by Kevin Kruse
What the researchers found was that, after controlling for a variety of other variables, the participants ate about 10 percent less if their dining partner ate less, and they ate about 10 percent more if their partner ate more. And these researchers did something else (remember the cameras!). They actually watched and recorded every single bite of food of all the study pairs—3,888 bites in all. In what psychologists call behavioral mimicry, instead of eating at their own random pace, the women tended to mirror each other’s eating pattern, each taking a bite of food within five seconds of the other person taking a bite of food (Hermans, Litchtwarck-Aschoff, et al. 2012).
Another study, this one taking place in an actual working restaurant, used sales receipts from 1,532 customers to uncover peer influence patterns in making decisions about what to eat (Ellison 2014). The menu contained fifty-one different items, in eight separate categories (e.g., salads, entrées, specials). Using a variety of statistical tools, the researchers found that people eating in groups tended to choose different items, but within the same groups. For example, if we were eating together and you ordered a chicken-salad sandwich, I would be less likely to also order a chicken-salad sandwich, but more likely to order the tuna sandwich, as opposed to say, the meatloaf special. As the researchers wrote, “it would appear diners want to be different from their peers but not too different.”
In another example of how our actions influence those around us—whether we want them to or not—how and what we eat impacts the food consumption of those we’re eating with.
LEADING YOUR KIDS
Ask your teenage child, “How would you rate our communication, on a scale from one to ten, with one being ‘very poor’ and ten being ‘excellent’?” Researchers in Madison, Wisconsin, asked teens this question and the average score was 7.5 (mothers tend to get scored higher, and fathers lower; sorry, dads) (Karofsky, Zeng, and Kosorok 2001). That was just one question that was asked in a ten-year longitudinal study of over two hundred adolescents. Each year the participants were asked again a variety of questions about their sexual activity, drugs and alcohol, school, family, and specifically about the quality of their communication with parents.
They found that on average teens lost their virginity at 15.1 years of age. And as every year went by—as the teens became one year older—the odds that they lost their virginity went up significantly (odds ratio of 1.7). What could bring these results back down? In other words, what could delay teens from becoming sexually active? Communication with their parents. In fact, for every 10 percent improvement in parental communication—in other words, your teen increases your score from 7.5 to 8.5—the odds of sexual activity decreased by almost half (odds ratio = 0.649). So did you get your score from your own teenager? Now ask them, what would it take to increase that number by one?
When it comes to “safe sex,” a study of 5,461 high school freshmen showed a strong correlation between parents talking to their kids about sexual risks and the teens’ use of a condom the first time they had sex (odds ratio = 2.05) (Atienzo et al. 2009). Other similar studies have shown even stronger correlations. This metric is especially critical because teens who use condoms when they lose their virginity are twenty times more likely to continue using them (Miller et al. 1998).
In my own layman’s terms, what all these studies loosely suggest is:
If you talk to your teenagers about safe sex, they are twice as likely use a condom.
If you don’t talk to teens about safe sex, they are half as likely to use a condom.
You have a choice as a parent. It’s awkward, I know. You can talk to your kids about abstinence and safe sex, or you can assume the school has it covered, or your kids are just “good kids.” Know that with your decision you are influencing your kids in one direction, or another.
LEADING AT THE DINNER TABLE
Eating dinner together as a family is a great way for parents to connect with their children, monitor their kids’ activities and moods, and to explicitly or implicitly offer life lessons or other guidance. And in 1998, researchers from the University of Minnesota set out to determine if this family practice actually reduces the odds of substance abuse in teenagers. So they surveyed 806 middle-school students, asking them questions related to family connectedness and how often they used cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana (Sen 2010). Of note was the question, “During the past seven days, how many times did all or most of your family living in your house eat a meal together?” The researchers chose five or more meals per week to represent “regular family meals.”
Previous studies indeed showed negative correlations between family dinners and substance abuse, but these studies were only single snapshots in time. Correlation is not causation, after all. Perhaps it wasn’t that family dinners led to less drug use, but maybe kids who were on drugs were skipping out on the family meals so they wouldn’t get caught.
So the researchers in Minnesota actually resurveyed the same kids five years later, who were then about seventeen years old. This longitudinal study also controlled for factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic status. What they found was fascinating. Indeed, teenage girls were half as likely to report using cigarettes, alcohol, or marijuana in high school if their family regularly ate dinner together. (Interestingly, there was no correlation with the teenage boys. The researchers theorized that females are more likely than males to pick up on emotional support offered during the meals.) In 2010, another study looked more closely at the gender difference and found that the effect of meals was the same, but the undesired behavior males exhibited was different—most notably fighting and property destruction (Eisenberg et al. 2008).
