Many seek power and depend on their use of power, rather than on their competence to lead (Jongbloed & Frost, 1985). It would seem reasonable to expect that those who strongly endorse the exercise of power and authority in dealing with subordinates would be motivated to lead. But the authoritarian personality, or syndrome, should not be confused with the overt exercise of authority (Christie & Cook, 1958). Similarly, the personal motivation to gain and hold power is not the same as having power to exercise. Nevertheless, Pinnell (1984) found that compared with leaders in positions that lack power and authority, leaders in positions of power and authority were more likely to perceive power as good. Thus when Pearson and Sanders (1981) conducted a survey of appointed career and political state executives in seven U.S. states using a questionnaire that contained six questions about authoritarianism, submissiveness, conventionality, power, and toughness, they found that the state executives, particularly the less-educated executives with more state service, supported authoritarianism to a greater degree than they opposed it. They also found that public safety executives were more authoritarian in attitude than social service executives.
Conformity is the acceptance of influence. Conventionality is the acceptance of impersonal standards. Conservatism is the acceptance of a social, economic, or political structure. Ethnocentrism is the acceptance of one’s ethnic group and the rejection of others. Dogmatism is the acceptance of one system of thought and the rejection of other systems. Acquiescence is the acceptance rather than the rejection of ambiguous or unknown stimuli. Religiosity is the acceptance of a particular set of organized beliefs, rituals, and practices having to do with God, morality, the origins of life, and an afterlife. Authoritarianism correlates with conformity, conventionality, conservatism, ethnocentrism, dogmatism, acquiescence, and religiosity, but is not the same as any of these. (Citizens of the Former Soviet Union who emigrated to Israel are an exception. Their lack of religiosity was unrelated to their authoritarianism, which was attributed to their socialization under Communism; Rubenstein, 2002).
According to Samuelson (1986), Wilhelm Reich was the first to use authoritarianism in Marxist and Freudian terms to explain Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933. Erich Fromm (1941) expanded on the idea from an analysis of a survey of German workers. Also influential were the Frankfurt school of Critical Theory in the 1930s and the rise of the Nazis. The concept moved from politics and psychoanalysis into social psychology (Sanford, 1986). In their book The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) postulated an authoritarian type of personality, characterized as politically and religiously conservative, emotionally cold, power seeking, hostile toward minority groups, resistant to change, and opposed to humanitarian values. To measure authoritarianism and assess the authoritarian personality, they presented the F Scale.
Description of the F Scale. The statements in the F scale include such ideological right-wing clichés as: “People can be divided into two distinct classes, the weak and the strong”; “No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough willpower”; “What a youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country”; and “Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feebleminded people.” The items dealt with conventionality, submissiveness, aggressiveness, superstition, toughness, cynicism, projection, preoccupation with sex, violation of sexual norms, and disapproval of emotionality and intellectuality. Correlations with the F Scale suggested that the authoritarian personality was unable to accept blame and favored using status and power over love and friendship (Sanford, 1956). A social and political reactionary was likely to earn a higher authoritarian score than a social and political liberal (Christie, 1954; Shils, 1954).
Critique. The F Scale was criticized for various reasons, including psychometric weaknesses. Some of its variance was due to the error of response set. For instance, all statements on the F Scale were couched in the same power-oriented terms. Endorsement of any statement implied support of an authoritarian ideological point of view. But it appeared applicable only to extreme conservatives. Rokeach (1960) argued that extreme radicals were just as authoritarian in their beliefs as extreme conservatives. He developed the Dogmatic (D) Scale which measured closed-mindedness without getting into political ideology and provided a psychometrically better instrument.
Bass (1955a) and Chapman and Campbell (1957b) completed research analyses suggesting that scores on the F Scale could be explained mainly by the response set of social acquiescence—the general tendency to agree rather than disagree, to say yes rather than no, to accept rather than reject statements. However, after an error in calculation was corrected, the percentage of variance due to social acquiescence was found to account for only about one-quarter of the variance in the scores on the F scale. Some of the responses to the F Scale could be attributed to social acquiescence, but for the most part the scores still provided a substantive measure of the authoritarian syndrome (Bass, 1970). Nonetheless, its relationship to social behavior did not appear consistently.
Factorial Validity. According to a factor analysis by Altemeyer (1981), some of the expected factors of authoritarianism emerged in the F scale; these included conventionality, submissiveness, and aggressiveness. However, in Bass and Valenzi’s (1974) factor analysis, authoritarianism, as measured by the F Scale, was one of the four personality factors that appeared independent of assertiveness, sense of fairness, and introversion-extroversion.
Construct Validity. Evidence of the construct validity of the F Scale was obtained by Campbell and McCormack (1957), who found that the scores of U.S. Air Force cadets were more authoritarian than those of college students. But contrary to expectations, the cadets’ scores on authoritarianism decreased with the time they were in the air force. According to Masling, Greer, and Gilmore (1955), authoritarians among 1,900 military personnel rated other group members less favorably than egalitarians did. In turn—as was consistent with earlier studies by Jones (1954) and Thibault and Riecken (1955a)—Wilkins and DeCharms (1962) reported that, as expected, authoritarians were influenced by external power cues in evaluating others and used fewer behavioral cues in describing others. Authoritarians were also more highly influenced by considerations of status in making evaluations. Many studies revealed that those with high F Scale scores were also ethnocentric and prejudiced toward minorities and foreigners (e.g., Linville & Jones, 1980). High F’s were conventionally religious and reactionary (Eckhardt, 1988) and scored high on scales of dogmatism and Machiavellianism (Eysenck & Wilson, 1978).
Low F Scores: Egalitarian Leaders. In an experiment and its replication, Haythorn, Couch, Haeffner, et al. (1956a,b) formed two groups, one with high ratings on the F Scale (authoritarian) and the other with low ratings on the F scale (egalitarian). The 32 participants viewed a film and met in their groups to compose dialogue for it. According to pairs of reliable observers, the egalitarian leaders were significantly more sensitive to others, contributed more toward moving the group closer to goals set by the group, showed greater effective intelligence, and were more submissive in their attitudes toward other group members than were the authoritarians.1
Since egalitarians are more likely to become leaders in their communities, Courtney, Greer, and Masling (1952) reported that the community leaders they studied were significantly more egalitarian than their followers. Greer (1953) interviewed 29 leaders in Philadelphia and found that the leaders’ scores were significantly more egalitarian than those of nonleaders. Tarnapol (1958) obtained similar results. Leaders in highly conservative communities might be different. Egalitarian leaders tended to promote more participation. Thus in experiments by Haythorn, Couch, Haeffner, et al. (1956a, 1956b), followers tended to be able to exert more influence and to express more differences of opinion. Authoritarian leaders were described as being more autocratic, less democratic, and less concerned with the group’s approval than the egalitarian leaders.
