Psyflex | Group Dynamics

Leadership or power: what comes first?

Are you a leader to enjoy the power it generates, or are you a leader because the power was already in you? In other words, what comes first: power or leadership? This is not a chicken and egg question, it’s serious. We will see how they are interconnected.

Let’s start with a concept from Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler (1870-1937). And just like the famous Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who thought there was a single key feature of human life that determines how people behave – the unconscious sexual drive that secretly rests behind all the decisions we make (according to Freud) – Alfred Adler believed in a key aspect of human life that can be called “domination”.

In any relationship, there is always someone who dominates. Indeed, pure equality between peers is nearly impossible. But it’s more complicated than that as nobody is completely superior than others. Let’s then consider the concept of “multiple intelligence”, first coined by American psychologist Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983). Gardner distinguished at least 7 types of intelligence: linguistic, mathematical, intra and inter-personal intelligences - which we could combine into Emotional Intelligence – and also spatial intelligence, musical intelligence and motor intelligence.

If we were to measure your level for each of these intelligences, we could place them on a grid, compare them and see who scores higher and assign activities, tasks and responsibilities to the most suitable people. The position of leader would change depending on the situation.

Back to Adler, he suggested that our behaviors were the result of superiority and inferiority which are the result of the roles we play. Those roles can be declined in several ways: parents versus children, teachers versus students, government or police officers versus citizens or drivers, employers and employees – the list could go on, we could also include the doctor-patient relationship in which the doctor has the authority and the patient will execute the medication plan and treatment. In this example, the doctor has the skills, knowledge and experience that the patient doesn’t have. He represents the complete authority and has total control and thus, power over the fate of his patient. In this example, then, power is the result of the leadership. In this matter, the doctor can “enjoy” his leadership after having studied many years – a long and exhaustive journey before doctorship.

In Leo Tolstoy’s book, The Death of Ivan Ilyitch (1895) Tolstoy described a top lawyer who has “the power to crush” his clients, but even so, what he enjoyed in his job was that he could “treat them in a simple, friendly manner” and that he “never abused of his power and tried, on the contrary to soften his expression and the consciousness of the possibility of softening its effect, which supplied the chief interest and attraction of its office.”

Here, we have the description of someone with power, but who loves power that he has not to abuse it! Unfortunately, power is not always used in such a charitable way. According to an anonymous author, “power makes people crazy and absolute power makes people absolutely crazy” - this relates to the paranoia that autocrats and dictators sometimes fall into.

Let’s now consider Hofstede’s concept of Power Distance – first coined in 1985. Its definition is the extent to which members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally”. In other words, it is how much people in a society – but also in a small team or in company accept and legitimize the powerful leadership position of the boss.

Let’s take a look at famous American rock metal band Metallica having conversation in the studio. The band leader, in a bad mood, tells the other ones: “Don’t pick on me, I’m in a shit mood!” Lars Ulrich the drummer, however, doesn’t understand why just because the leader in a bad mood, that he should bear the consequences and he argues back. What's interesting is that we also have the reaction of Kirk Hammett, the guitar player, who throws his arms in the air as if saying “Big trouble, don’t piss off the big boss!”

The concept of power distance is observable in this conversation with the drummer having low power distance and the guitarist high power distance.

James Hetfield, the band leader, would be placed on top. Lars Ulrich would be position second, not so far from the land because his power distance is low. Last would be Kirk Hammett who respects completely whatever emanates from the big boss - and even his pissy mood!

This brings us to a concept in psychology called Transactional Analysis. Just like Adler’s concept of superiority-inferiority, this concept, invented by Canadian psychologist Eric Berne offers to visualize relationships through this diagram. Two protagonists are placed in front of each other with their 3 possible "ego states": the parent, adult and child. When two people are reasonable in their conversation, we can place them at the same level as two decent, polite, respectable and equal “adults”. If your protagonist is giving you orders, or telling you what to do, or criticizing you, then they are adopting the behaviour of "adults". Consequenlty, you take, be default, the child ego state.

If you are in a situation when you need help, then you are positioning yourself as a “child”, and according to this model, your protagonist will become, logically, a “parent”. We can use this model to visualize conversations. Back to Metallica, we can see that accepting and acknowledging the emotional condition of the big boss means to act in consequence would mean adopting the “child” ego state, but reacting back at him would mean to adopt another “parent” ego state who has a different point of view.

We may want to acknowledge that this Transactional Analysis model was partly inspired by Freud’s ego structure that includes the Superego, the Ego, and the Id - or "it" - that we could display as in the following picture.

The "superego" is the voice, inside your head, telling to follow the rules, to do what’s good and not do what’s bad. On the other hand, the "it" is telling you not to care about rules, conventions, danger, and just to do things because they are fun. That said, the id could be pictured as the little devil that we often see in cartoons whereas your superego would be the angel.

But the real question is how far each of those forces push you – how much power they give you.

Those forces could be defined as entities - entities that exist beyond you that are the ones that make you do what you do. They consist of interests, desires and wants but are also guided by values, ethics, culture and education. Saying that they are beyond us - and that they are part of culture and education - brings us back the Transactional Analysis model that displays the parent ego state on top.

In religious and especially in Christianity, God is often pictured as a father - as in Raphael's 1518's God the Father. He has a long beard, is old enough to have knowledge and wisdom and he dictates the rules we must follow. He is the ultimate and most powerful leader. But besides, he may be considered as mostly an idea, the idea that makes do what do.

If we were to re-use the Transactional Analysis model as well as Adler’s concept of Inferiority and Superiority, then we would have to add an extra layer, that we could call “Very Superior” and which would include all your visions, ethics, values – your ultimate direction in life – the one you follow and that your followers would thus follow too. It would mean that followers don't follow another person - a leader - but that they follow their leader's direction, idea or vision. What then is your ultimate vision, idea, direction?

Knowing your ultimate direction, like Steve Jobs wanting to create a technological device that would change the world, Ford's desire to create an automobile for all Americans or Kennedy's ambition to "get to the moon before the end of the decade" - sorry I'm only using examples of American people - will generate the power you need to reach those goals and become a leader.

So, the answer to our question is that power comes first, and leadership comes second. Do you agree?