The Psychology Of Leadership
...But change is scary, and you sometimes need scary leaders to steer you through. Those with bold political intelligence can creatively push followers to overperform.
Since when has being a difficult boss been a disqualifier for a job?” asked Nightline’s Ted Koppel after several abrasive, intimidating leaders of major corporations—Disney’s Michael Eisner, Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein, and Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina—fell from their heights of power. Picking up on what seemed to be a new trend in the workplace, the business media quickly proclaimed that the reign of such leaders was over. From now on, the Wall Street Journal predicted, “tough guys will finish last.”
But wait a minute, you might think. If they’re just plain bad for their organizations, why have so many of these leaders made it to the top in the first place? Wouldn’t the ones who’ve wreaked nothing but havoc have plateaued or been weeded out long before they could inflict too much damage? Yet many leaders who rule through intimidation have been doing just fine for a very long time. Before we proclaim their extinction, then, it’s worth taking a close look at the pros as well as the cons of their tough-minded approach. Doing so might cast light on some subtle dimensions of effective leadership, especially in organizations or industries that were once rigid or unruly, stagnant or drifting—places where it took an abrasive leader to shake things up a little and provide redirection.
Consider Ed Zander, who’s been hailed as “Motorola’s modernizer.” When Zander took over as CEO of Motorola in January 2004, the company was in steep decline. After being in the high-velocity world of Silicon Valley, Zander found himself at the helm of a company that seemed to be running, in his words, “on autopilot.” In taking on the challenge of turning Motorola around, Zander described his guiding philosophy as, “Whack...
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