Rohde (1952) administered the F Scale to 176 members of an aircrew who were also rated by their crew commanders on three criteria: authoritarianism (high F scores) correlated —.33 with the commander’s willingness to take the airmen into combat, —.46 with the commander’s perception of the desirability of the airmen as friends, and —.11 with the commander’s confidence in the airmen as members of the crew. Ley (1966) found a strong correlation of .76 between the turnover rate of industrial employees and the authoritarian scores of their supervisors. But contrary to hypothesis, a leader’s authoritarianism was not related to several measures of the effectiveness and performance of his group. Likewise, Hamblin, Miller, and Wiggins (1961) failed to find a significant correlation between a leader’s authoritarianism and measures of his group’s morale and success. To obtain such effects from authoritarian leaders, contingent circumstances need to be taken into account.
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). Since both fascists and communists scored high on the F Scale, a Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale was developed and validated by Altemeyer (1981) as a motivational syndrome. It assesses submission to authority, aggressiveness sanctioned by established authorities, and adherence to conventions endorsed by authorities. Those with high RWA scores were more likely to: (1) accept illegal acts by government officials to harass and intimidate their opponents; (2) prefer right-wing political parties; (3) be less convinced that President Richard Nixon was engaged in a Watergate cover-up; (4) favor authoritarian leaders; (5) endorse punishment for disobedience without considering circumstances; (6) award longer prison sentences; (7) give more severe sentences to violent gay demonstrators compared to violent antigay demonstrators; (8) in experiments, administer supposedly stronger electric shocks to participants for failure to learn; and (9) be more ethnocentric.
On the basis of their reviews of the research literature, both Titus and Hollander (1957) and Christie and Cook (1958) concluded that authoritarianism, as measured by high scores on the F Scale, was negatively correlated with intelligence. Authoritarians tended to be not as bright as egalitarians and were also less educated. Courtney, Greer, and Masling (1952) administered the F Scale to a representative sample of residents of Philadelphia. Those who scored highest on authoritarianism were laborers and those with the least education. The lowest F scores were made by managers, officials, clericals, and salespeople. Professionals, semiprofessionals, and university students scored between these groups.
Newcomb (1961) observed that authoritarians were less able than egalitarians to determine which group members agreed with them, and their sociometric choices were determined accordingly. Authoritarians were also likely to be less popular with their peers. In studying 2,139 naval recruits, Masling (1953) found that authoritarianism was negatively related to popularity.
Authoritarianism appears to decline with experience. Thus Campbell and McCormack (1957) found that authoritarianism decreased with increasing military experience in various samples of military personnel, and Rohde (1952) discovered that authoritarianism was not highly valued by officers who attained the rank of aircrew commanders.
Milton’s (1952) data indicated that in 1952, authoritarian college students, as measured by their scores on the F Scale, supported Douglas MacArthur’s nomination for president (MacArthur symbolized and emphasized power and authority in leadership). Students with low F scores supported the nomination of Adlai Stevenson, who was portrayed as a more consultative problem solver. Sanford (1950) administered an authoritarian-egalitarian scale to 963 randomly selected adults in Philadelphia. Those who scored high on authoritarianism wanted a stern leader but one who was competent, understanding, and helpful. Those who scored low preferred a leader who was kind, friendly, and guided by the people. The strong leader who tells people what to do was accepted by the authoritarians but rejected by the egalitarians; the egalitarians wanted either to be told nothing by a leader or to be told what to do but not how to do it. The authoritarians tended to choose a leader for his or her personal magnetism and high status, whereas the egalitarians preferred a humanitarian leader who did things for people. Thus authoritarians favored being led by an autocratic, directive, structuring, task-oriented leader; egalitarians favored being led by a democratic, participative, considerate, relations-oriented leader.2 Medalia (1955), who studied enlisted men in the U.S. Air Force, found that authoritarians expressed greater acceptance of formal leaders than egalitarians. Haythorn, Couch, Haefner, et al. (1956b) also found that authoritarians were more satisfied with appointed leaders and were less critical of their own group’s performance.
Thibaut and Riecken (1955a) studied the effects on authoritarians and egalitarians of attempts to influence them by persons who were of different ranks in an organization. They found that the authoritarians were more sensitive than the egalitarians to the organizational rank of a leader. The results of E. E. Jones (1954) were similar. However, Jones found that compared with authoritarians, egalitarians viewed the forceful-stimulus person as more powerful and the passive leader as less powerful. The egalitarians were more highly sensitized to differences in personal power and to behavioral cues while the authoritarians tended to differentiate leaders according to the institutional status of the leaders.
Thibaut and Riecken (1955b) also studied group reactions to a leader’s attempts to instigate aggressive behavior. They found that authoritarian participants became more submissive when they faced a high-status instigator but tended to reject the efforts of a low-status instigator. In overt communication, the authoritarian members were less intense in their rejection of the higher-status instigators than of the lower-status instigators. In a similar type of analysis, Lipetz and Ossorio (1967) found authoritarians less hostile toward high-status target persons than toward low-status targets whether or not these persons attempted to instigate aggression. To investigate a similar effect, Roberts and Jessor (1958) used projective tests to study the attitudes of authoritarians toward persons who were frustrating them. Compared with egalitarians, authoritarians tended to exhibit personal hostility toward low-status frustrators and to express hostility toward high-status frustrators only indirectly.
According to Kelman and Hamilton (1989), persons of higher status and education were more likely to challenge and question authority. By contrast, rule-oriented followers tended to obey authority without question and to carry out orders without accepting personal responsibility. Rule-oriented followers obey out of a sense of powerlessness; role-oriented followers obey out of a sense of obligation to authority; value-oriented followers obey to fulfill a commitment to shared values.
Dominating Behavior. Kalma, Visser, and Peters (1993) found that highly authoritarian personalities were much more likely to be aggressively dominant than sociably dominant. Aggressively dominant people had poorer interpersonal relationships than sociably dominant people and received lower ratings in task leadership.
Use of Punishment. Dustin and Davis (1967) asked participants to indicate whether they would use monetary rewards and penalties or evaluative communications to stimulate maximum performance in hypothetical followers. Compared with egalitarians, authoritarians used monetary penalties and negative evaluations more often. W. P. Smith (1967a) also found that authoritarians used punishment rather than reward as a method of inducing performance in others more than egalitarians. Authoritarian chief petty officers gave recruits more demerits (Masling, 1953). According to a review by Smither (un-dated), authoritarian parents were more likely to punish their children for violations of a code of conduct. However, using a different scale to assess authoritarianism, Baker, DiMarco, and Scott (1975) failed to find that authoritarianism was correlated with the use of penalities.
