Most of my clients are CEOs, and many of them are founders, and they're almost invariably high-agency people who enjoy taking on responsibility and prefer to be in charge. This is consistent with research by psychologist Jerry Burger which showed that differences in the need for control have a significant impact on behavior and attitudes, and that people who score high on this scale are more likely to become leaders:
People with high desire for control were found to have a higher aspiration level, to respond to challenges with increased effort, to persist longer at difficult tasks, and to make attributions for task outcomes that facilitate future striving for achievement. [1]
This is also consistent with David McClelland's "motivational needs theory," which suggests that people are driven primarily by three distinct needs [2]:
- The need for power, or concern "about having 'impact, control, or influence over another person, group, or the world at large.'" [3]
- The need for affiliation, "or the need to be with people" and a concern with "establishing, maintaining, or restoring a positive affective relationship with another person or persons." [4]
- The need for achievement, or "doing something better for its own sake, or to show [that one] is more capable of doing something." [5]
McClelland also studied people's capacity for "activity inhibition," or impulse control, and his research showed that the most successful senior leaders display 1) a relatively high need for power, 2) a relatively low need for affiliation, and 3) a high degree of impulse control, a distinctive pattern that he called "leadership motive syndrome." McClelland found that people who possessed this combination of traits were most likely to obtain senior leadership positions, ultimately outpacing those who merely had a high need for achievement. [6]
But another theme in my work is that our weaknesses are often overused strengths, a concept I first learned from my mentor and colleague Carole Robin. And while a high degree of agency and a desire to exert control can be "leadership superpowers," like all such traits they have "shadow sides." [7] One such shortcoming is a leader's perception that it's their responsibility to come up with the best ideas and solve problems on their own.
Leaders obviously have a special role to play in any problem-solving process, particularly early-stage founders whose visions for the venture may still reside largely in their heads and whose teams may lack sufficient context or expertise to act independently. But when this state of affairs persists, the leader may become a bottleneck, an unqualified decision-maker, or an outdated expert. [8] So if you're sensing that this might be a challenge for you, what can you do?
1. Look in the Mirror (and Ask for Feedback)
A starting point is assessing the extent to which your sense of agency and preference for control might be inhibiting more effective means of problem-solving. This entails being more self-aware of your impact on the people around you. [9] And note that your self-perception almost certainly includes some blind spots, so be sure to ask those people for input. In my first leadership role after business school I was lucky to have a mentor on my Board of Directors who took me aside and gave me this precise feedback. (He also advised me to address it by working with a coach, which was my first exposure to coaching.)
2. Invite Others Into the Problem (Even When They're "the Problem")
I'm not suggesting that you simply delegate problem-solving to others. They may not be ready, and you may be unhappy with the results. But in between A) deciding in isolation and telling people what to do, and B) delegating and hoping for the best, there are a range of alternatives: sell, consult, agree, advise, and inquire, to be specific. [10] I ask clients to consider how they might use one of these methods to "invite others into the problem" as a way to test their readiness and capacity.
This is possible even when other people themselves are "the problem." Another theme in my practice is the ubiquity of interpersonal conflicts between leaders and key stakeholders, from employees to investors. In you're in such a situation it's not possible to delegate the issue, but it's also not necessary for you to do all the work on your own. You can invite others to join you by being overt about your goal of improving the working relationship [11], by giving (and requesting) more candid feedback [12], and by discussing potential differences in your work styles that are likely contributing to the conflict. [13]
3. Foster a Better Problem-Solving Culture
Leadership teams vary widely with regard to their ability to problem-solve as a group, and this is one manifestation of their culture, as defined by management expert Michael Watkins:
Culture is consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations... Culture is [also] a social control system. Here the focus is the role of culture in promoting and reinforcing "right" thinking and behaving, and sanctioning "wrong" thinking and behaving. Key in this definition of culture is the idea of behavioral "norms" that must be upheld, and associated social sanctions that are imposed on those who don’t "stay within the lines." [14]
As the leader you don't dictate the culture, but you have a great deal of influence over it, particularly if you're a founder. So consider the following:
- Do you have the right people in the room or on the call? Optimally your leadership team includes the most relevant and useful voices, but sometimes junior people have vital information and need to be included, and sometimes nominally senior people are just in the way and shouldn't be there.
