, and managing teams of every shape and size — it’s this:

Leaders who are feared don’t get remembered.

Oh, they get tolerated.
They get avoided.
People jump when they walk into a room.
Reports get polished, numbers get inflated, and everyone learns to smile at them while praying they don’t make eye contact.

But remembered?
No.
People forget fear the moment the threat is gone.

What they do remember are the leaders who lifted them. The ones who made them believe they were capable of more. The ones who corrected without crushing. The ones who held you accountable without stripping away your dignity. The ones who knew your name, your kid’s name, and sometimes even your dog’s name.

I didn’t realize it until years later, but my Facebook proved it for me. I have over 300 friends on there, and when I look at who they are, it tells a story all on its own. Subordinates. Associates. Assistant managers. Tenants. Customers. Contractors. Peers. People from every chapter of my working life — people who could have easily hit the “delete” button on me once they moved on, once they had nothing left to gain by staying connected to me.

But they didn’t.

And don’t get me wrong — I’ve lost a lot of Facebook friends over politics through the years. But not because I didn’t accept their views. It was because they didn’t accept mine.

And sometimes I scroll through the pages of people I worked alongside — leaders who were successful, tough, high-performing. They were respected in the moment, sure. But when I look at their friends list, I don’t see many, or sometimes any, of their old teams. That tells a story too.

The leaders who ruled by fear did get results, I’ll give them that. But results fade. Titles fade. Awards collect dust. What lasts — what actually sticks — is how you made people feel when they stood next to you.

When you treat people with respect, they remember.
When you challenge them without humiliating them, they remember.
When you say, “I believe in you,” even when they don’t believe in themselves yet — they remember that too.

Being a leader never meant being the toughest guy in the room. It meant being the one steady enough to stand there while everyone else is spinning. It meant knowing when to push and when to pull back. It meant guiding people, not scaring them into performing.

And you know what the funny thing is?
Back then, I sometimes thought I should have been tougher. Should have pushed back more. Should have been more confrontational.

But now that I’m older, I see it clearly:
I didn’t lead through fear, and that’s exactly why those people are still in my life.

Fear gets obedience, not loyalty.
Fear gets compliance, not respect.
Fear builds walls, not relationships.

The leaders who are feared get feared — that’s it.
But the leaders who are respected?
They get remembered.
They get talked about years later.
They get invited into people’s lives long after the job is over.

And the real measure of a leader isn’t the title they carried — it’s the number of hearts they left better than they found.

Because the truth is simple:

Leaders who are feared don’t get remembered.
Leaders who care do.