Reactions to Unstructured Situations. Bass, McGehee, Hawkins, et al. (1953) demonstrated that authoritarian personalities, as measured by the F Scale, were less likely to attempt or exhibit successful leadership behavior in an initially leaderless discussion—a socially unstructured situation that calls for considerable flexibility if one wishes to emerge as a leader. This finding was consistent with results reported by Bass and Coates (1952), who found significant correlations of .32 and .33 between the tendency of ROTC cadets to display successful leadership in initially leaderless group discussions and their scores on two measures of perceptual flexibility. Similarly, Geier (1963) observed that overly rigid members tended to be eliminated as leaders in the early stages of group discussion. Consistent with these findings, Hollander (1954) obtained nominations for a student commander from 268 naval aviation cadets that correlated 2.23 with the cadets’ scores on authoritarianism.
Authoritarian Parental Leadership. According to research by Baumrind (1971), authoritarian parents try to teach their children to value obedience, respect for authority, tradition, order, and work. The parents believe that their children should accept their ideas about what is right and what is wrong without discussion. The children’s reactions tend to be distrustful, withdrawn, and discontented. But authoritarian parenting is not the same as authoritative parenting. Authoritative or directive parents use their status, power, and reason to direct and control their children. Such parents are warm and positively encouraging, and develop children who are self-controlled, explorative, and satisfied.
The effects of leader’s authoritarianism tend to be moderated by their followers’ authoritarianism or egalitarianism, as well as by various other personal and situational factors. Researchers have often focused on the impact of the followers’ authoritarianism on the leadership process, because submissiveness and obedience to a higher authority are firmly entrenched in the authoritarian personality. Thus in a study of Israeli naval officers and crews, Foa (1957) concluded that authoritarian commanders should be in charge of subordinates with authoritarian expectations.
Match and Mismatch of Leaders and Followers: Effects on the Followers. Numerous attempts have been made to examine what happens when authoritarian and egalitarian leaders have to work with authoritarian and egalitarian subordinates. Systematic effects have been observed on both the followers and the leaders. Some effects depend on whether followers and leaders are matched or mismatched in personality. Thus Vroom (1959, 1960a) found that subordinates who were authoritarian (according to their scores on the F Scale) tended to be less satisfied with and less motivated by working under participative leaders than were egalitarian subordinates. In this study of a package delivery firm, Vroom found that the extent to which employees were satisfied and effective under participative supervision depended on their being egalitarian and highly in need of independence. Campion (1969) confirmed Vroom’s findings in an experimental study. But another replication of Vroom’s study by Tosi (1970), using the same survey method as Vroom with a different organization and different jobs, failed to corroborate Vroom’s results. However, Tosi noted that his respondents were different from Vroom’s in terms of values, interests, and gender.
Tosi (1973) tested a supervisory-subordinate congruency hypothesis: that a personality match between the supervisor and subordinate could result in greater satisfaction and morale and in less conflict than a mismatch. Data were collected from 488 managers of consumer loan offices. Four samples were formed, high-F and low-F samples of authoritarian and egalitarian employees that worked for bosses who rated either high or low in “tolerance for freedom” on the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire, Form XII.3 The congruency hypothesis was partially supported: job satisfaction and degree of participation were highest for the authoritarian subordinates who worked for bosses who lacked tolerance for freedom. But egalitarian subordinates working for bosses who had a high tolerance for freedom had the lowest levels of participation and satisfaction. These results suggest that some degree of structure or direction has to be present, whether in the boss or in the subordinate, to define the situation in which work is done.
Haythorn, Couch, Haefner, et al. (1956a, b) formed combinations of leaders and followers on the basis of high or low scores on the F Scale. They found that compared with egalitarian followers, authoritarian followers generally were rated by observers as less democratic and less sensitive to others, were more satisfied with their appointed leaders, and rated their groups higher in productivity and goal motivation. Unexpectedly, the authoritarian followers were not more submissive to the leaders than were the egalitarian followers, and they exercised more influence in their groups than did egalitarians. Observers rated the egalitarian followers lower than the authoritarian followers in productivity and goal orientation and higher in withdrawing from the field of activity.
Frey (1963) studied the disruptive behavior of differently composed groups under authoritarian and egalitarian leaders. The most disruption occurred in groups that were composed of both authoritarian leaders and followers; the least disruption occurred in groups that were composed of both egalitarian leaders and followers. The lowest performance occurred in groups that were composed of egalitarian leaders and authoritarian followers; the highest performance occurred in groups that were composed of both authoritarian leaders and followers.
Match and Mismatch of Leaders and Followers: Effects on the Leaders. Bass and Farrow (1977b), using path analysis, showed how the authoritarianism of leaders and followers affected a leader’s style of leadership. They administered a short form of the F Scale to 77 managers and their 409 subordinates from industry and public agencies, and also asked subordinates to describe their managers’ styles of leadership. Bass and Farrow found that authoritarian managers were not perceived to be wholly directive or participative. (Direction covers a variety of leadership styles including telling, ordering, and persuading; participation includes three styles: consulting, sharing decision making, and delegating.) Rather, authoritarian managers were seen as negotiative, manipulative, and opportunistic. Egalitarian managers were seen as more fair minded and more likely to consult with their subordinates. Authoritarian subordinates viewed their managers as more negotiative, particularly if the managers’ perspectives were short-term rather than long-term. Managers with authoritarian personalities were short-term maximizers.
Other Situational Contingencies. Harrell, Burnham, and Lee (1963) demonstrated that authoritarians were more likely to emerge as leaders in task-oriented groups and egalitarians to emerge as leaders in socioemotional groups. The size and structure of the group were also found to make a difference in the effects of the authoritarianism or egalitarianism of the leader. Authoritarian personalities appeared to do better as leaders when interaction among members was constrained by the large size of the group and by centralization of the organization’s communications. In comparing large and small work groups Vroom and Mann (1960) found that supervisors who scored high on the F Scale were more readily accepted in large groups than in small groups and that egalitarian supervisors were better accepted in small groups. In large groups, employees described authoritarian supervisors as more participative, exerting less pressure on employees, and creating less tension between themselves and higher management. In small groups, they viewed authoritarian supervisors as less participative and as creating more tension between supervisors and subordinates. Vroom and Mann also examined the relationship between the authoritarianism of the supervisors and the satisfaction of their subordinates. Subordinates whose jobs were characterized by little interaction with their supervisors and little interdependence had more positive attitudes about authoritarian supervisors.
M. E. Shaw (1955) studied the effects of authoritarian and egalitarian leadership in different communication nets. He found that groups under authoritarian leaders were highly productive but had low morale. M. E. Shaw (1959a) further reported that, as expected, groups with leaders who scored high in authoritarianism performed better in centralized networks, whereas groups with egalitarian leaders performed better in less highly centralized networks.