This data is compelling even if it only applies to our daughters. Once again, leadership as a parent is not a choice. Your family practice is influential one way or the other:
If you regularly eat dinner as a family, your daughters are half as likely to abuse substances in high school.
If you don’t regularly eat dinner as a family, your daughters are twice as likely to abuse substances in high school.
A similar study looked at family dinners and a wider range of high-risk behaviors among teens. In one of the largest studies ever conducted with teens, researchers collected anonymous surveys from 99,462 students, in 213 different cities, in twenty-five states across the US (Fulkerson et al., 2006). Once again researchers controlled for things like family support and communication and even intrinsic motivation, to better isolate the effect of family dinners. In this particular study, there was correlation between family dinners and substance abuse in both females and males. Additionally, there was strong correlation between frequency of family dinners and teens being sexually active. In families that had dinner together five to seven times a week, 11.8 percent of teen children reported being sexually active. But that number increases to 20 percent and 30.2 percent in families that eat together two to four times, and zero to one times per week, respectively.
Once again, we see that parents are leading in one direction or another.
If you regularly eat dinner as a family, your teenage children are one-third as likely to be sexually active.
If you don’t regularly eat dinner as a family, your teenage children are three times more likely to be sexually active.
One thing I was immediately curious about was the effect of watching TV while having a family dinner. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every episode of M.A.S.H. and the original Star Trek series because as a kid my family would routinely eat in the living room using those metal foldout TV trays. I was only able to find one study that addressed this, and to my surprise TV viewing made no difference on the positive effect of families eating dinner together (Eisenberg, Neumark-Sztainer, and Feldman 2009).
OTHER CRAZY WAYS YOU LEAD OTHERS AROUND YOU
Ten years ago I was running my fifty-person com
pany, AXIOM, from a corner office. And I got divorced. At the time I didn’t personally know a single person who had been divorced. I was the first. And at work sitting within fifty feet of my office were about ten employees, mostly people I managed directly. I assumed all were happily married. Then Sarah got divorced. Soon after, Cynthia did, too. Then I got an email out of the blue from Stephanie, “Kevin, I know this is random but can you recommend a good divorce attorney?” Mindy got divorced next. Karen, who upon hearing of my own breakup told me she would never in a million years leave her husband, apparently changed her mind a little sooner than that. It took longer, but eventually Mark got divorced, too. (Or course I’ve changed all their names.) Within a couple years of me getting a divorce, over half the people who worked in that corner of the office—nearest to me—got divorced. A statistical coincidence or something else?
In 2013, researchers Rose McDermott, James Fowler, and Nicholas Christakis published the results of a study and made headlines around the world (McDermott, Fowler, and Christakis 2013). The trio analyzed three decades’ worth of marriage and divorce data, along with social connections, and discovered what they called “divorce clusters.” They concluded that “divorce can spread between friends” and even extends to degrees of separation in a social network. Statistically speaking, they determined that when a friend ends their marriage, the odds of your own marital split increases by 75 percent. And, when a coworker gets divorced, the odds of you getting a divorce goes up by 55 percent.
While others have shed doubt about the statistical methods used in this study, nobody doubts that there is some amount of peer effect going on. Is it possible that my divorce news suddenly made those around me think about it in their own life? When they saw that I was actually happier than ever before, and that my kids were doing great, did that provide some kind of psychological encouragement? I’ll never know for sure, and I have no regrets, but I do have to assume that my decision to divorce led (i.e., influenced) those around me a little further down that path, too.
Here’s another example, less dramatic than divorce. Do you fly much? Maybe going to a conference or a business meeting? Perhaps you buy a drink or a meal or pay for headphones to watch a movie. Well, now the stranger sitting next to you is 30 percent more likely to make a similar purchase. If they’re actually a friend or family member, the odds of them making a similar purchase doubles. That’s the conclusion of a Stanford University researcher after looking at the in-flight purchase receipts of 250,000 passengers (Gardete 2015).
And even suicide is contagious. Public health experts have long studied a phenomenon known as “suicide clusters”—an unusually large number of suicides that take place in a short period of time, in a close geographic area. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Americans between ages fifteen to twenty-four, and the US Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 percent to 5 percent of these suicides are the result of social contagion (Mohney 2016). Like the flu, suicidal ideation and acts can ripple out and spread to others nearby.
Feel like adding an extra ten minutes to your daily run? You’ve just influenced your runner friends to add three minutes to their normal run. A pair of researchers at MIT analyzed over one million runners over a five-year period of time (the runners were all logging their runs on an online database and social network) (Aral and Nicolaides 2017). They found that when someone ran an extra kilometer their friends increased their own runs by .3 kilometers. This ratio was the same for different metrics. If you run an extra ten minutes, I’ll add three minutes to my own run. For every extra ten calories you burn, I’ll end up burning three calories.
