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A clash between our contemporary expectations and our evolved psychological preferences inevitably puts leaders in a bind, causing cognitive dissonance and distress. The solution is viewing leadership as a performance, which has implications for how leaders comprehend their role, how they see themselves, and how they learn and grow.

Most of my coaching clients are in prominent leadership positions, and a theme in my work with them is addressing the stress or discomfort they feel when fulfilling certain aspects of their role. For some this occurs in formal settings before an audience--addressing their employees at an all-hands, giving a keynote address at a conference, or pitching investors in a boardroom. For others it happens in more spontaneous interactions--closing a prospect or a potential employee, delivering critical feedback to a report, or facilitating a conflict among members of their team. Whatever the context, at one time or another most leaders have the sense of being observed and assessed on the basis of their ability to fulfill a wide range of expectations, which can trigger uncomfortable emotions ranging from mild self-consciousness to a deeper sense of inadequacy. Before considering how to address these concerns, let’s explore their origins.

Contemporary leaders are constantly at risk of being caught in a trap. They must operate within two co-existing yet conflicting frames of reference: our outwardly professed preference for equality and effort, and, alternatively, our often unstated--at times subconscious--preference for hierarchy and innate ability. We say we want egalitarianism, flat organizations, and post-heroic leadership. We also claim to value people whose achievements are the result of striving and hard work over those with inborn talents. These sincere desires are important accomplishments of the modern era, reflecting centuries of collective effort to establish more a more just and enlightened social order in which we organize ourselves and assess our achievements on the basis of rational principles. And yet research suggests that preferences for hierarchy and innate ability are deeply rooted in our evolutionary psychology. Our modern preference for egalitarian, effortful leadership is self-evident, but a better understanding of our historical preference for hierarchical, natural leadership requires a brief discussion of this research.

On Hierarchy

Hierarchy has fallen from favor in current thinking on social structures, but Stanford professors Deborah Gruenfeld and Larissa Tiedens (now president of Scripps College) make the case that hierarchy is inevitable:

Despite the fact that people do not acknowledge a preference for hierarchy, such a preference can be inferred from behavioral patterns... The strongest piece of evidence is simply the regularity with which this form of organization is produced... When scholars attempt to find an organization that is not characterized by hierarchy, they cannot... Even in modern American business settings, in which hierarchical structures and cultures are not at all in favor, people consistently choose hierarchy over its less preferable alternatives... In sum, the production of hierarchy is a central and omnipresent component of organizing... Hierarchies thus become unavoidable even when people seek greater equality. [1]

Gruenfeld and Tiedens aren’t justifying or rationalizing hierarchy, and they cite a complex set of both positive and negative effects that result from hierarchical structures in organizational life, but they clearly demonstrate its persistence as an organizing principle, despite being “not at all in favor" in the current cultural climate.

On Ability

In 2002 Malcolm Gladwell addressed the annual convention of the American Psychological Association and proposed that humans have a “naturalness bias,” a preference for abilities and talents that we perceive as innate over those that appear to derive from effort and experience. As described by health and science journalist Bridget Murray, Gladwell noted that "On some fundamental level we believe that the closer something is to its original state, the less altered or adulterated it is, the more desirable it is." [2] He invited the assembled researchers to explore this concept further, and in 2010 Harvard psychologists Chia-Jung Tsay and Mahzarin Banaji published their results:

Our findings show that given identical performances, expert participants preferred the natural, contradicting their expressed beliefs. This contradiction highlights the hidden nature of the naturalness bias, at least in a culture such as the contemporary American society, where conflicting messages about the relative importance of inborn versus learned achievement are present. [3]

Tsay pursued this research further in a 2015 paper, "Privileging Naturals Over Strivers: The Cost of the Naturalness Bias":

Upon reading about entrepreneurs with equivalent levels of achievement and hearing identical business proposals, participants judged the natural as more talented, more likely to succeed, and more hirable... This study demonstrates a preference for the natural even in a domain in which it is widely believed that striving and hard work are responsible for success... [A preference for] naturalness may be a built-in bias from our evolutionary past that sneaks into decisions even in the presence of a genuine and conscious belief in the importance of striving. [4]

Note the parallel with Gruenfeld and Tiedens’ perspective on hierarchy: Even as we profess a preference for strivers, we exhibit a preference for naturals.

Leadership as Performance

The dynamics described above pose a tremendous challenge for contemporary leaders, who must find a way to fulfill contradictory sets of expectations in both of these domains. Our modern consciousness wants leaders who acknowledge and respect our desire for equal treatment and who have earned their position by virtue of hard work and effortful striving. At the same time our atavistic psychology wants leaders who act authoritatively from atop a hierarchical structure and who possess an inborn talent for charismatic command.

The inherent contradiction within these desires inevitably creates cognitive dissonance for today’s leaders, a state that is heightened for those who lack experience or who operate in environments where these tensions are particularly acute (such as early-stage technology companies, which often have strongly egalitarian cultures.) Cognitive dissonance—the experience of holding two contradictory beliefs, or of taking action in opposition to a sincerely held belief—is deeply distressing for human beings, and yet it is an entirely predictable by-product of our current attitudes toward leadership. It’s no wonder that so many leaders I see in my coaching practice often wrestle with the feelings of self-consciousness and inadequacy that I describe above. So what can leaders do? If such distressing responses are unavoidable at times, how can leaders manage them more effectively? The key is viewing leadership as a performance, which has implications for how leaders comprehend their role, how they see themselves, and how leaders learn and grow.

Leaders’ View of Their Role

Viewing leadership as a type of performance allows leaders to manage the expectations placed upon them more effectively, and to see aspects of their role more clearly. Consider the range of activities that we commonly identify as “performances”: an actor’s portrayal of a character, an athlete’s actions in a competition, a musician’s interpretation of a song. All of these activities occur within a set of conventions, and yet they also involve substantial fluidity and improvisation. The best performers navigate these conventions dynamically, at times adhering to expected norms, and at other times challenging or even subverting them.