Summary

Pfeffer argues that the leadership industry, despite its prominence, fails to produce effective leaders due to 1) diverging interests of groups and their leaders, 2) lack of measurable behaviors, 3) no barriers to entry for advice, and 4) conceptual imprecision. Effective leadership depends more on self-regulation, projecting positivity, and politicking rather than authenticity or inspirational coaching. Solutions involve 1) measuring workplace outcomes, 2) acknowledging differing interests, and 3) employing scientific processes for leadership advice.

“Sometimes survival demands that you do what prevails in the ecosystem in which you are competing”

“There are occasions where you have to do bad things to achieve good results”

“In many ways, people are complicit with their own deception”

“The ability to misrepresent reality is a crucial, maybe the most crucial, leadership skill”

Key Takeaways

• 4 reasons for poor leadership:
  1. Diverging interests: group vs leader well-being
  2. Little measure of the base rate of desirable leader behaviors
  3. No barriers to entry for leadership advice
  4. Conceptual imprecision: ambiguous or unimplementable recommendations
• Inspirational leadership coaching often doesn't translate to effective actions
• Mere exposure effect: self-promotion, narcissism → higher pay, longer tenure
• Authenticity << self-regulation, projecting positivity. Acting and adapting
• Lying, perception of future success is crucial. Often limited consequences
• 2 big factors of leader success: 1) interaction with outsiders, 2) politicking
• Accountability and social learning are necessary to address leadership failures
• Possible solutions:
  1. Measure and hold leaders accountable for workplace outcomes
  2. Acknowledge differing interests between leaders and their companies
  3. Use scientific processes and credentialing for leadership advice

Notes

Introduction

• 2 ways to understand failed leaders: ↓
  • Bad apple theory: orgs do a poor job of selecting right people for leadership roles
    • Instill bad ethics and values
  • Systemic processes: social psychology of different traits that make successful leaders vs what we hear about
• Common recommendations: inspire trust, be authentic, tell the truth, serve others, be modest, exhibit EQ, etc.
• 4 arguments:
  • Leadership industry is large, prominent
  • Workplace is filled with people who don’t trust their leaders
  • Leaders lose their role at an increasingly fast pace
  • Leadership industry fails to produce great leaders
• Why leadership programs fail: just telling uplifting stories
• Team vs personal success (balance?)
• Job satisfaction: 61% → 47% in 25y
• Employee engagement: 30%
• 35% would take a pay cut to see boss fired
• Trend towards shorter CEO tenures
• Increasingly becomes politics > results
• Widely held belief of orgs’ poor leadership development
• Reasons: ↓
• 1. Diverging interests: group vs leader well-being
• 2. Little measure of the base rate of desirable leader behaviors: need to understand what actually is happening and why. Why are “best practices” not adopted?
• 3. No barriers to entry for leadership advice
• 4. Conceptual imprecision: ambiguous or unimplementable recommendations
  • Eg. charismatic leadership: engage emotions, deepen connection
• Possible solutions: ↓
• 1. measure and hold people accountable for workplace outcomes
  • Eg. teacher ratings and learnings are not related
• 2. acknowledge the different interests of leaders and their companies
• 3. use more scientific processes and worry about credentials

1: Why inspiration fixes nothing

• Inspirational vs functional / effective
• Beliefs vs actions of the best leaders
• Motivated cognition:
• Self-deception has an evolutionary benefit
• ↑ leads to cynicism
• Overly optimistic leaders are insufficiently attentive + paranoid
• Unrealistic expectations for ourselves: don’t mythologize, rather humanize
• Moral licensing effect: moral behavior justifies future immoral behavior
  • Eg. reflecting on good traits vs bad → 5x less likely to donate to charity

2: Modesty

• Implicit egotism: prefer things that are associated with ourselves
  • Eg. boss’ project vs my project
• Endowment effect: simply because it’s ours
• People don’t like self-promoters
• Self-promoting → not executing
• Narcissism: attention-seeking, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy
• First impression of competence, confidence
• Mere exposure effect
• 4 traits associated with leadership effectiveness: energy, dominance, self-confidence, charisma
• Assertiveness, individualistic thinking
• Narcissism → higher pay, longer tenure

3: Authenticity: misunderstood + overrated

• Authenticity: in touch with, exhibiting true feelings
• ↑ actually opposite of what best leaders do
• Instead, relentless energy, positivity
• Authentic leadership industry is built on “should be”s - no base rate / hard data
• Authenticity vs self-regulation
• As you move up, you lose the freedom to act on your personal beliefs and feelings, must direct towards what you need to do to be successful
• Confidence > competence
• Remake yourself
• Acting is essential to effective leadership
• Role theory

4: Telling the truth

• “Sometimes survival demands that you do what prevails in the ecosystem in which you are competing”
• High-power leaders are less sensitive to societal norms → lie more successfully
• Study: 44% of people lie on their resume
• “Simply put, lying is useful for getting ahead”
• Meta analysis: ability to detect lies only 54% of the time
• Study: childhood tattletales are more like to receive ostracism than praise
• Lies can become truth when told often
• Need to create perception of future success
• “The ability to misrepresent reality is a crucial, maybe the most crucial, leadership skill”
• “In many ways, people are complicit with their own deception”
• Moral decoupling: skills not tied to morals

5: Trust

• Studies: 14% believe their leaders are ethical + honest, 10% trust leaders to make right decisions, 7% believe transparent
• ↑ thus, trust is clearly not necessary
• Limited consequences for violating trust
• Just world effect: belief that world is fundamentally fair
• Mere exposure effect:
• Assess based on past behaviors
• Eg. enterprise SaaS PE plays (drive ↓ costs)
• Eg. wage + benefits arbitrage
• Breaches of trust by orgs more accepted than by individuals

6: Why leaders eat first

• Servant leadership: wellbeing of people > organization + leader
• Gap in CEO pay is largest in finance, smallest in tech
• Leaders share little in common with employees → low perceived similarity
• Agency theory: how to align incentives so that agents also serve interests of those who have delegated authority
• Decrease psychological distance thru management by walking down

7: Take care of yourself

• Always be networking, scheming
• Study: less reciprocity in organizational vs personal setting
• Explanation: money for labor
• Humans don’t want total freedom → need a strong leader
• Fix the system, not the individuals behaving in the system
• Distributed, balanced power
• Norm of self interest > reciprocity
• Democracy > …
• Stop believing in leadership myths

8: Fixing leadership failures

• Actual leaders vs prescriptions
• Leaders are known for being assholes
• “You can’t handle the truth”
• Insiders don’t criticize other insiders
• Two big factors of leader success:
  • Interaction with outsiders
  • Socializing / politicking
• “There are occasions where you have to do bad things to achieve good results”
• Eg. soccer and play-acting (falling)
• Not black and white, good vs evil
• Forgive but remember
• Social learning → need to hold accountable