Timeless Fundamentals of

Leadership
GSB.STANFORD.EDU/INSIGHTS

Stanford
Business
 contents
[04]

Great Leaders Understand the Fundamentals

Managers are often chosen for reasons other than competence
by Elizabeth MacBride

[07]

How to “Lean In” to Power

Power skills and behaviors matter for career success
by Jeffrey Pfeffer

[10]

Three Things All Good Bosses Do

Pay attention to these issues and watch productivity go up
by Kathryn Shaw
Video: Beth Rimbey // Editor: Karen Lee

ASSOCIATE DIGITAL DIRECTOR Karen Lee

COPY EDITORS Heidi Beck, Joyce Thomas
ART DIRECTOR & DESIGN Tricia Seibold
PHOTOGRAPHY Elena Zhukova
COVER ILLUSTRATION Christopher DeLorenzo
 the

h a ll en g e
C q of the q
LEADER is to

look around
the corner
and
change before
C HANG E

you need to


 Indra Nooyi, CEO, PepsiCo
 by Elizabeth MacBride

Great Leaders Understand

the Fundamentals
Managers are often chosen for reasons other than competence.

C
Conventional wisdom has it that a leader’s most important professor of organizational behavior at Stanford GSB.
qualities are personality traits like charisma, likeability, or an But a good leader has earned his or her stripes, she says.
air of command. But new research from Stanford Graduate The new research points to the importance of hiring and
School of Business suggests something more fundamental promoting leaders based on objective assessments and data
helps teams perform well: a leader’s plain old competence at — like assessment tests — rather than just political skill or the
the task at hand. ability of a candidate to make a good impression, the researchers
Choosing leaders because of charisma or management skill concluded. The research team included Greer and Murat
has its benefits, but leaders still need to understand and be Tarakci and Patrick Groenen of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
able to excel at the actual tasks their team members do, from The research was published in Journal of Applied Psychology.
accounting to engineering to marketing. Their series of studies included a computer simulation, a lab
“We romanticize the charismatic CEO,” says Lindred Greer, a study, and a field study of the work of 49 teams comprising

4
 We romanticize the
charismatic CEO.
– Lindred Greer

1,126 employees of a publicly held Dutch company. They WHO IS THE MOST COMPETENT?
found that teams where the leaders had a high level of skill A strong hierarchical structure can help a team, but make
at the task at hand converged more rapidly on solutions. sure it’s easy to identify the competence of the team
For instance, in the case of the Dutch company, which was members, so that choice of leader is based at least in part on
working on auditing finances in search of tax evasion and task competence.
fraud, the best leaders were those most skilled at the
audit work. EXPECT POWER SHIFTS
It helps to make the leadership fluid, so that when the tasks
Most surprising, the researchers found, was that 45% of change, the most competent person can assume the
the time team members picked leaders for reasons other leadership position. As a corollary, team members need to be
than competence, such as the person’s age, dominance, or willing to allow power to shift. So, a hierarchical team
perceived power level. structure with a group of ambitious alphas may not work.
The researchers also examined whether it’s better to have a “Having employees who always wish to be the smartest
flat organizational structure or a hierarchical one and in what person in the room will make for ineffective hierarchies, and
circumstances. Previous researchers on power in teams have humility can pay dividends,” the researchers wrote.
drawn different conclusions. On one hand, hierarchies help
by supporting divisions of labor and clarifying roles. On the HELP TEAM MEMBERS APPRECIATE EACH OTHER
other hand, hierarchies can hurt performance because they Managers should also help team members understand the
encourage political and competitive behavior. unique skills all members bring to the team with, for example,
Greer’s team found a nuanced result: Hierarchy helps when job-crafting — having members engage in a collaborative
leaders are competent at the task at hand and when the discussion to clarify skills and roles within the team. By helping
hierarchy itself is dynamic — in other words, when the team members identify and understand the different competences
can replace the leader if necessary. When either one of those members bring to the team, it will be easier for them to shift
factors was in place, having a hierarchy improved team power within the team when task requirements change.
performance; when both factors were in place, hierarchies Without that fluidity, conflicts emerge, as ill-suited leaders
helped most of all. breed resentment among followers and cause hierarchies to
The researchers suggested three takeaways for managers building be sources of contention. In those cases, the researchers
teams or boards choosing CEOs to lead executive teams. concluded, egalitarian structures are likely to be better.