- Do you have the right people on the team? If there's a persistent mismatch between the composition of your leadership team and the most relevant and useful voices, that may be a sign that it's time for a change. [15]
- Is everyone contributing constructively? Is anyone dominating (including you)? Is anyone being repeatedly interrupted or ignored? As the leader you have to be attuned to these group dynamics, because you're the person who's best-positioned to intervene and facilitate as needed. [16]
- Do people feel free to disagree (especially with you) and to share bad news? This is what we actually mean by "psychological safety." [17]
4. Prioritize and Upgrade Your Own Reflection Time
Involving others in problem-solving doesn't mean you'll no longer engage in solo reflection. If anything, you should be able to devote your individual problem-solving time to even more meaningful and significant issues than before. But it's common for highly responsible leaders to deprioritize this time, to push it to the far corners of their calendar, or to allow it to come at the expense of personal obligations.
Here the key is recognizing that your attention is one of your organization's most precious resources, and it's up to you to be its steward. Very few others will care (or even notice) that your attention is finite, and that any time taken from solo reflection and directed toward other activities comes at a high cost. You have to be deliberate about protecting open space for this purpose [18], and creating the conditions that allow you to do your best thinking. [19]
Footnotes
[1] The Effects of Desire for Control on Attributions and Task Performance (Jerry Burger, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1987)
- This quote from Burger's 1987 paper describes research conducted previously and discussed in detail here: Desire for Control and Achievement-Related Behaviors (Jerry Burger, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985)
[2] For an extensive discussion of each of these needs, see Human Motivation, Chapters 7-9 (David McClelland, 1987). Having developed his "motivational needs theory" around these three drives in the 1960s and '70s, later in his career McClelland suggested that a fourth such drive is the "avoidance motive," characterized by a fear of failure and a need to minimize anxiety and reduce distress (and discussed in Human Motivation, Chapter 10.) However, while McClelland's research on leadership identifies a relationship among the first three needs, he doesn't integrate the avoidance motive in the same way, nor is it included in most discussions of his theory, so I've omitted it here as well.
[3] Ibid, page 271. (McClelland cites a definition made by his colleague and former student David Winter: The Power Motive, 1973.)
[4] Ibid, page 347. (McClelland cites a definition made by his longtime collaborator John Atkinson with Roger Heyns and Joseph Veroff: The effect of experimental arousal of the affiliation motive on thematic apperception, The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1954.)
[5] Ibid, page 229.
[6] Ibid, page 313:
"By way of contrast, those with high n Achievement peaked in their careers [earlier]. The nonlinear trend is significant. The explanation seems to lie in the fact that individuals high in n Achievement are used to doing things by themselves and for themselves... They are able to advance in the company as long as their job involves the individual contributions they make. However, at higher levels the focus on the job shifts to influencing others. The greater success of those with the leadership motive syndrome at this level can be explained on the grounds that they are interested in influencing others (the high n Power score), they are not unduly concerned about whether they are liked or not (the low n Affiliation score), and they are self controlled (the high Activity Inhibition score)."
[7] Superpowers and Shadow Sides
[8] How to Scale: Do Less, Lead More
[9] The Balcony and the Dance Floor
[10] Leadership, Decision-Making and Emotion Management
[11] Better Working Relationships
[12] How to Deliver Critical Feedback
[14] What Is Organizational Culture? (Michael Watkins, Harvard Business Review, 2013)
[15] The Evolution of the Executive Team
[16] For more on group dynamics:
[17] Safety Is a Resource, Not a Destination
[18] Open Space, Deep Work, and Self-Care
[19] How to Think (More on Open Space and Deep Work)
Photo by Mike Dish.
