Not every company has an Iron Man, but many have a Tony
Stark
New Research says “Having a Tony Stark in the Office Is
Fine as Long as You Hire a Pepper Potts”
Not every company has an Iron Man, but many have a Tony
Stark -- a highly powerful, intensely-focused individual who often ignores risk
in order to achieve his or her goals.
That's usually a good thing -- as long as companies make
sure to also hire a Pepper Potts to keep their powerful leaders grounded,
according to new research co-authored by a BYU business professor.
"Organizations need to anticipate the tendency of
their most powerful members to leap without looking," said study co-author
Katie Liljenquist, a professor of organizational leadership at BYU's Marriott
School of Management. "The remedy is to surround them with people who can
see other angles, or can play a devil's advocate role to point out risk.
Interestingly, it is the low-power members of the organization who are best
equipped to do this."
The study, appearing online ahead of print in the Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, found that powerful people are less likely
to see constraints in pursuing their goals. Meanwhile, their low-power
counterparts are more aware of the risks around them.
Liljenquist says the phenomenon mirrors the animal
kingdom: Predators have evolved to have an extremely narrow eye focus for
tracking prey, but this compromises their peripheral vision.. Meanwhile, prey
animals sacrifice such visual focus for more sensitive peripheral vision that
tracks movement and potential threats in the surrounding environment.
"In business settings you need both,"
Liljenquist said. "You need the people with that unfettered confidence and
optimism and the willingness to take big risks, but you need those low-power
individuals who say, 'Hey wait a second. Let's identify the pitfalls.'"
The study included two experiments, the first of which
measured how power affects memory for goal-facilitating or goal-constraining
information.
In that experiment, participants were given a goal, such
as traveling to the Amazon, and were then primed with a set of statements about
the new venture. Half the statements were goal-constraining ("You are
afraid of some of the native animals") and half were goal-facilitating
("You have prior experience visiting jungles").
Researchers found that high-power participants recalled
less goal-constraining information than low-power participants.
The second experiment asked participants to finish a
fairy tale about a king and his princess daughter. The results showed that
powerful people don't even conceive of threats when they create imaginary
narratives.
Donald Trump is a perfect example of a leader whose
confidence guides business decisions. During the first season of his reality
show, The Apprentice, Trump offered the winner a chance to manage the
construction of the Trump Tower in Chicago -- even though the tower hadn't been
fully approved yet.
"Trump didn't even have clearance to build that
tower yet," says study lead author Jennifer Whitson. "It was that
incredible confidence. He didn't have all his ducks in a row yet, but he acted
-- and it worked out for him."
Liljenquist said that failure to consider constraints can
carry weighty repercussions -- such as the housing market crises and bank
failures of 2008 that caused the worst economic recession since the 1920s.
"Although blindness to constraints may make the
powerful more willing to pursue their goals, their willingness to leap before
they look may also sow the seeds of their own fall and the fall of those who
depend on them," she said. "Power often perpetuates itself and can
lead to great things, but when powerful people are blind-sided by unexpected
challenges, they may crash and burn."
The 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle disaster is a classic
example of how power can be blinding. On that fateful day, powerful individuals
doggedly pursued launch while ignoring the low-power employees who tried to be
a voice of warning about the possibility of mechanical failures.
The study was led by Whitson, an assistant professor of
business at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.
Other contributing researchers are from Columbia University, New York
University, Stanford University and the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Liljenquist's business research, which includes this
study on how people are unconsciously more fair and generous when they are in
clean-smelling environments, has been featured multiple times by Time and other
national outlets.
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