Overall, the evidence suggests that the authoritarian personality syndrome in a leader or a follower systematically affects the performance of both and their satisfaction with each other. Yet by the 1980s, research interest in the leadership performance of the authoritarian personality had dissipated. In its place was a more sharply focused interest in those who most often seek and acquire power, how they use it, and with what effects.
Individuals differ in their attitudes toward power; they also differ in their motivation and ability to seek and use it (P. J. Frost, 1986). Those with the motivation and willingness to use power in their dealings with others will use their interactions more consciously to get what they want and to gain control over situations. They will try to influence others directly by giving suggestions and opinions, by trying to change the opinions or actions of others, and by being forceful and argumentative. They may be seen by others as bossy and domineering, although if they have sufficient social skill, they may be perceived as inspirational (Stringer, 2001).
Those with skill in the use of power will embed that power in their communications with others and will use political tactics to influence what happens. Such tactical maneuvering or organizational politics embodies “the exercise of power [seen] … in the … tactics [members] use to get their way in the day-to-day, ongoing, present time functioning of [the] organization—it is power in action” (P. J. Frost, 1986, p. 22). According to a review by Dill and Pearson (1984), a model of such organizational politics better accounts for the effectiveness of managers of research and development projects than a rational model. Kotter (1979) adds that such dynamics of power contribute to an organization’s functioning.
Stringer (2002) suggests that those who are power motivated prefer organizations that are highly structured and hierarchical, have formal systems and rules, provide a sense of boundaries, and have control and influence mechanisms. Gordon (2002) laments the insufficient research and development coverage of power, especially when it occurs at a “deep level.”
Although need for power had been measured directly by questionnaires and personality inventories that assess manifest needs, power motivation and power needs have often been assessed by using respondents’ answers to the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Scores on this test are based on how much power the examiners find in stories the respondents invent when shown ambiguous sketches such as one of a man seated at a desk. A “power response” to such an ambiguous sketch in the test would be: “He disapproved because he was determined to get his way.” This response may be contrasted with a response that projects a need for achievement: “He was busy working and didn’t hear the bell.” It also may be contrasted with a response that projects the need for affiliation: “He kept looking at the photos of his family on his desk and wishing he was with them.” The Miner Sentence Completion Scale is another projective technique in which examinees complete sentences beginning with such words as “I feel …” or “My job …”, and the like. Power motivation can be estimated from the themes of the completed sentences.4 Power orientation and motivation have also been measured indirectly but objectively by Harrell and Stahl (1981) by asking for preferences among alternative job assignments. Respondents indicated their relative preference for jobs having characteristics that appealed to different needs, including the need for power.
Leaders need to have some degree of self-control and the ability to inhibit their own need for power. For instance, Jennings (1943) observed that leaders in girls’ schools controlled their own moods and did not inflict their anxieties and depressed feelings on others. McClelland (1985) concluded that if power motivation is low leadership potential generally will be absent. If power motivation is high and activity is uninhibited, the individual behaves like a “conquistador.” The tendency to inhibit activity is measured by obtaining the frequency with which the word “not” appears in stories written by an individual for the TAT. Activity inhibition is thought to reflect the restraint the individual feels about using power impulsively or using it to manipulate or coerce others. McClelland proposed that some successful leaders are high in power motivation, low in the need for affiliation, and high in the inhibition of activity. This is the imperial motive pattern and signifies highly efficient organizing that may sometimes be channeled into selfless leadership that is oriented toward doing good for others. Those who score high in inhibition of activity reveal altruistic images of power. The good managers among McClelland and Burnham’s (1976) imperials were motivated to serve their organizations. They generated among their subordinates team spirit, clarity of purpose, and a sense of responsibility for their work. House, Woycke, and Fodor (1986) found that six charismatic U.S. presidents—Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and Kennedy—revealed significantly more power and achievement motivation in their inaugural addresses, compared with the inaugural addresses of six noncharismatics: Presidents Tyler, Pierce, Buchanan, Arthur, Harding, and Coolidge.5(In Part V, charismatic imperials are seen as socialized transformational leaders.) Those who score low in inhibition of activity have thoughts of power that center much more on personal dominance and winning at someone else’s expense. They are personalized, pseudo-transformational leaders. McClelland found that male imperials joined more organizations than did male conquistadors and argued more frequently. Women imperials were elected to more offices than women conquistadors and accepted more responsibility.
Since activity inhibition, based as it is on the number of “nots” in TAT protocols, has little theoretical support or empirical validation, Winter and Barenbaum (1985) extracted a measure of responsibility from the TAT protocols based on whether moral-legal standards, obligations, self-judgments, concern for others, and concern about consequences were expressed in the protocols.
Some individuals strive to acquire and to use power. Others obtain it, sometimes reluctantly, by being in a position of authority to deal with uncertainty, to negotiate the allocation of resources, and to maintain collaborative efforts. Power seekers make use of the power they gain if they believe their attempts to lead through power will be successful (Kipnis, 1976). Mowday (1978) agreed. He found that managers who had revealed a high need for power employed it more frequently if they perceived it to be useful to do so. In general, such managers preferred assignments in which they could exert leadership and actively influence and exert control over others. They obtained emotional satisfaction from experiencing the effects of their use of power. Along with satisfaction, they experienced aggressive feelings and physiological reactions like the release of catecholamines, which is associated with emotional experiences.
While power can be wielded for personal aggrandizement, it can be used to benefit others. For instance, entrepreneurs (individuals who behave innovatively in large, complex organizations) are task-oriented personnel who use power whenever they can to ensure that their ideas, inventions, and innovations are accepted in their organizations (Pinchot, 1985). Such entrepreneurs regard power as instrumental for the accomplishment of tasks and as something they share with others, rather than as a basis for personal aggrandizement. Kanter (1983) described such individuals as “quiet entrepreneurs,” who communicate in a collaborative-participative fashion. Although they could use their power to coerce others with threats and cajolery, they tended to be persuasive in their leadership style and to use many of the socially acceptable techniques of interpersonal competence—frequent staff meetings, frequent sharing of information, consulting with others, showing sensitivity to the interests of others, and a willingness to share rewards and recognition.
The need for power was found important for success as a manager in a follow-up of 237 AT&T general managers in nontechnical areas (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982). Power orientation, measured using the Miner Sentence Completion Scale, also contributed to predictions of the respondents’ plans to work as managers, according to Miner and Crane (1981). Although scientists and engineers were found to prefer jobs that provide opportunities to satisfy their need for achievement, successful executives had a higher need for power (Harrell & Stahl, 1981). A sense of responsibility moderated the effects of power, as predicted. McClelland and Boyatzis (1982) examined the imperial power motive in the 422 managers in the original 1956 AT&T assessment study (Bray, Campbell, & Grant, 1974). Up to 77% of those revealing responsible power were at level 3 or higher at AT&T 16 years later. Only 56% with other motive patterns lacking in both power motivation and responsibility reached this level (Winter, undated).
