How Power-Hungry Bosses Keep Their Power

Tomasz Walenta It’s established behavior in the animal kingdom: Chimpanzees at the top of the hierarchy are often hostile toward lower-ranking members who might be powerful enough to challenge their authority, and they divide subordinates to prevent them from forming alliances. New research shows that some human bosses do the same. Charleen Case and Jon Maner, researchers at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, surveyed university students to identify individuals who like to wield authority over others. They then showed that when those individuals felt insecure about their positions, they tried to prevent highly skilled “subordinates” from bonding and forming cooperative relationships. When asked to choose seating arrangements, for example, these leaders separated the most capable of the subordinates from all the other people. In doing so, they blocked the kinds of peer-to-peer interactions that foster group success—even though they had been instructed that cooperation among subordinates would enhance the group’s performance. These findings pertain specifically to managers who are “dominance motivated” and in “unstable” leadership positions—for example, situations in which subordinates have enough power to depose them. But they’re more broadly relevant. As the researchers point out, most leaders are at least partly dominance motivated, even if they are driven more by other factors, such as a desire to be appreciated. And many if not most leadership positions feel unstable to the people occupying them. Companies can take several actions to limit managers’ tendencies to revert to alpha-chimp mode. First, they can increase accountability. In Case and Maner’s study, the leaders’ actions were invisible to all but the researchers and the leaders themselves; letting superiors, peers, and subordinates see what’s going on can help keep managers in check, the researchers say. Second, companies can institutionalize communication among subordinates, by establishing standing meetings, for example. Third, because even dominance-motivated leaders are more likely to make good decisions when their teams are vying against other groups, companies might instigate friendly competitions among teams. Fourth, they can try to ensure that managers feel secure about their positions. There’s nothing more dangerous to group cohesion than a manager who feels threatened. About the Research: “Divide and Conquer: When and Why Leaders Undermine the Cohesive Fabric of Their Group,” by Charleen R. Case and Jon K. Maner

How Power-Hungry Bosses Keep Their Power

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