In early January, in the wake of mass layoffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy asked corporate workers to submit three to five accomplishments to “demonstrate the impact of your work,” as part of a revamped performance review system that helps determine future pay. it reported as a departure from previous review processes that asked softball questions about employees’ strengths and interests and included prompts like, “When you’re at your best, how would you contribute?”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is putting more emphasis on rewarding top performers as well as part of a tighter review system meant to place employees in bonus bands and provide “more frequent feedback and recognition in a more efficient way,” a spokesman said luck.

And finally, Citi CEO Jane Fraser warned employees that they “Not graded by effort” but “judged by our results” and encouraged them to adopt a more commercial mindset while the bank cut about 1,000 positions.

Sure, corporate America doesn’t run on goodwill and how workers try. Employers always expect their workers to deliver results. But as AI floods the workplace with productivity metrics, the powerfully worded memos signal a reset that completely ditches the tangible, more pushy management style during the COVID era to focus on asking workers to get things done.

The no-nonsense approach reflects the pressure CEOs are under to grow their bottom line at a time when a series of X-factors—geopolitics, AI, emerging markets, and an unpredictable White House—can derail even the best-laid plans. In fact, CEOs transmit the pressure and uncertainty they feel to employees further up the corporate ladder.

The new method of performance evaluation is not all sticks—there are carrots, too. Companies use a powerful motivator to drive tangible results: money. “With all the trends as a backdrop, the people at Meta and Amazon and Citi are kind of reading the world,” said Michael Useem, professor emeritus of management at Wharton. “They are concerned about making sure that senior- and middle-level people act, and return to compensation or evaluation, and then the resulting bonus, as an instrument to do this more effectively.”

In the past, CEOs pressed two other levers to motivate their employees, says Useem: purpose and so-called enriched work, where employees can see the product of their work. But those squishier methods may be better suited for an era when the power dynamic is less tilted in favor of bosses.

US unemployment is still low, but it rose last year to end at 4.4% in December, and workers reported. “combination of work” and more worried than ever about finding a new job when they get the axe. Workers’ confidence that they will find a new job fell to 44.9% in September, according to a poll by the Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorkthe lowest level since the survey began in 2013.

The elephant in the room, of course, is AI. Concerns that artificial intelligence and automation could soon replace large parts of the workforce—estimates vary from 6% by Goldman Sachs to an eye-popping 50% of white collar entry level jobs floated by Anthropic co-CEO Dario Amodei—eating the employees. And this concern gives owners another point of leverage. One reason CEOs cite AI in announcing job cuts is to encourage the remaining employees to adopt the technology, luck reported earlier this month.

Employees on the receiving end of this intensive focus on results have good reason to be concerned. Amazon, Meta, and Citi all laid off thousands of employees last year, with more cuts expected. Amazon and Meta, for their part, are slashing their white collar payrolls as they fund massive AI infrastructure projects. At Citi, Fraser is in the midst of a long turnaround effort that will cut 20,000 jobs from the bank by the end of the year.

By issuing their memos and refocusing performance reviews on results, CEOs can stir up anxiety among employees. “Motivation based on incentives is effective,” said Useem—but so is fear. “It’s one of the most powerful human emotions. If you’re afraid of losing a bonus or losing your job, you get your attention,” said Dan Cable, professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School. And it can concentrate workers’ efforts on one goal, Cable says: “‘If you want that number, I can reliably get you that number.'”

But creating a climate of fear can backfire, Cable said. Here’s what fear doesn’t do: It doesn’t foster creativity or innovation. “When we’re scared,” Cable said, citing research, “we don’t take the customers’ perspective, we don’t think about new ways of doing old things. We don’t share information with partners.”

It’s easy to see why CEOs favor the results-only approach, at least in the short term: “It’s very clean,” Cable says.

But in a chaotic world, with all the unpredictable X-factors, leaders better develop creativity, hard work, and perseverance. That means caring not just about outcomes, but how employees manage uncertainty to get there, and what they try—and fail—along the way.