5
NEVER let
ANYBODY
DEFINE
WHO YOU

ARE & CAN WHO YOU

BECOME
Magic Johnson, CEO, Magic Johnson Enterprises
 by Jeffrey Pfeffer

How to “Lean In” to Power

Power skills and behaviors matter for career success

I
It’s not just women or Asian Americans who sometimes have (available at www.jeffreypfeffer.com with Ferris’ permission)
trouble doing things such as advocating for themselves and that people can use to assess themselves (or better yet, have
their accomplishments, negotiating for salary and job others assess them) on a set of political skills that include
responsibilities rather than just accepting what employers networking ability, social astuteness, apparent sincerity,
offer, networking, and not obsessively worrying about being and interpersonal influence. More importantly, Ferris and
liked — all things that bring increased power. Many people others have conducted numerous studies over the years
are uncomfortable with power and the behaviors required to that demonstrate the relationship between political skill
obtain it. That’s a big problem, because research shows that and career success and also political skill and group
power skills and behaviors matter for career success. performance.
Florida State professor Gerald Ferris and colleagues have Contrary to what you may think, good job performance is not
carefully developed and validated a political skills inventory going to be enough to rocket your career ahead. After all, the

7
 Building power and influence
skills is not about changing who
you are or becoming someone else.
– Jeffrey Pfeffer

numerous studies that show salary and promotions are with you to provide you advice and counsel — and hold you
affected by things such as race and gender, educational accountable — on your self-assessment of strengths and
credentials, and years of experience — none of which are weaknesses and your plans to build the qualities that you
dimensions of job performance — make the point that the need more of.
world is not always a just and fair place and it takes more than
doing a good job to be successful. LEARN HOW TO ACT AND SPEAK WITH POWER
Body language is important, because we form impressions of
In my Paths to Power class and my book Power: Why Some
others quickly and then subsequently assimilate information
People Have It — and Others Don’t, I encourage people to
based on these first impressions. Use emotion-producing,
take actions that are likely to increase their power and, as a
vivid language and stories to convey your message. Use
consequence, their careers:
forceful, powerful gestures. Speak loudly and don’t raise your
NETWORK voice at the end of statements, implying a question rather
Spend more time building social relationships. Figure out than an assertion. To build your skills, get an acting, voice,
or language coach if you need help, and find situations where
who in your company, industry, and in even more distant and
you can practice.
diverse environments might be helpful in your career. Make a
list of those people and prioritize it. Then figure out a way to CHALLENGE CONVENTION
meet those people, ranging from “cold” emails to facilitated Understand and then act on the insight that (particularly if
introductions to finding common organizations (including you are an underdog), breaking the rules — which are, after
nonprofits) where you might connect. Take on small but all mostly set by those in power — is essential to winning.
important tasks that can put you at the center of communication This idea was explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful
networks. Ascertain which people or groups might benefit New Yorker article, “How David Beats Goliath.” Moreover,
from being connected — and connect them (the technical since the powerful have the discretion to not conform to
term for this is filling structural holes, and Ronald Burt at social conventions, breaking the rules can signal — and
the University of Chicago makes available network diagnostic thereby create — power.
tools). And most importantly, recognize that weak ties are
People often seem to believe that political skill is something
more valuable for job performance and careers than stronger
one has as part of his or her personality — like the master
relationships. That’s because weak ties provide you
politician, the late President Lyndon B. Johnson, as so
nonredundant information, while the people to whom you
beautifully described in the set of biographical books by
are most strongly tied, close friends and colleagues, probably Robert Caro — or not. But that is not true. Without for a
know approximately the same things and the same people as moment denying the existence of individual differences,
you do. Therefore, they do not add as much additional value. political skill, like virtually all skills, can be improved through
practice and coaching. So don’t accept your current set of
BUILD PERSONAL QUALITIES
strengths and weaknesses or for that matter your current
Energy, the ability to tolerate conflict, the capacity to see
tastes and preferences as fixed and enduring.
others’ points of view and interests, resilience, and ambition,
among others, are qualities that produce power. To accomplish Building power and influence skills is not about changing who
this journey of personal development and growth, find a you are or becoming someone else. It is about adding a set of
coach, a peer, or create a small “personal board of directors” activities and skills to your repertoire to become more effective
of 3 to 5 individuals who are not likely to be competitive and successful. So stop making excuses and get on with it.

8
Good ideas
come from anywhere.
Empower
people
at all levels of the organization
to put forward ideas.
Philippe Dauman, President, CEO, and Chairman, Viacom
 by Kathryn Shaw

Three Things
All Good Bosses Do
Pay attention to these issues and watch productivity go up.

