Some leaders, afraid of losing their grip on power, will use whatever means they have to stay in their position. Their favourite strategy is to divide and conquer: they systematically prevent skilled subordinates — the greatest threats to their power — from forming alliances with other subordinates that would help push them to the top. Divide-and-conquer strategies undermine the positive, collaborative relationships that are key success factors for effective groups…but these leaders couldn't care less.
In most hierarchies, power is malleable, which means that it can change. A leader at the top can lose his or her power, and be replaced by subordinates who have, usually through their superior skills and accomplishments, managed to rise through the hierarchy. One of the characteristics of highly skilled subordinates is their ability to form alliances, enhancing their prestige by working closely with other subordinates.
Leaders respond to the threat to their power in different ways. Prestige-motivated leaders — leaders who are motivated to become leaders by their desire for respect and admiration realize that the only way for them to maintain the respect and admiration of the group is for the group to succeed. Thus, they will never undermine the effectiveness of the group even if working for the group might give a subordinate new power.
In contrast, dominance-motivated leaders — leaders who are motivated to become leaders by the desire to control and dominate others — intend to maintain their stranglehold on power, whether or not it is against the will of their subordinates. This means that thoroughly defeating every potential threat to their power is a top priority. Since alliances are often key stepping-stones in a subordinate’s rise to power, the most common strategy for dominance-motivated leaders to maintain their hold on power is to prevent the formation of alliances in any way they can — a strategy known by the familiar phrase of “divide and conquer.”
In a series of experiments at the Kellogg School of Management, researchers identified participants who reflected the characteristics of dominance-motivated leaders or prestige-motivated leaders. They put all participants in leadership situations that involved a small group of subordinates, including one subordinate with substantial skills. In three of the experiments, the leader’s hold on the position of power was ambiguous: not necessarily tenuous, but not unbreakable either. In the fourth experiment, the leader’s position was rock solid: there was no possibility of the leader losing power.
With these variables in play, the experiments confirmed the expectations. While prestige-motivated participants refused to play the divide-and-conquer game even when their leadership positions were threatened, the dominance-motivated participants, in different experiments:
These steps were specifically directed toward the highly skilled subordinates, that is, the ones who represented the greatest threat.
Companies may assume that their leaders are working for the success of their units, whether such units are teams, divisions or even subsidiaries. In truth, they may be undermining their own groups in order to stay in power.
To avoid such destructive behaviours from their leaders, companies should:
Why Bad Bosses Sabotage Their Teams. Emily Stone. Kellogg Insight. (5th January 2015).
Ideas for Leaders is a free-to-access site. If you enjoy our content and find it valuable, please consider subscribing to our Developing Leaders Quarterly publication, this presents academic, business and consultant perspectives on leadership issues in a beautifully produced, small volume delivered to your desk four times a year.
For the less than the price of a coffee a week you can read over 650 summaries of research that cost universities over $1 billion to produce.
Use our Ideas to:
Speak to us on how else you can leverage this content to benefit your organization. info@ideasforleaders.com