Are you a physician who decided to try out a new medical device, drug, or procedure? You’ve just influenced the other doctors in your area to do likewise. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine conducted a five-year longitudinal study of surgeons who were treating women with breast cancer (Pollack et al. 2017). We can assume that doctors begin using a new device or test after considering medical evidence, insurance reimbursement, and patient requests. And using Medicare data, researchers found that when “early adopter” doctors began using somewhat controversial MRI and PET scans, peer physicians were twice as likely to begin using the test, too.
Friends, if leadership is influence, then leadership isn’t a choice. You are always influencing those around you, whether you want to be or not. You are leading at work, and also at home. You lead your family and friends, and also strangers. The question is, are you influencing them—leading them—in a positive direction or a negative direction. Be mindful of your power as a leader. Lead with intent.
HOW MIGHT YOU APPLY THIS?
Just a few minutes ago, while still writing this chapter, I received an email from a listener of The LEADx Leadership Show who took my message to heart.
I have been listening to your podcast for a couple of months now and love it. Listening to you reminded me of my roots in leadership and inspired me to work on inspiring one other person each day.
I started, after being inspired by your podcast (and books) even though I am not a manager or team/group leader, to look sideways to the people around me and to try and find out how I can inspire them. Then the ceiling raised about 10 floors. I feel inspired by others and what they are going through and have tried to inspire them in return.
Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous for inspiring me to in turn inspire others. You are right that everyone can be a leader by participating and engaging others.
Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, Matthew
You are a role model, whether you want to be or not. Your emotions and actions cross over to those around you. Want your teenagers to be safe drivers? Then you should never let them see you text and drive. Want them to maintain a healthy weight? Keep your own BMI in check. Wish your spouse was more grateful for all that you do? Make sure you are expressing gratitude freely, too. Frustrated that your employees at work show up late to meetings? Make sure you are always on time (and close the door and start the presentation the very second the meeting is supposed to begin). Want people to care about the company? Ask about their kids and how they spent their weekend so they know you care about them. Want your players to show respect to the referees? Don’t yell or curse at the refs with every bad call.
And when you’re feeling bored, a little down, unmotivated, or even sad…that’s the exact time you should look around at others, and lead.
CONCLUSION
I started this book with the assertion that leadership is a superpower. And we desperately need more superheroes.
A lack of workplace leadership contributes to 70 percent of employees not being engaged at work.
A lack of family leadership contributes to half the marriages in the US ending in divorce.
A lack of self-leadership contributes to obesity and substance abuse.
What we need is a real-world modern approach to management and leadership. Neither the command-and-control model of the industrial age nor the New Agey no-manager models of more recent times are effective.
Today’s leaders need to focus on both people and profits; they should be measured on both retention and results. How do we reconcile this duality? We must throw out conventional management 101 lessons and embrace fresh, forward-looking tenets:
PRINCIPLE 1 Close Your Open Door Policy, fosters the autonomy and empowerment of team members and enables you to increase the amount of time you spend on deep work.
PRINCIPLE 2 Shut Off Your Smartphone, improves safety and focus among team members and leadership alike.
PRINCIPLE 3 Have No Rules, shifts your focus from enforcement to hiring, values, and guardrails—all of which in turn yield greater accountability and engagement.
PRINCIPLE 4 Be Likable Not Liked, ensures there is just enough separation for you to make tough decisions and to give candid feedback, wit
hout you having to be the jerk at work.
PRINCIPLE 5 Lead with Love, is a reminder that you don’t need to like someone in order to care about them deeply—and caring drives engagement and loyalty.
PRINCIPLE 6 Crowd Your Calendar, reflects the reality that every minute wasted is a minute that can’t be spent coaching team members or working on your most important tasks.
PRINCIPLE 7 Play Favorites, enables individuals to leverage their strengths and also gives you the flexibility to retain top performers.
PRINCIPLE 8 Reveal Everything (Even Salaries), enables team members to move fast, adapt to change, and make wise decisions and reduces their need to knock on your door with “got a minute” questions.
PRINCIPLE 9 Show Weakness, contributes to a culture of psychological safety and trust, thus reducing the magnitude of mistakes and fostering innovation.
PRINCIPLE 10 Leadership Is Not a Choice, reminds you that there are no time-outs in leadership; stay in your office or walk around, say good morning or keep your head down, maintain your values or ignore them—you are always leading.
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FINALLY, GREAT LEADERS CARE. You care, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this book. And when you put this book down you do have a choice to make. Will you live your life on autopilot, or will you lead with intent? Remember, leadership = influence. You are influencing—leading—those around you whether you want to be or not. The question is: Are you leading in a positive direction or you are leading in a negative direction? The choice is yours.