It's a team not a family.
The idea that demanding performance from your employees is "losing your humanity" is insane.
Obviously you can be a total prick and demand performance and maybe get some people onboard but nobody thrives in those environments and unless you want to deal with turnover and mediocrity you foster good working environments with your teammates
Demanding high performance also doesn't necessarily mean forcing everyone to work 996 or yelling at people, but it can mean enforcing standards that everyone might not like or agree with.
But performance isn’t a single thing. If you prioritize features over pen testing, you’re optimizing one kind of performance and neglecting security, which is an another kind.
For a company whose whole selling point is security, it’s a bad trade-off.
But when one side can do it and the other side can’t, it’s just a demonstration of power edging into abuse.
Yeah, calling people losers is a famously effective way to get performance out of your team.
Ah yes, as the old saying goes "team starts with 'my ' and there are no losers on my team"
Performance can be an expectation but don't try to shove shit down their throat unless you're willing to get it shoved down yours.
Fortunately the employer controls the relationship and can just fire employees with this kind of toxic attitude.
It takes a special kind of pomposity to come out and defend the cultivation of a power structure in which people are dehumanized and berated for practising their discipline with diligence.