Cummin (1967) and Wainer and Rubin (1969) found that high power motivation coupled with high achievement motivation was associated with the success of managers. Stahl (1983) corroborated these findings in a large nationwide sample of managers in which the rating of the managers’ performance and the managers’ rate of promotion were connected with a great need for power and for achievement, as measured by an objective test. In a study of elected politicians in two local settings, Browning and Jacob (1964) observed that strongly power-oriented and achievement-oriented men were more likely to occupy political offices with greater potential to achieve and to exercise power. Those with little need for power and for achievement did not hold such offices. Power-motivated individuals also pursue careers other than politics that allow them to exert influence over others, such as teaching, psychology, business, or journalism. Those with little power motivation choose careers with fewer opportunities to influence others.
Power motivation makes for specific differences in leader behavior. For example, Fodor and Farrow (1979) found that leaders in an experiment who had a great need for power were partial toward followers who were ingratiating. Fodor (1984) reported that individuals who were strongly motivated for power became more active when supervising others than did those low in motivation for power. Active attempts to lead were highest when productivity was stressed and rewarded, but such attempts by participants with a high motivation for power to gain control of the situation and to increase productivity were thwarted.
McClelland (1985) noted that men with a high power motive displayed more instability in their interpersonal relations, had more arguments, were more impulsive, and engaged in more competitive sports. Furthermore, both men and women with a strong motivation for power reported holding more offices than those with a weak motivation for power (Winter, 1973). Similarly, Kureshi and Fatima (1984) found that highly power-motivated Indian Muslim students were activists, and showed concern for power in their everyday activities and in student elections.
Consistent with the effects of the personality traits of activity, dominance, and social boldness, those who are more oriented toward power would be expected to attempt to influence others. For instance, Veroff (1957) found that individuals who scored high on projective measures of power motivation also scored high on satisfaction with their status as leaders and were rated high in argumentation and attempts to convince others. However, Frantzve (1979) failed to find that power, measured by Stewart’s social-maturity scale, predicted emergence as a leader in initially leaderless discussions among male and female students.6
Power, Leadership, and Cognitive Complexity. Along with personality traits like self-confidence, self-determination, and dominance, the acquisition and use of power to influence others is associated with the individual’s cognitive complexity—the ability to differentiate and integrate abstract information. In a four-year study of employees of insurance companies, Sypher and Zorn (1986) found that the cognitive complexity of individuals contributed strongly to their persuasive ability. Such personnel were promoted more often within the organization than others were. House (1984) observed that cognitively complex individuals are better able to identify power relationships. As is true of leadership in general, communication skills are important in the wielding of power.
Power, Leadership, and Communication Ability. Communicative competence is required to articulate arguments, advocate positions, and persuade others—all useful for acquiring and using power (Parks, 1985). With such competence, many other strategies and tactics are available to exert influence by using one’s power (Mar-well & Schmitt, 1967; Wiseman & Schenek-Hamlin, 1981). These strategies are detailed later.
Power and Effectiveness of Leadership. Although individuals who base their leadership on power may create conditions that are unsatisfying to some or all of their subordinates, they may successfully influence the course of events, which results in the fulfillment of tasks and the attainment of goals by their group or organization. Thus Shaw and Harkey (1976) found that groups in which the leaders displayed ascendant tendencies did better than groups in which nonascendant people were the leaders. O’Brien and Harary (1977) reported that those leaders whose power matched their desire for it were more effective as leaders. Batkins (1982) stated that among human service agency directors, those with a great need for power led more efficient agency operations than those with little need for power; the result for the need for affiliation was the opposite. Daily and Johnson (1997) found in a longitudinal study that a firm’s successful financial performance enhanced the power of the CEO.
Fodor (1987) found that small, experimental groups of men in the ROTC who attempted to solve a subarctic survival problem did best if their leader had a strong need for power. However, Fodor and Smith (1982) obtained outcomes indicating that individuals with high power motivation tended to inhibit group discussions more than did those with low power motivation. The individuals with high motivation for power brought into the discussions fewer facts and proposals that were available to them exclusively. As a consequence, fewer alternatives were considered and the quality of decisions was lower for groups led by such individuals. Consistent with these findings, House and Singh (1987) concluded that power motivation is predictive of effective leadership only when the assertion of one’s social influence is critical and technical expertise is not.
Organizational politics are intended and unintended preferences, policies, and practices. They can be constructive or destructive. In the popular mind, Machiavellianism stands for deceit, coercion, and using any means to reach desired ends. There is some truth in this view. Chang and Rosen 2003, in a meta-analysis involving between 2,865 and 11,753 respondents, found that all five criteria of an organization’s well-being were adversely affected by the perception that more politics were present in the organization. The average correlations were as follows with the five criteria: job satisfaction, —.49; organizational commitment, —.47; performance, —.11; intention to quit and turnover, .36; stress, .44. But in fact Niccolò Machiavelli (1513/1962) himself did not ignore the possibility of doing some good with power and manipulation.
The pursuit of power and its skillful use were seen as fundamental to successful leadership by Machiavelli and taken further into modern times by Lasswell (1948) and Lane (1961). Machiavelli’s treatises The Prince (1513/ 1962) and The Discourses (1531/1950) are still widely read today by leaders, managers, and executives. Machiavelli served on diplomatic missions to such crafty rulers as Louis XII of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, and Pope Julius II. The guile and political tricks Machiavelli observed firsthand were included in his advice to a prince, Cesare Borgia, a local dictator. Borgia was Machiavelli’s model prince, who used all means at his disposal, both good and bad, including deviousness and coercion, to expand his power to achieve and maintain his political position.
Such power motivation and competence in the use of power contrast with the philosophy of the inherent goodness and perfectability of humankind espoused in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson and by modern socially oriented leadership theorists, such as Lewin (1939), Gibb (1964), Argyris (1962), and Bennis (1964), who reasoned that influence can and should be exerted on others when there is a need for it. For the good of oneself and others, they affirmed, one should be open, frank, and candid in communications; share decision making; and openly commit oneself to positions so that others will know where one stands. Further, they suggested, leaders ought to jointly select and identify mutually satisfying goals to work toward, develop and maintain mutual trust, and encourage group discussions including others above and below themselves in the organizational hierarchy.