A
A GOOD BOSS CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE. BUT WHAT of individual employees and see if productivity really rose
MAKES A SUPERVISOR EFFECTIVE? STANFORD GRADUATE for individual employees if they happen to be working with
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS KATHRYN a good boss.
SHAW FOUND THAT STRONG MANAGERS USE SIMILAR
STRATEGIES AND HAVE A LASTING POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE We gathered data on workers’ productivity and found there
CAREERS OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. HERE’S HOW THEY DO IT. was a big effect from a good boss relative to a bad boss. What
we got access to was data on what we call technology-based
Q&A Video Transcript (edited by Karen Lee):
service workers who have their performance timed and that
DO GOOD BOSSES REALLY INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY? enabled us to measure their productivity.
There are bad bosses out there, but what’s not talked about as So, the foundation of the study is productivity. How many
much is there are also good bosses. What we sought out to do customers they treat an hour would be an example of
was to find out whether you could measure the productivity productivity. You can then see if people with good bosses

10
 A good boss teaches
something that lingers.
– Kathryn Shaw
treat more customers per hour than people with along the path. Most workers are not stagnant, but they have
bad bosses. other aspirations — they want to move on or they just want to
do their day-to-day job well and have that fit into their career.
And what we find is that there’s an enormous range of
A good boss will help them do that.
productivity based on who your boss is. That is, if you’re
working on your job and you change to someone who has WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM GOOGLE?
a history of being a good boss, your productivity definitely
A couple years ago, Google started Project Oxygen and found
goes up.
that people didn’t like their bosses. They didn’t think they
A data set like this doesn’t really have the traits of the boss, so were useful. There was even a sense that they should have
in order to look at the traits of what makes a good boss, we no bosses within Google. But they found out when they cut
needed to do a case study. We did a case study on the Royal back on the number of bosses, people just went to leaders for
Bank of Canada, the biggest bank in Canada with an routine tasks, and it was a burden on leaders. They found they
enormous workforce and lot of data. really needed low-level managers, but they needed to find out
We looked to that to see what the traits of a good boss appear what makes a good manager.
to be. And there’s a sequence in order to identify the traits of a Google is interesting because it has so much data on workers’
good boss. To identify the traits of a good boss, first you have performance. It has data on the traits of bosses because
to tell again whether bosses matter. What we show is that Google does these evaluations constantly. It’s a data intense
workers are more engaged in their workplace and are more company. It looked to identify people who manage them and
productive when they have a good boss, in this case. You what their traits are. The traits are really aligned with the
really see that in what’s called engagement data, which is data good boss traits we found at the Royal Bank of Canada — you
that asks do you feel motivated on your job? Do you identify
pay attention to your employees, you give them a vision, you
with your company? Sure enough, those people who are
motivate them, and you set out career goals for them.
motivated and identify with their company are higher
performers. Given that they’re high performers, we look to see Even though we think of Google as being engineers who are
what are their bosses doing differently? kind of self directed, want to work alone, and not be subject to
the supervision of a boss — when a boss can help them with
WHAT THREE THINGS DO ALL GOOD BOSSES DO? their career goals, they’re quite happy to work with a good boss.
The first thing they do is they set the vision — what’s the
vision for this company and how do you personally fit into DOES THE IMPACT OF A GOOD BOSS LINGER?
that vision? That’s what they do for their subordinates. The After you leave a good boss, does the effect of that good boss
next thing they do is drive results. They make sure the teams linger on your performance? You can imagine that if you have
and the individuals are productive and feeling that they’re a good boss and who trains you how to do your job well, you’re
contributing. They would do this by a lot of teaching and going to be productive even when you get switched to a
training of their subordinates, motivating them, those lower-level boss.
sorts of things. We did find that impact actually happens — people’s
The next thing they do is they really manage day-to-day work productivity lingers. Therefore, our conclusion is that in
flows to make sure that the work flow that you’re getting is that study, we could see that one trait of a boss seems to be
commensurate with what it is you’re doing. teaching because you’ve learned something that you carry
with you for the rest of your career. That teaching could be
The last thing is they manage career goals. It turns out that
how to do your job or it could be something like how to be
what is incredibly motivating to an individual is for them to
motivated surrounding your career goals.
have a vision for where their career is going to go. A good boss
will share that vision with them, give them guidance on where But in some way or another, a good boss teaches something
they’re going, and provide them good feedback to help them that lingers. That’s what we were able to show in our study.

11
 As a visiona ry
e a d e r ,
L M
you should be thinking
about more than just
the next quarter.
You should be thinking about
the next decade.
 Mary Barra
Chairman and CEO, General Motors