Leadership is an enigma. In times of
downturn—when fear engulfs the corporate corridors, confidence erodes,
and the road ahead looks rough for miles together—it becomes more
inscrutable. Indeed, Robert I Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering
at Stanford University, categorically states that it is not easy to be a good leader even
in good times. And the reason is: the
"dynamic that naturally arises in relationships
of unequal power". He says, "people who
gain authority over others tend to become more self-centered and less mindful of what
others need, do, and say". On the other hand, followers would scrutinize the leader's
"self-absorbed words and deeds" closely.
Together, these two tendencies constitute the
`toxic tandem' of leadership that merits the attention of every leader to
successfully overcome it.
To prove the point that leaders tend to be generally oblivious to their
followers' perspectives, Robert Sutton cites the
results of the "cookie experiment" of
the psychologists Dacher Keltner, Deborah H Gruenfeld, and Cameron Anderson,
carried out in 2003. Under this experiment, the psychologists instructed teams of
three students each to produce a short policy
paper. Two members of each team were randomly assigned with the task of writing the
paper, while the other member was asked to
evaluate the policy paper and determine how much the other two must be paid. In effect, this
arrangement made the evaluator a leader and the policy-drafters his subordinates.
As the experiment went on for about 30 minutes, the experimenter kept a plate with five
cookies before the team—a welcome break.
Indeed, this is the crux of the experiment. As
expected, all the three restrained from taking the
last cookie from the plate—an expression of
basic manners. But when it came to the fourth cookie—the extra one which could be
taken with no negotiation or restrain, it was the leaders who took it—an expression of
the little `taste of power'. "The `bosses' not
only tended to take the fourth cookie, but also displayed the substantial effect of the
`power' by their `disinhibited' style of eating —chewing with their mouths open,
and scattering crumbs widely."
Robert Sutton avers that the experiment, thus, establishes the fact
that when people—independent of personality— wield power, their ability
to lord it over others makes them to: one, become more focused on their own
needs and wants; two, become less focused on other's needs, wants, and actions; and
three, act as if written and unwritten rules that others are expected to follow don't
apply to them. According to Robert Sutton, leaders, besides becoming
"self-centered", suffer from another myth: "They
believe that they are aware of every important development in the organization
(even when they are remarkably ignorant of key facts)". This affliction is labeled "the
fallacy of centrality"—the assumption that as
a leader holding a central position, one automatically knows everything that
is necessary to exercise effective leadership. Interestingly, we come across these
fallacies of a leader being portrayed by poet
Valmiki vividly in his epic Ramayana, through
the character of the great Ravana—a classic example of how greatness and
goodness seldom coexist in one man. |
