The Ladder of Leadership - by Zeke Hernandez
I met Allison Davis-Blake when she was the dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. This was her first role as the top leader of an academic institution, after many years as a distinguished professor. I’m going to share parts of a story that she related in another setting, though my interpretation and application of her story are entirely my own.
Just a few days into her role as dean, IT security dramatically stormed into her office. A young woman in her staff had abused her position and “posted confidential university information on the internet… things that were highly sensitive and … [illegal] to post.” Allison had never met the young woman, nor had she ever faced anything like this before.
Given the nature of the issue, lawyers got involved. Both sides adopted a legal strategy of threats and pressure. The university needed the young woman to return the sensitive information and to know the full extent of the leak. To accomplish that, the general counsel threatened “prosecution to get [the] young woman to crack.” The woman’s attorney threatened to countersue and expose the university’s secrets. During the meeting, Allison saw the young woman for the first time and noted that she had a terrified look in her eyes. Things ended at an impasse. In the ensuing days, the university’s attorney harshly warned Allison “not to have any contact with [the] young woman.” Lacking experience in those types of matters, Allison was inclined to trust the advice of the more seasoned university attorney.
One day, the young woman’s former colleagues appealed to Allison, expressing their belief in the goodness of the young woman despite her mistake. They encouraged Allison to intervene. Allison wondered what to do and kept “thinking about that young woman’s face and those fearful eyes.” She sat in her office for hours and hours wondering what to do.
This represents a serious leadership challenge. Whatever decision you’d make if you were in Allison’s shoes has far reaching consequences for the university, for the young woman, for Allison’s legitimacy as a leader in the eyes of her subordinates and in the eyes of her university superiors, and much more. If you’ve taken a leadership class, chances are that you’ll start digging into the traditional toolkit of techniques pertaining to motivation, persuasion, communication, etc. In other words, you’re likely to frame this as a problem of leadership effectiveness.
But I strongly believe that there’s a much more important issue at stake here. And it has little to do with leadership effectivness.
Instead, it has everything to do with leadership motivation. Because the motivation that drives you to lead will have a bigger impact on what you do next than any kind of technique or skill.
Before going back to Allison’s story, let me introduce a hierarchy of motivations to lead. The hierarchy is based on my own experience and observation more than on primary research, so please take it with a grain of salt. I’ll move from worst to best motive. I like to think of it as a ladder with progressively better motives as you move up.
5. Power
Many leaders are motivated by a thirst for power. These are the type of people who like to tell others what to do and see them do it. They love the sense of being in charge for its own sake. You’ve probably had bosses like this. You might even carry some trauma from the experience of being led by a power-hungry individual. Such leaders can be good at getting things done. But they are fundamentally selfish, and their influence disappears the moment they stop exerting leverage over others.
4. Reward
Other leaders are motivated by a desire for a personal reward. It might be money, the corner office, social status, or something else. They fall in love with the position because it represents another badge of achievement. You’ve probably also had bosses like this. You might have talked behind their back about how everything is about them instead of the team or the organization. These leaders can be effective if collective outcomes align with their self-interest, but that’s not always the case. They are also fundamentally selfish, but for a different reason that power-driven leaders. Their influence also evaporates the moment they aren’t in the position because they leave nothing behind that transcends their fleeting presence.
3. Duty
The previous two motives are self-centered. Duty is a better motive because it’s the first involving a sense of otherhood. Leaders who serve out of duty tend to be loyal to the organization of the people who’ve asked them to fill a position. They show up and do their job competently. But they’re a bit like the bureaucrat at the DMV who follows procedure well but doesn’t do much else. In other words, they’re not very inspiring. Like power- and reward-driven leaders, they don’t leave much of a legacy behind once they clock out.
2. Cause
In contrast, leaders driven by commitment to a cause can be massively inspiring. These leaders can articulate a vision and move others to exert incredible effort to acheive that vision. These leaders often leave powerful legacies behind because causes outlive individuals. Which begs the question: why isn’t a cause the highest motivation on the ladder? I can think of at least two reasons. First, not all causes are good. We can all think of historical figures who were powerful advocates of horrific causes. Many of those leaders were effective, no doubt. But they left destruction and hatred as their legacy. Second, even if a cause is good, it can be used as an excuse to justify questionable means of acheiving it. I’m not saying that cause-driven leaders are inherently or always bad. There’s a reason it’s near the top of my list. But I believe there’s an even higher motive which encompasses the good parts of the cause motive but transcends it.