“It is impossible to satisfy the nobility by fair dealing … whereas it is very easy to satisfy the people. … From hostile nobles [the prince] has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition … in time to save themselves and with the one whom they expect will conquer. … The prince is able to make and unmake them at any time, and improve or deprive them of it. … [The nobles] that are bound to you and not rapacious, must be honored and loved. … But when they are not bound to you of set purpose, and for ambitious ends … they think more of themselves than of you. … From such men the prince must guard himself and look upon them as secret enemies” (Machiavelli, 1513/1962, pp. 71–72). “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders who would profit by the new order” (p. 55). Strong, ruthless, and cynical leadership is required of the prince because of his nobles’ self serving. As a consequence, they will regularly subvert the state and reduce it to chaos. It is in their best interests for the prince and the people to do whatever he can in whatever way he can to prevent chaos from occurring. Religious and ethical criteria for justifying the leader’s actions are irrelevant.
Political calculation is required to control events rather than be victimized by them. For “reasons of state,” the ends always justify the means. The ends are the welfare of the state. Whatever the leader does to help strengthen and preserve the state is good; whatever tends to work against the state is bad. The leader must be pragmatic, not idealistic, in facing problems. He must always keep in mind the particular interests of his own state. In a sense, Machiavelli was an early amoral behaviorist who argued for studying what we do, rather than what we ought to do. He argued that “he who studies what might be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” Machiavelli was also an early situationalist, for instance, giving different advice to the prince about how to deal with acquired political states, depending on whether the states were culturally and politically similar or different from his own.
According to Machiavelli, the prince must be ready to imitate the behavior of the fox, who can “recognize traps,” and the lion, who can “frighten wolves.” He cannot place his trust in others. To obtain and maintain power, he needs a calculating attitude without any sense of guilt or shame. He should act in a way that conveys boldness, greatness, and strength. The prince should rely more on being feared than on being loved. If cruelty is required, it should be done all at once, not over an extended period. Although the prince does not need to have a moral character, he must seem to have one; he should appear to be merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, and religious, and avoid being despised. He must maintain an image of personal strength and confidence so that no one will try to mislead him. He must control his emotions. He has to uphold his dignity, “which must never be allowed to fail in anything whatever.” He should not pay attention to advice unless he has asked for it. Machiavelli even had advice for the nobles around the prince. Anyone with cleverness and some power who helped the prince to gain his position must be careful because the prince cannot tolerate any competent, powerful people close to him.
Statements from The Prince, as well as from The Discourses, were used by Christie and Geis (1970) to form the Mach scale, which measures the extent to which respondents subscribe to Machiavelli’s dictums about how the leader should act toward others to be most successful in obtaining and maintaining compliance with his interests. An original list of 71 statements dealt with tactics (“A white lie is a good thing”), views (“It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners”), and morality (“No one has the right to take his own life”). The Mach IV scale, consisting of 20 such items, had a split-half reliability of close to .80. Other versions of the Mach scale were devised to reduce the bias of social desirability that is inherent in the content. Obviously, to admit to being devious is usually not a socially desirable response. A high score on the Mach scale was seen as an indication of a predisposition to maximize self-interest using deceit and manipulation at the expense of others.
Influence Behavior of Machiavellians (High Machs). As well as being more authoritarian, Machiavellians are aggressively dominant but less socially dominant individuals, according to Kalma, Visser, and Peeters (1993). These researchers obtained a correlation of .35 between Machiavellianism and their scale of aggressive dominance and a correlation of only .13 with their scale of social dominance. Individuals who score high on the Mach scale (high Machs) resist social influences and are concerned with getting the job done rather than with emotional and moral considerations. They tend to initiate and control interactions with others. In contrast, low Machs—people who score low on the Mach scale—are more susceptible to social influence and are distracted by interpersonal concerns (Epstein, 1969). High Machs frequently practice deception, bluff, and other manipulative tactics in competitive situations and in contexts of uncertainty. They also exhibit a “cool” task-directed syndrome during face-to-face competition that allows for improvisation in both substance and timing of responses to the task or to other people (Shapiro, Lewicki, & Devine, 1995). High Machs are impervious to considerations that can interfere with manipulative behavior and effective bargaining (Christie & Geis, 1970). They are convincing liars (Lewicki, 1983), glib and emotionally detached, superficially charming and duplicitous, bordering on psychopathological (McKoskey, Worzel, & Szarto, 1998).
Drory and Gluskinos (1980) varied the leaders’ power as perceived experts with authority and the task so it was more or less structured, to create situations that were more favorable or less favorable to the leaders. They found that as leaders, the high Machs generally gave more orders and reduced tension more than did the low Machs. However, the high Machs became less directive and requested more assistance when they had less power and the task had less structure than when they had more power and the task was highly structured. In respect to their flexibility of response as conditions changed, high Machs were like egalitarians (people with low F Scale scores) who had been found to do the same by Bass and Farrow (1977b). Low Machs were similar to high authoritarians in their inflexibility of response to changing situations.
Deluga (2001) agreed with Wilson, Near, and Miller (1996) that although Machiavellianism is generally socially unacceptable, some high Machs may be effective in stressful, competitive, unstructured face-to-face situations where their sense of timing, ability to improvise, persuasive ability, and ability to remain “cool” are assets to bargaining teams, to mock courtroom debates, and in leading temporary small teams (Huber & Neale, 1986). U.S. presidents who are high Machs (according to ratings of their profiles by three undergraduates) are more likely to get Congress to pass the legislation they support (Simonton, 1986). Among 39 presidents from Washington to Reagan, Deluga (2001) found that Machiavellianism was positively associated with their rated effectiveness according to Spangler and House (1991). Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Van Buren, and Richard Nixon were rated highest on the Mach scale; William McKinley, Rutherford Hayes, and Zachary Taylor were rated lowest. In no way are Machiavellianism and charisma identical, but they share image-building behaviors, self-confidence, and effective emotional regulation.
The impact of a Machiavellian outlook seems to depend on how much a manager interacts with others in the organization. Coates (1984) obtained reports of the frequency of the contacts of 79 managers with their superiors and peers. The rated influence of managers who were high Machs was likely to be higher than that of low Machs if the managers had frequent contact with their superiors and peers.
The number of politically astute, devious, deceptive, artful, and crafty tactics leaders can employ is much more extensive than Machiavelli described. Many other tactics were mentioned in Greek, Roman, and Chinese classics. However, Machiavellianism is a generic label for all such amoral political manipulativeness and deception, although Machievelli himself mentioned using politics to benefit the people—for instance, to protect them against nobles’ efforts to exploit them. Moreover, organizational politics can be seen as functional (Boal & Deal, 1984), and as a constructive management of shared meanings. A political perspective can be applied with a social service rather than a self-serving orientation (Ammeter, Douglas, Gardner, et al., 2002). Lancaster (2002) sees using political tactics as essential for success in management. If you work in a corporation, he advises you to “promote yourself. You must pit your skills and competitiveness against ambitious colleagues, some who play fair and some who don’t. You must learn to maneuver through the political thickets and often unjust realities of organizational life.” Political tactics are used extensively by those of lower status to influence others with higher status. They employ self-serving impression management, ingratiation, intimidation, and supplication (Jones & Pittman, 1982). They can create an illusion of control (Alloy & Abramson, 1982).
