Niccolò Machiavelli, the notorious writer of The Prince, wrote within the 1500s that the perfect chief makes and breaks solemn agreements. He creates alliances with weak allies to defeat a strong enemy after which eliminates them one after the other. He blames his next-in-charge for his personal errors, and he executes opponents in public.
St. Francis of Assisi was the antithesis of a Machiavellian chief. Born in 1181, the long run saint renounced his father’s wealth, then spent the rest of his life wandering round northern Italy as a beggar and preacher. Francis gained a repute for excessive humility—however actually he was not weak. He handled popes, nobles and even an Egyptian sultan. He based a non secular order, the Franciscans, that survives in the present day.
In trendy instances, Machiavellian leaders abound within the company world. Maybe extra surprisingly, many different enterprise leaders resemble Francis: humble and self-effacing, however not at all weak. In our analysis, we argue that two varieties of motivation assist to elucidate these huge and enduring variations in management.
‘Two faces of energy’
Psychologists have lengthy been fascinated by individuals’s nonconscious motives—and find out how to measure them. One influential evaluation, developed within the Nineteen Thirties, is the Thematic Apperception Take a look at, or TAT. Individuals write quick tales about ambiguous footage, and researchers then analyze the tales to see which themes emerge: what the author cares or worries about, and the way they see the world.
In 1970, psychologist David McClelland coined the phrase “the 2 faces of energy” to explain two various kinds of energy that encourage individuals, based mostly on his TAT analyses: private energy and socialized energy. Private energy is the motivation to dominate others. McClelland famous that individuals with a need for private energy have a tendency to make use of imagery that evokes “the ‘regulation of the jungle’ during which the strongest survive by destroying their adversaries.” Socialized energy, then again, goals to profit others.
McClelland famous that non-public energy was related to habits like heavy consuming, playing, aggressive impulses and amassing “status provides,” like convertibles. Individuals involved with the extra socialized facet of energy, in the meantime, be a part of extra organizations and are extra apt to turn into officers in them, together with sports activities groups.
A couple of years later, McClelland and advisor David Burnham printed an article titled “Energy is the Nice Motivator,” elaborating on this fundamental hyperlink between energy motivation and chief effectiveness. By a sequence of biographical vignettes and an evaluation of a big firm, they confirmed that managers exhibiting a excessive diploma of socialized energy have been more practical than managers motivated by private energy.
Measuring motivation
It appeared to us that non-public energy, the “regulation of the jungle,” motivates the sorts of habits approvingly described by Machiavelli. Likewise, socialized energy appeared to underlie the forceful however altruistic habits of St. Francis and trendy so-called humble leaders.
However we confronted an issue: find out how to measure motivation. Highly effective individuals similar to world-class CEOs have little inclination to take TATs or reply questionnaires for admittedly humble students.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, psychologist David Winter confirmed that speeches, interviews and diplomatic texts reveal nonconscious motivation in the identical means because the Thematic Apperception Take a look at—demonstrating a option to research leaders’ views of energy. For instance, somebody pushed by a need for private energy typically tries to regulate or regulate individuals round them; makes an attempt to steer and persuade; and is worried with fame, standing and repute.
Nevertheless, Winters’ procedures for analyzing texts are guide and sophisticated; it’s tough to course of numerous paperwork. Additionally, he targeted on private energy; socialized energy was not included in his coding procedures.
Phrases and motion
With a purpose to overcome these limitations, we used computer-aided textual content evaluation to investigate the language of CEOs in interviews and convention calls.
In a sequence of 2019 research, which have been peer-reviewed and summarized within the Academy of Administration Proceedings, our staff recognized 40 Machiavellian and 40 humble CEOs. First, we took an in depth have a look at the varieties of phrases and phrases that distinguished the 2 teams, shedding mild on the form of energy that motivates every one.
Utilizing these patterns, we created two “dictionaries” of phrases and phrases that expressed private energy and socialized energy. Language about sturdy, forceful actions, management, managing impressions, punishment and concern of failure, to call just a few themes, constituted the private energy dictionary. “Defeat,” “overrun” and “strafe,” for instance, appeared among the many phrases on the private energy checklist. Themes similar to rewards, mentoring and optimistic relationships characterised the socialized energy dictionary.
Then, we used a pc program to scan a whole lot of interviews and quarterly convention calls. The pc program calculated private and socialized energy scores for every of the CEOs.
Our staff additionally developed indexes of Machiavellian and humble chief habits—similar to smearing opponents and backing out of agreements, or making important donations to charity, respectively—and measured all 80 CEOs.
We discovered very excessive correlations between energy motivation and CEO habits. CEOs with excessive private energy scores, based mostly on our evaluation of their interviews and convention calls, additionally tended to point out Machiavellian habits. CEO humble habits was positively associated to socialized energy.
Individuals and earnings
Do these summary statistical outcomes actually imply something? Evidently.
Quite a few CEOs from our checklist of humble executives have based or managed exceptionally profitable and people-oriented firms, together with Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, Danny Wegman of Wegmans, and James Goodnight of the SAS Institute. A number of of the “humble” CEOs have appeared a number of instances on Fortune’s annual Finest Firms to Work For checklist.
The Machiavellian CEO checklist included Kenneth Lay of Enron fame and John Rigas, one of many founders of Adelphia Communications Company, who was convicted of fraud. Mark Hurd, one-time CEO of Hewlett Packard, appeared on Advanced’s checklist of the worst chief govt officers in tech historical past. On the whole, criticisms of “earnings over individuals,” poor therapy of staff, scandals, lavish spending, lawsuits and accusations or convictions of fraud characterize lots of our Machiavellian CEOs.
McClelland and Burnham have been proper. Energy actually is the “nice motivator,” however it’s the kind of energy that makes the distinction.
William D. Spangler is an affiliate professor emeritus of administration at Binghamton College, State College of New York.
Aleksey Tikhomirov is a lecturer of public administration and coverage at Binghamton College, State College of New York.
This text is republished from The Dialog below a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