1. Love
I know, I know. Love is a cheesy word. But now that you’re done rolling your eyes, let me explain. I refer to what the greeks called “philos” or what in English is often called fraternal love (as in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love). A leader motivated by love is focused primarily on the long-term development and wellbeing of those they serve. That kind of love isn’t weak or unwilling to challenge others. It doesn’t shy away from difficult conversations that could help someone develop new skills or perform better. As a leadership motivation, it’s obviously superior to power and reward because it’s other-focused. It’s much more inspiring than duty because it motivates the leader to go beyond the minimum requirement to actually help people become better than they currently are. And it’s consistent the best parts of cause-driven leaders while ruling out causes or means to acheive causes that produce harm to people inside and outside the organization. Love-driven leaders not only are effective. They also leave behind a legacy in which subordinates and organizations are permanently stronger than before. You can thus tell a love-driven leader by what happens when they aren’t around.
These motives aren’t mutually exclusive, but they do progressively encompass the best aspects while eliminating the worse aspects of the lower motives. And, obviously, none of us is always motivated by the same thing all the time. We move up and down the rungs of the ladder depending on our mood and other complicated circumstances.
Now let’s get back to Allison’s story. What decision would each of the motives in the ladder suggest?
If Allison had been motivated by power, the choice would’ve been easy. Ignore the pleas of her staff members and crush the young woman. Use all necessary pressure to contain the leak of sensitive university information and get back whatever else the young woman had taken. And fire the culprit, of course.
Had Allison been motivated by personal reward, the choice would probably have been similar to the one driven by power. As a new leader, this could’ve been seen as a chance to establish her credibility and effectiveness in the eyes of her superiors at the university. Which would lead to prioritizing the interests of the university in containing the leak. Whatever happens to the young woman is irrelevant.
A nobler motivation would’ve been to act out of duty. Allison’s role was to represent the university’s interests. So clearly she would fire the young woman, do whatever was necessary to contain the leak, and meet her legal obligations. Task completed, clock out.
The choice arising out of a cause-driven motive is harder to predict. It depends on the cause or principle Allison cares about the most. To keep it simple, let’s consider two possibilities. One of them is the cause if justice. A crime was clearly commited. Justice dictates a punishment. So fire the young woman and contain any further leaks (or injustices). A totally different cause is that of mercy or kindness, which Allison’s staff were asking her to prioritize. That would mean being lenient with the young woman; but what precedent would that set? This is why causes by themselves are tricky.
In this situation, however, Allison acted out of love — at least in my opinion. Let’s go back to her own retelling to see why.
After sitting in her office for hours, wondering what to do, Allison made a choice. Against the strongly worded advice of the lawyers, she picked up the phone and called the young woman. After listening for a long time, she learned that the young woman “wanted to … go to graduate school, and she was very fearful of having a termination for cause on her record.” In Allison’s own words: “So I said, alright, there is a way for you to get what you want and for the university to get what it wants. And I could not believe what was coming out of my mouth [in light of the university attorney’s warnings]: … you come in tomorrow morning… and I’m gonna go down with you to the general counsel’s office, and I’m gonna sit there beside you … and I’m gonna ensure that he doesn’t do anything that’s very scary. We’re gonna work this out.”
The young woman showed up the next day. They walked across campus together to the general counsel’s office. The meeting was pleasant and efficient. The young woman disclosed everything and was terminated. No prosecution was needed.
Years later, the young woman contacted Allison to express how much she learned from the experience and to ask Allison to serve as a reference so she could sit for the bar exam. Allison gladly agreed. Today, the young woman has a successful career as an attorney.
Allison refers to the experience as “the very best day of work I’ve ever done, bar none.”
When it comes to being a leader, you’ve learned many techniques to help you communicate, motivate, and achieve results. We teach many of those at Wharton and you can buy countless airport books promising to teach you more of them. But those techniques matter less than what motivates you to lead. If you’re in it for power, personal reward, simple duty, or to advance your ideals, your motivations are selfish and inward-looking. You may get things done and serve the interests of your organization, but little else. In contrast, an outward motivation leads you to define success by how you serve others. It allows you to both get things done and leave a legacy that will long outlive you. And that’s the real purpose of leadership.
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