Martin and Sims (1956), Jameson (1945), and Pfiffner (1951) described political tactics used in modern corporations which could be self-serving or beneficial to others. Politically oriented managers withhold the release of information or time its release for when it will do the most good. They bluff, acting confident even when they are unsure or lack relevant information. They make political alliances with those who have the power to protect their interests. They hide their real feelings about plans that are popular with others by starting to act on them but then retard and delay their implementation so that the plans are in process but never completed. They keep socially distant from subordinates and never become personally involved with them, always remaining the boss when interacting with them. They openly compromise, yet secretly divert or delay plans that involve compromise so that their aims will continue to be pursued despite public statements to the contrary. McCall (1978, p. 227) felt the same way about politically astute creative leaders. They tend to be “crafty, grouchy, dangerous, feisty, contrary, inconsistent, evangelistic, prejudiced, and spineless.”
Political versus Social Approach. We advocate and invest less research on the Machiavellian way of establishing and maintaining leadership in contrast to the social approach. The very deviousness of Machiavellianism makes its widespread practice less visible. Overall, the social approach to interpersonal competence is more socially acceptable than the political approach. Bass (1968c, 1970b) found that only a minority of MBA students and middle managers responding to the Organizational Success Questionnaire (OSQ) espoused political tactics and rejected the Gibb-Bennis-Argyris social approach to effective interpersonal relations as the way “to get ahead in most large organizations.” For the majority of the MBA students and managers, least endorsed were the tactics of diverting plans by retarding, delaying, and offering insincere compromises. However, published OSQ results for students in six countries and unpublished OSQ data gathered from samples of managers in over a dozen countries indicated that different nationalities differ widely in their endorsement of these political and social approaches (Bass & Franke, 1972).
Influence Tactics. Kipnis, Schmidt, and Wilkinson (1980) gathered data on what people say they do to influence others who work with them. They found that people used a mixture of both social and political approaches. In these researchers’ first investigation, 165 lower-level managers wrote essays describing an incident in which they influenced their bosses, their coworkers, or their subordinates. A content analysis disclosed the use of 370 different influence tactics. The Machiavellian tactics that were identified included the following: lied to the target, acted in a pseudodemocratic manner, puffed up the importance of the job, manipulated information, made the target feel important, cajoled the target, pretended to understand the target’s problem, became a nuisance, slowed down on the job, threatened to withdraw help, threatened to leave the job, blocked the target’s actions, ignored the target, invoked past favors, waited until the target was in the right mood, was humble, showed dependence, invoked rules, obtained support informally from superiors, threatened to notify an outside agency, and made formal appeals to higher levels.
Ingratiation and Blocking. Kipnis and Schmidt extracted 58 tactics from the content analyses and then gave them to 754 graduate students who also worked full time. The students were asked how frequently they had used any of these tactics during the past six months to influence others with whom they worked. When the responses were factor-analyzed, two manipulative factors emerged: ingratiation and blocking. Ingratiating tactics were used more frequently to influence peers and subordinates than superiors. The primary reason the students gave for using the tactics to influence others was to get help on the job, to obtain benefits from these other persons, or to try to effect change. The ingratiating tactics included (1) making the target feel important (“Only you have the brains and talent to do this”); (2) acting very humble while making a request; (3) making the target feel good about the student before making a request; (4) inflating the importance of what needed to be done; (5) waiting until the target appeared in a receptive mood before asking; and (6) pretending they were letting the target decide to do what the student wanted done (acting in a pseudo-democratic fashion).
Blocking tactics were generally used less frequently than other tactics. These were efforts to get benefits and changes in decisions from the students’ bosses. They included: (1) threatening to notify an outside agency if the boss did not give in to the request; (2) threatening to stop working with the boss until the matter was settled; (3) engaging in a slowdown of work until the boss did what the student wanted; (4) ignoring the boss, stopping being friendly, on both; and (5) lying about reasons the boss should do what the student wanted.
Along with ingatiation and blocking, political tactics are used to preserve and enhance one’s self-esteem or to be esteemed by others (Kelley & Michela, 1980).7 These tactics include; (1) engaging in impression management—doing or saying what it is should put one in a favorable light; (2) concealing some of the reasons for trying to be influential; (3) forming coalitions with others to exert the combined power of a group, rather than speaking in the lone voice of the individual; and (4) planning one’s behavior—imagining or playing through situations to try—to time what one will do and to fit one’s appeals to the expected outcomes (Nuttin, 1984).
Game Playing. P. J. Frost (1986) conceived tactical maneuvering to gain power and influence in terms of political “games” employees play in organizations:
An organizational “game” involves social actors, payoffs, and a set of interpretive strategies … [that] specify the rules, data, and successful outcomes in the game. Given the social construction around power that is involved in such games there is a degree of elasticity in the way the game is constructed and played. Invention and adaptation enter into the development and enactment of game rules and meanings, because they come alive in the service of actors’ strategic actions in the game (p. 527).
Members of organizations consciously play games to get their way for their own sake, for the sake of others, or for their organization. They use such games to disguise their political intentions, to mobilize support, and to quiet opposition. Power-seeking members play at empire building by following the rules to facilitate their upward mobility in their organizations (Pfeffer, 1981b).
The game of “making it” (moving up the ladder of success) goes along with impression management and esteem building. Mentoring and sponsorship can be seen as games to foster networks of supporters and as empire building (P. J. Frost, 1986). Through such games, players seek justification for and meaning in their actions to allow them to increase their power and hence to participate in other organizational games. Games such as “lording” (Mintzberg, 1983) are played by actors with little power; who “lord it over” those who are subject to their influence. Those who play these games hold on to what little power they have by establishing a context in which they interpret the rules and routines of organizations literally and see that the rules are strictly enforced and the routines are rigidly implemented. They get their way and resist change by invoking the rule book—the bureaucracy—and by threatening to go to a higher authority for decisions (P. J. Frost, 1986). On occasion, they invent rules, expecting no challenge because of the large, complex book of rules that would have to be consulted to refute their argument. In these individual games, players manage impressions (Zerbe & Paulhus, 1985) and join and build networks and coalitions (Porter, Allen, & Angle, 1981).
Chameleon Behavior. Like chameleons, high self-monitors change in response to changes in situations. They also appear more ready to change careers, employers, or locations. Low self-monitors remain true to themselves and do not change as much; nor do they change careers, employers, or locations as much. Politically tactical moves by 67 high-monitoring MBA graduates followed up for 5 years paid off for them in accelerated promotions across organizations as well as in promotions within their organization if they did not leave. The 72 low self-monitors who did not change careers or organizations did not do as well.
