Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

How Some Achieve a Leadership Position Without Becoming a Leader

(November 2010)

At all levels of the organization there are positions that require the incumbent to influence people to perform for the good of others and the organization   That influence can be exercised successfully by a combination of leadership and power, what Joseph Nye calls “smart power” (See Topic: Introduction to Leadership “Influence and Leadership”.)  But, some people focus on securing such positions to obtain the inherent power without developing the leadership component.   That approach is so often used that it has been documented and, sadly, recommended.     

Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford Business School ….has been teaching a popular course on “paths to power” for years.  Now he has condensed many of his findings into a book that is part academic analysis and part how to guide. “Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t”

Mr. Pfeffer starts by rubbishing the notion that the world is just—that the best way to win power is to be good at your job.  The relationship between rewards and competence is loose at best…There are plenty of things that matter more than competence, such as the ability to project drive and self-confidence.

The best way to increase your chances of reaching the top is to choose the right department to join.…But the trick is to find the department that is on the rise…..

Once you have chosen the right department three things matter more than anything else.  The first is the ability to “manage upwards”.  This means turning yourself into a supplicant….It also means mastering the art of flattery:  Jennifer Chatman, of the University of California, Berkley, conducted experiments in which she tried to find a point at which flattery became ineffective.  It turned out that there wasn’t one.  The second is the ability to network.  One of the quickest ways to the top is to turn yourself into a “node” by starting an organization or forging a link between separate parts of the company.  The third, more admirable, quality is loyalty….

And what happens if all this loyalty and networking pays off?  How to keep power once you win it?  The old saw about power corrupting has been laboriously confirmed by academic studies…. The key to keeping power is to understand its corrupting influences.  Powerful people need to cultivate a combination of paranoia and humility—paranoia about how much other people want them out and humility about their own replaceability.

Unfortunately, that paranoia and humility brings with it fear of failure which results in all the attributes of a “Bad Boss” which cause people to suffer and the organization to stagnate.

Source

Schumpeter “The Will to Power:  Why some people have power over companies and others don’t.” in The Economist September 11, 2010.