The Leaders We Need, And What Makes Us Follow

by Michael MacCoby

  STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

  Personality is just one part of the equation for an effective president. We should also evaluate the intellectual capabilities required to lead the country. Of course, no one gets to be president without a certain level of analytic intelligence or IQ, but in our complex world this is not enough. A president also has to have foxlike street smarts and should have enough emotional intelligence in terms of self-control to block impulses that get leaders like Clinton into trouble. But more important for the well-being of the country is the president’s judgment and, beyond that, wisdom—the ability to foresee the future implications of present decisions. Although judgment has to do with qualities of both head and heart, which I’ll discuss in chapter 10, presidential wisdom depends in large measure on a kind of braininess I’ve termed Strategic Intelligence, a set of five interrelated qualities—foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating, and partnering. These are qualities found in the most effective corporate CEOs.18 Here’s what we should look for in a presidential candidate.

  Does the candidate describe the forces shaping the future? Does he or she seek the views of people at the forefront of business, the natural sciences, and social sciences? Is what’s learned integrated into a view or scenario of what is likely to happen? Politicians often predict the future by just extrapolating from the past. But we live in an age of discontinuity. Extrapolations can be way off the mark. Just look at past predictions by Ford and GM executives. In the mid-1990s Ford was discussing how to keep growing 15 percent a year, and now its trying to stop red ink from flowing.

  Having foresight doesn’t mean predicting the future. It does mean trying to shape the future to take advantage of dynamic forces like changes in technology, global trade and the nature of work with implications for education, and jobs, demographic changes and their effect on healthcare and pensions.

  It’s not enough for politicians with foresight to just describe forces. They should be skilled communicators, teachers who explain future threats and opportunities and how they plan to deal with them, simplifying complexity to mobilize support. They should show people why changes will benefit them, telling illustrative stories rather than giving lists of policy initiatives. They should emphasize principles rather than detailing legislation that, in any case, has to be crafted together with Congress.

  To explain the interplay of forces shaping our future, a president also needs the other interrelated elements of Strategic Intelligence: systems thinking, visioning an ideal future, motivating the public to play its role. Bill Clinton told an interviewer that “intellect is a good thing [for a president] unless it paralyzes your ability to make decisions because you see too much complexity. Presidents need to have what I would call a synthesizer intelligence,” which is similar to what I mean by systems thinking.19 The president can’t do this alone. He or she needs to partner with strong people who complement his/her abilities, as FDR did by putting together his “brain trust” and Nixon did by recruiting Henry Kissinger for foreign policy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan for domestic policy. Ideally, a president would have the Personality Intelligence demonstrated by Lincoln in choosing and managing his cabinet of strong and contentious rivals.20

  As I write this in 2007, candidates are declaring their intention to run for president. What should determine our choice of a candidate? These are the questions I’ll ask as I listen to the candidates.

  Do they respond to the challenges and stress of the campaign with grace and a sense of humor?

  Do they understand the threats and opportunities we face, and do they have a vision of America that will mobilize people? Do they spark hope and not fear? Do they bring us into their internal dialogue in a way that inspires confidence?

  Do they emphasize issues that bring people together, as has Arnold Schwarzenegger (a productive narcissist), who rebounded from blaming his opponents for California’s problems to championing the environment, education, and universal health insurance?

  Do they show courage to stand up for the common good against special interests?

  Will they rebuild America’s moral authority in the world and our relations with our European allies? Do they understand the importance of cultural differences? Do they recognize the influence of social character (although they might not call it that)? And are they able to see issues from different points of view?

  Will they bring into their administration the best of advisers? Interviewers should ask them to tell us the names of people they look to for counsel and ideas and the reasons why they would choose these people. Do they demonstrate Personality Intelligence in their evaluation of friends and foes?

  But even a brilliant visionary with the best of brain trusts can’t provide all the leadership needed to shape policies and energize the American people to rise to the challenges we face. And if the president is an interactive marketing type, it’s even more essential that public pressure for new policies becomes a powerful political force. In particular, we need policy leaders, either elected or in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and journalists who publicize new ideas from researchers and intellectual entrepreneurs and mobilize the public to put pressure on the president and Congress. It’s up to all of us to get the president we need.

  CHAPTER 10

  Becoming a Leader We Need

  THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK is that in these tumultuous times, we urgently need leaders who will mobilize people for the common good. The turmoil of transformation in technology, global markets, shifts in offerings from products to solutions, demands for better education and health care, and threats to our security all call for leadership that creates collaboration. But in this new context, the age of knowledge work, would-be leaders can’t get people to follow them in ways that worked in the past. That’s because historic changes in culture are forming a social character in the advanced globalized economy that is more interactive and less bureaucratic. Where once father transferences linked followers to leaders, now sibling transferences undermine hierarchical authority. Interactives may reluctantly follow a leader because they feel they have to, but they’ll only want to follow a leader who makes them respected collaborators.