Heresthetics. For Riker (1986), leadership as practiced by successful politicians is primarily political manipulation. According to this view, leadership is evident when a politician is able to change an issue in the minds of constituents and legislators so the minority support for the older framing of the issue swells to a majority because of the politician’s new interpretation of the issue. The politician-leader achieves this goal by imparting to his or her description the exact twist to reality that will gain majority approval of the issue. It is a matter not of persuasive rhetoric but of a heresthetic argument that shows how the proposal will serve the best interests of the majority. In Riker’s case studies, heresthetic leaders manipulated support by setting and controlling agendas, calculating likely voting patterns, and then manipulating the values of importance. They made appeals to share organizational or societal purposes, but their private motives were paramount.
As Riker (1986, p. 64) noted, “the heresthetic neither creates preferences nor hypnotizes. … He probes until some new alternative, some new dimension [is found] that strikes a spark in the preferences of others.” He manipulates private incentives even while remaining idealistic. To illustrate: because of isolationist sentiment in the United States in 1940, President Roosevelt could not gain approval from Congress to give 50 old American destroyers to Britain, which was being strangled by German submarines. But he did gain approval for “lend lease,” in which the destroyers were exchanged for bases in Bermuda, the Bahamas, and elsewhere that could be viewed as a first-line offshore defense for the United States. He was able to persuade Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act of 1941 by emphasizing the age and outmoded condition of the destroyers and the advantages of obtaining the bases.
Political perspectives often are the basis for leadership in organizations. Political behavior in organizations is common and sometimes necessary. Thus impression management can be understood as a political maneuver (Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989). Leadership in organizations can be conceived as a political process.
Harold D. Lasswell (1948) pioneered the study of the psychology of political leadership but did not have continuing impact on either political science or psychological leadership research. His major books and writings appeared between 1923 and 1948. Ascher and Hirschfelder-Ascher (2005) reminded us of his seminal publications, 10 of which have been republished since 1990. The decline in interest in Lasswell’s psychodynamic approach to political leadership paralleled a decline in interest in psychoanalytical theory. Nevertheless, Lasswell’s framework still provides an unexcelled agenda for the analysis of current policy and political issues (Ascher & Hirschfelder-Ascher, 2005). Lasswell showed: (1) how emotions and beliefs were displaced from one target to another to shift blame; (2) how leaders could use political symbols and propaganda to be understood by appeals to the id, ego, and superego; (3) how democratic processes and civil liberties depend on democratic character, values, and expectations; and (4) how crisis erodes political self-restraint and brings on destructive behavior. Applying Lasswell’s framework to the current interest in charismatic and transformational leadership (see Part V) suggests that such leadership brings risks to democratic accountability.
Negative Effects. Playing politics in organizations is often self-aggrandizing and of less benefit to others and to the organization. Politics in organizations is likely to cause job anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, and withdrawal of followers (Cropanzano, Hawes, Grandby, et al., 1997; Valle & Perrewe, 2000). Politically astute, self-aggrandizing leaders are morally disengaged. Unethical violations committed by their subordinates are justified (Davis & Gardner, 2004). Davis and Gardner (2004) noted that in organizations, a leader who behaved politically resulted in subordinates who were cynical about the organization’s sincerity, honesty, and integrity. Such leadership generally had negative effects on subordinates’ job satisfaction, performance, morale, and turnover. Beu and Buckley (2004a, b) attributed corporate scandals to politically astute corporate leaders who created an environment where subordinates committed illegalities in obedience to their leaders. The leaders convinced their subordinates that the behavior was morally justified. The subordinates denied that they were the agents of the crime; they were convinced by the power and authority of the leaders and said that they were only obeying orders. (The same plea was made by Nazi war criminals.) According to a qualitative and quantitative study of nurses at a New Zealand hospital by Kan and Parry (2004), politics could offset the usually positive effects of transformational leadership. The leadership of the nurses was repressed, in their efforts to provide patient care, by the political realities of the greater power, status, and importance of the medical staff and the managers.
Positive Views. Spencer and Spencer (1993) argued that political skill is even more important for effective management than cognitive competence. Treadway, Hochwarter, Ferris, et al. (2004) proposed that political skill involves the ability to comprehend social cues and build social networks and social capital (personal reputation and support from associates). The components formed two independent factors, which accounted for 16% and 32%, respectively, of work unit performance of an educational administrative staff (Douglas & Ammeter, 2004). Treadway, Hockwarter, Ferris, et al. (in press) modified the work of Ferris, Treadway, Kolodinsky, et al. (2005) to measure the political skill of supervisors as potentially positive in the eyes of their subordinates by: (1) trying to show a genuine interest in other people; (2) understanding people well; (3) building relationships with influential people at work; and (4) always instinctively knowing the right things to say to influence others. The investigators showed that politically oriented leaders in organizations could be seen favorably by their subordinates. They found that the supervisors’ rated political skill correlated with their subordinates’ ratings as follows: trust, .38; job satisfaction, .32; commitment, .41, and cynicism, —.33.
Leaders may be oriented toward the uses of power and political manipulation, rather than toward social approaches to influencing others. Authoritarianism, power motivation, and Machiavellianism are relevant aspects of their personalities. Measuring the authoritarianism of both leaders and followers has been helpful in understanding the preferences, performance, and satisfaction of these leaders, particularly as a function of the circumstances involved. They tend to be rejected in sociometric choice for leadership. But this tendency does not necessarily prevent authoritarians from performing as leaders in task-oriented, emergent groups, as well as in formal organizations.
The personalities of leaders and followers interact. Authoritarian followers tend to evaluate leaders in terms of status, power, and position, whereas egalitarians evaluate leaders as persons in terms of behavioral and personality cues. With directive leaders, egalitarian followers tend to feel more comfortable in large, structured groups. With directive leaders, egalitarians tend to react more favorably in small, less highly structured groups. Egalitarian followers are somewhat more hostile toward leaders in high-status positions. Thus the degree to which a leader is accepted and the degree of satisfaction that group members feel under authoritarian and egalitarian leaders generally are dependent on a matching of the leader’s personality with the follower’s personality, along with a congruent group structure.
Power-motivated leaders can be effective if they are task oriented rather then concerned about interpersonal relationships, and if they can inhibit their need for power. These imperialists can use their power for their own advancement or for the good of their organizations. Machiavellians are cool in their performance as leaders and are not distracted by interpersonal considerations or social influences in competitive situations. The use of Machiavellian tactics is probably more widespread than has been acknowledged. Yet the effects of politically astute leaders on their associates can have positive as well as negative effects on the organization, unit performance, and morale.
Many other personal values and beliefs about oneself are associated with the emergence of leadership.