w h at m a k e s a l e a d e r ?
And it follows naturally that people who are
driven to do better also want a way of tracking
progress – their own, their team’s, and their company’s. Whereas people with low achievement motivation are often fuzzy about results, those with
high achievement motivation often keep score by
tracking such hard measures as profitability or market share. I know of a money manager who starts
and ends his day on the Internet, gauging the performance of his stock fund against four industry-set
benchmarks.
Interestingly, people with high motivation remain optimistic even when the score is against
them. In such cases, self-regulation combines
with achievement motivation to overcome the
frustration and depression that come after a setback or failure. Take the case of an another portfolio manager at a large investment company. After several
successful years, her fund tumbled for three consecutive quarters, leading three large institutional clients to shift their
business elsewhere.
Some executives would have
blamed the nosedive on circumstances outside their control; others might have seen the
setback as evidence of personal
failure. This portfolio manager,
however, saw an opportunity
to prove she could lead a turnaround. Two years later, when
she was promoted to a very senior level in the company, she described the experience as “the best
thing that ever happened to me; I learned so much
from it.”
Executives trying to recognize high levels of
achievement motivation in their people can look
for one last piece of evidence: commitment to the
organization. When people love their job for the
work itself, they often feel committed to the organizations that make that work possible. Committed employees are likely to stay with an organization even when they are pursued by headhunters
waving money.
It’s not difficult to understand how and why a
motivation to achieve translates into strong leadership. If you set the performance bar high for yourself, you will do the same for the organization when
you are in a position to do so. Likewise, a drive to
surpass goals and an interest in keeping score can
be contagious. Leaders with these traits can often
build a team of managers around them with the
same traits. And of course, optimism and organiza-
tional commitment are fundamental to leadership – just try to imagine running a company without them.
Empathy
Of all the dimensions of emotional intelligence,
empathy is the most easily recognized. We have all
felt the empathy of a sensitive teacher or friend; we
have all been struck by its absence in an unfeeling
coach or boss. But when it comes to business, we
rarely hear people praised, let alone rewarded, for
their empathy. The very word seems unbusinesslike, out of place amid the tough realities of the
marketplace.
But empathy doesn’t mean a kind of “I’m okay,
you’re okay” mushiness. For a leader, that is, it
doesn’t mean adopting other
people’s emotions as one’s own
and trying to please everybody.
That would be a nightmare – it
would make action impossible. Rather, empathy means
thoughtfully considering employees’ feelings – along with
other factors – in the process of
making intelligent decisions.
For an example of empathy
in action, consider what happened when two giant brokerage companies merged, creating redundant jobs in all their
divisions. One division manager called his people together and gave a gloomy
speech that emphasized the number of people who
would soon be fired. The manager of another division gave his people a different kind of speech. He
was upfront about his own worry and confusion,
and he promised to keep people informed and to
treat everyone fairly.
The difference between these two managers was
empathy. The first manager was too worried about
his own fate to consider the feelings of his anxietystricken colleagues. The second knew intuitively
what his people were feeling, and he acknowledged
their fears with his words. Is it any surprise that the
first manager saw his division sink as many demoralized people, especially the most talented, departed?
By contrast, the second manager continued to be a
strong leader, his best people stayed, and his division remained as productive as ever.
Empathy is particularly important today as a
component of leadership for at least three reasons:
the increasing use of teams; the rapid pace of globalization; and the growing need to retain talent.
The very word
empathy seems
unbusinesslike,
out of place amid
the tough realities
of the marketplace.
100
harvard business review
November–December 1998