Mean leaders look smart to people with competitive worldview: study

Bank towers are shown from Bay Street in Toronto's financial district, on Wednesday, June 16, 2010. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrien Veczan)

People who see the social world as a competitive jungle are more likely to appreciate antagonistic leaders, according to a new study on worldviews and perceptions of workplace leadership.

“When people see a leader behaving aggressively, some people think the leader is out of line, while others applaud the tough stance,” co-author and Columbia Business School doctoral student Christine Nguyen told CTVNews.ca. “This raised a deeper question for us: Why do people disagree so strongly about whether antagonistic leaders are effective?”

Nguyen says the results largely depend on one’s “idiosyncratic understanding of how the world works.”

“We suspected the answer might be not only about the leaders, but also about the people evaluating them, and how those people see the world,” she continued. “That’s what led us to focus on worldview as a lens that might be driving these different evaluations.”

The study, titled “Savvy or savage? How worldviews shape appraisals of antagonistic leaders,” was published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

People who see the world as a cutthroat and competitive place where might makes right were found to have more positive views about the competence and leadership of antagonistic individuals, according to the study. Based on seven surveys involving 2,065 participants, the study also found that people who see the world as co-operative and caring were more likely to view antagonistic leaders as misguided and ineffective.

“People who see the world as a competitive jungle may forgive, or even credit, leaders for being aggressive and heavy-handed,” co-author, social psychologist and Columbia Business School professor Daniel Ames explained in a news release from the American Psychological Association. “Those who see the world as a collaborative place may see such leaders as obnoxious, ineffective or naive.”

Antagonistic behaviours were described as being mean, tough, forceful and intimidating, while opposite behaviours were described as being kind, agreeable, friendly and caring.

The study could help explain why some workplace and organizational leaders succeed, despite creating tense environments.

“When we asked employees about their current managers, we found that employees higher in competitive jungle beliefs currently had more antagonistic managers compared with those lower in competitive jungle beliefs,” Nguyen said in the news release. “This suggested to us that, over time, through processes like employees selectively joining and leaving, antagonistic leaders may find themselves surrounded by a subset of employees with stronger competitive jungle beliefs, who are more tolerant and approving of their behaviour.”

Participants who saw the world as a competitive place were also more likely to assume that prominent CEOs, like Apple’s Tim Cook and General Motors’ Mary Barra, used confrontational tactics to rise to the top and succeed.

“Our findings may help explain how and why antagonistic leaders might be endured, excused or even celebrated by those who work with or under them, allowing them to attain and remain in positions of power,” Ames added.

Future research could explore these dynamics in other cultural or social contexts, such as politics.

“In politics, it may help explain the appeal of strongman figures to those who see the world as inherently combative,” Nguyen told CTVNews.ca. “We also did see a negative relationship between competitive worldview and age, meaning that younger people on average had a more cutthroat view of the world than older people.”

The authors note that most participants were from the U.S. and results could differ in other areas.

“How people react to an actor’s traits and behaviors critically depends on how they think the world works, with implications not only for interpersonal relationships but also for workplace environments and management,” the study concluded. “Our various reactions to the actors around us may depend not only on the actors themselves but also on our theories of the wider social world and our idiosyncratic understanding of how it operates, what it requires, and what it rewards.”