Mark Cuban once considered himself an approachable leader. That perception was shattered by a candid conversation with his longtime business partner, Todd Wagner, who cofounded Broadcast.com alongside him.

"People are afraid of you," Cuban recalled Wagner telling him. "We don't get as much done because people are afraid of you."

Appearing on the Trailblazers Podcast last month, the billionaire entrepreneur and Shark Tank star—who turned 68 on Friday—described how his leadership philosophy has shifted over the years.

"I thought I was nice, I got along with everybody," Cuban said. Early on, he modeled his style after the "dominant" CEO archetypes he had grown up watching. "It turns out my perception was different. Adapting there and learning to be nice and kind to people made life a lot easier for me."

The consequences of intimidation, Cuban explained, extend far beyond hurt feelings. When employees feel threatened, collaboration slows and talented people leave—an issue he called his "biggest professional challenge." Research on workplace behavior, including Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson's influential work on psychological safety, has shown that teams perform better when members feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes, and challenge ideas without fear of retaliation.

"If people don't want to work with you or for you, that's a problem," Cuban said. "You lose good talent."

Cuban's Leadership Ventures

In 1995, Cuban and Wagner founded Broadcast.com, one of the earliest platforms to stream live audio and video over the internet. Yahoo acquired it in 1999 in a $5.7 billion stock deal, cementing the pair as billionaires of the dot-com era.

They later launched 2929 Entertainment in 2003, an entertainment development and production company responsible for more than 20 films across theatrical and direct-to-DVD releases.

In 2000, Cuban became the principal owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks after purchasing the team for $285 million from H. Ross Perot Jr. Under his ownership, the franchise won its first NBA championship in 2011, a milestone widely credited to Cuban's willingness to invest in talent and front-office infrastructure. Roughly two decades later, he sold the majority of his stake for $3.5 billion, citing the financial burden of maintaining the franchise—though he has since expressed regret about the buyer, as reported by ESPN.

Reflecting on the broader lesson, Cuban offered: "You can learn to improve at pretty much anything. If you suck at it, you take a step back and you find something else."

A Broader Pattern in Workplace Dynamics

While Cuban was able to recalibrate his approach, many workers continue to deal with managers whose behavior affects their mental health, finances, and family lives.

Research from the Harris Poll published earlier this year found that 34% of workers consider their boss unapproachable. Among those with a toxic boss, 66% reported having worked on a weekend, holiday, or scheduled day off because of their manager. Overall, 47% of workers cited increased stress, burnout, or declining mental health tied to a toxic boss, with Gen Z workers slightly below that figure at 44%. Additionally, 53% of employees with a toxic boss reported attending therapy to address the situation, compared to 39% of all workers.

Cuban admitted that his own early-career habits contributed to a difficult environment. He would regularly work until 2 a.m. and could not understand why others were unwilling to do the same.

"I had no work-Life balance and I didn't expect anybody else to have it either," he said.

More recently, Cuban has turned that same critical lens toward compensation, calling low wages "embarrassing" for profitable companies and pushing employers to raise hourly rates.

"When I heard people who worked for a company I invested in (but didn't run) needed government assistance, I made sure they all got raises," Cuban wrote in a June post on X.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.