I student taught physics with the man who, in the 80s and 90s, was arguably the best and most successful physics teacher in the state of Mississippi, Paul Cuicchi at Starkville High. He had sarcastic nicknames for almost every kid -- and they loved him for it. He had absurd, tangential rhymes that he used to remind people about equations. He had extremely high, often inflexible, and seemingly grouchy demands. But everyone knew it was his way, and that he was ultimately very effective as a result of it, and that none of it was really about meanness but it was just kind of the character he played.

When my classroom education professors would tell me about the evils of being mean or sarcastic to students, I thought about how I saw Paul Cuicchi be "mean" and "sarcastic" in a way that connected with the students and undermined all of the objections from the credentialed professors.

I'm just saying that sometimes you realize someone has a schtick because they have found that it's their most effective way of connecting their personality and vision with the people they're leading, that affection/respect looks different from person to person, and that leadership is not a cookie-cutter problem.