  Although Interactives fit the needs of flatter, networked businesses, these organizations now need a combination of leadership types—transformational visionaries, operational obsessives, trust-creating bridge-builders—requiring the different styles and psychological profiles I’ve described in this book.

  Yet the traditional questions about leadership remain. Why do people become leaders? Are leaders born or made? What are the qualities of mind and heart that will enable our needed leaders to gain collaborators? And how can these qualities be developed?

  WHY PEOPLE BECOME LEADERS

  Clearly, genetic qualities like curiosity, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability make a difference in why people become leaders. Upbringing can strengthen these qualities, and school, sports, and other activities can provide opportunities to practice leadership. Natural leaders seem from an early age to get people to follow them, but in different ways. Some future operational types are like Mark Twain’s character, Tom Sawyer, who cleverly got Ben, Bill, and Johnny to pay him for the chance to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence by pretending the work was fun. Another operational type has command presence, like George Washington, whose height, strength, and courage attracted followers early on. As a farmer, general, and president, Washington was a great operational leader. While we don’t know what he would have been like grown up, Tom Sawyer also had the makings of an effective operational leader, a supermotivator.

  Strategic visionaries may not show their abilities right away, as I noted about FDR in chapter 9. Some only show their leadership qualities by responding courageously to a difficult challenge, like Martin Luther King Jr., who stood up against the injustice of racial discrimination in America and created a visionary movement. Or Mohandas Gandhi, who started out as a barrister and responded to British discrimination in South Africa and
India by leading a revolution. Business leaders with visions of new products that change the way we work and live, and the strategic skills to turn the vision into a successful business, may emerge when young, like Bill Gates, or when older, like Henry Ford.

  Networking leaders are typically less commanding than the other two types. But they are natural facilitators and mediators—we recognize them as people who are good at helping to resolve conflicts.

  Of course, among our cousins, the chimpanzees, natural leaders are the rule. What differentiates us from other primates is that we humans have reasons for becoming leaders. To this day, some individuals have tried to satisfy their thirst for power and glory by becoming leaders, and people have followed them, either seduced by promises or out of fear. Almost everyone who has worked in a bureaucratic organization has at one time or another suffered a dictatorial boss. And we’ll continue to suffer them.

  But power and glory are not the driving motives of the leaders we need. We need leaders who want to improve the common good or the well-being of people—like Moses who became a leader by reacting to the injustice of Egyptian slave masters; like Lincoln, who became a leader by challenging the injustice of slavery in America; like Gandhi, King, and Nelson Mandela, who became leaders by opposing the injustices of racial segregation and oppression; like Father William Wasson and Mother Teresa, who became leaders by responding with love to helpless outcasts.

  The exemplary leaders in health care and education I’ve described in this book became leaders by responding effectively to social needs. They wanted the power to lead in order to get results, to further the common good, not to lord it over others. Some, like Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, attracted collaborators who found meaning for themselves in what Feinberg and Levin were doing. Other leaders, like Harry Jacobson of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, have had to persuade skeptical physicians to become willing collaborators.

  To be sure, even the best of business leaders want wealth and recognition. And many good leaders find meaning in making organizations work well and bringing out the best in people. But what most inspires them and their collaborators is the vision of furthering the common good, empowering people (Bill Gates of Microsoft; Steve Jobs of Apple; Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google), building a modern nation (Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries) or a cleaner environment (Jeff Immelt of GE).

  Lao Tzu’s statement, written twenty-five hundred years ago, is, for me, the best description of an ideal leader, because it describes a leader who strengthens people so they become independent and doesn’t need to be made into an idol. The description can be improved only by making it neutral in terms of the leader’s sex, which I’ve done by changing “leader” and “he/him” into “leaders” and “they/them”:

  The best of all leaders are the ones who help people so that eventually

  they don’t need them.

  Then come the ones they love and admire.

  Then come the ones they fear.

  The worst let people push them around (and therefore aren’t leaders

  at all).

  People won’t trust leaders who don’t trust them.

  The best leaders say little but people listen to what they say,

  And when they’re finished with their work, the people say we did it

  ourselves.1

  Lao Tzu and Confucius gave their advice about ideal leadership in a different context. They were trying to make despots benevolent, and these rulers, with unquestioned authority, didn’t need to promote themselves. They didn’t need courses in self-presentation. But even in this context, Lao Tzu saw the leadership wisdom of knowing and trusting followers, and of understanding their needs and helping them to meet those needs, and of empowering them.

  UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE—A HEART THAT LISTENS

  We often hear that global competitiveness calls for more and better training in science and technology, but arguably, it depends as much or more on leaders who understand people, including their social character. Management researchers estimate that virtual teamwork in global technology companies is 90 percent about people and 10 percent about technology.2

  As understanding people has become more important, it has also become more difficult than in the past. In traditional villages, everyone shares the same social character, and variations from the norm stand out like sore thumbs.3 Peasants observe each other closely, catching expressions of jealousy, envy, greed, or anger. Their gossip mill grinds relentlessly, spreading news about neighbors. Yet peasants have a sour view of human nature and are suspicious of each other. A Mexican villager who worked with a neighbor for over twenty-five years said he didn’t trust his compadre. Why not? In a dream, this man knifed him. Was the dream acutely sensing a potential attack? Or was it more likely expressing distrust of anyone not part of his immediate family? (Another interpretation is that the dreamer was thinking about cheating his neighbor and feared revenge.)

  For historic reasons, peasants have reason to distrust people who don’t belong to their village. They aren’t good at understanding outsiders, and they’ve been taken in by slick snake-oil salesmen, as in the cautionary fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. But suspiciousness doesn’t hamper farm work and is an effective protection against getting fleeced. The gossip network informs everyone about each other so that fear of public disapproval and shaming keeps villagers on the straight and narrow.

  In the industrial age, managers of bureaucracies avoided having to understand individuals by using formulas to control behavior. Individual jobs were formatted, results were measured, and incentives—the carrots and sticks—were used to motivate people who were typed according to their results and how well they served the boss. These incentives reinforced strong father transferences that made subordinates want to follow the boss.

  But at IBM, AT&T, and the other large companies I studied in the 1970s, few managers could describe the personalities of their bosses or peers. Furthermore, top managers often put subordinates in their place with humiliating teasing, put-downs, and ridicule—behavior that would be considered abusive in the diverse workforce of the knowledge era, maybe even grounds for a lawsuit. But people swallowed these insults with forced smiles. It was all part of solidifying the hierarchy.

  In the knowledge age, there are still many bureaucratic organizations, but as firms become more like collaborative communities, there is a cacophony of transferential feelings. To gain a following, leaders must be “doctors” and role models rather than parents. Furthermore, the interactive social character doesn’t take kindly to abusive bosses, and that accounts for the popularity of emotional intelligence (EI). This concept, popularized by Daniel Goleman in the 1990s, includes qualities such as empathy and self-control. 4 Managers with EI communicate more effectively and have smoother relationships with subordinates. EI is especially important for operational and bridge-building network leaders. It matters less for strategic leaders; some of the most successful strategic visionaries—Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison, to name the most well-known—have been reported by subordinates as blowing up in meetings and ridiculing people for ideas they call stupid. Even those productive narcissists who are gifted with empathy aren’t particularly self-aware or caring with their underlings. Empathy can be used tactically to seduce people into thinking a leader understands them and sympathizes with their plight, but feeling your pain doesn’t mean a leader cares about you or even understands you.5

  Although EI is a significant element in understanding people, it’s only a part of Personality Intelligence. To understand people means to understand how they think and what motivates them, their personality. It’s intellectual as well as emotional. Some people are gifted with this kind of understanding. Great novelists and playwrights create believable personalities, some of whom become prototypes for how we view people, for we don’t recognize anything we can’t name or categorize. For example, Suomis in the north of Scandinavia see and name different colors of reindeer skin that others just see as a k
ind of yellow-brown, and the trained botanist sees variations in plants and flowers that don’t register for the rest of us. So it is with personality. By describing characters, their personality and passions, Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest writer in terms of Personality Intelligence, teaches us to see some of the personalities we meet in our own lives, the Hamlets and Horatios, Othellos and Iagos, Romeos and Juliets, Macbeths and Lady Macbeths. In this sense, Freud’s personality types can be considered a systematic approach to describing a universal cast of characters.

  The most astute princes, presidents, and generals, from antiquity to the present, have tried to understand personality, to predict the behavior of key lieutenants or adversaries. For them, knowing the people they must fight and those they depend on was a matter of life and death. Some used astrology, which offers an elaborate set of personality descriptions based on date and time of birth. Now, organizational leaders use personality questionnaires, which, while less rich in description than astrology, boast a bit more test validity.6 But people can game these paper-and-pencil tests. They can consciously or unconsciously give answers they think put them in the best light. Having a good theory of personality types and understanding social character, cultural values, and identities are essential for understanding people, but Personality Intelligence also requires the ability to directly experience another person’s emotional attitudes.