Empowering The Wolf in Sheep

Three studies explored the possibility that one source of corruption in organizations is the paradoxical human tendency to choose socially appealing leaders who do not necessarily value the welfare of group members. We investigated the relative weight of sociality versus prosociality in leader perceptions, leader emergence, and leader behavior. The results reveal a stark dissociation between the type of leader that people say they want and the type of leader that people actually choose. Although people reported an explicit preference for prosocial over social leaders, they revealed a significant behavioral preference for social over prosocial leaders. Leader choice was mediated by perceived status, such that social individuals were viewed as high status, and high status individuals were preferred as leaders. Prosociality, on the other hand, did not lead to higher status, and actually caused individuals to be perceived as less leader-like. Moreover, social individuals were more likely than prosocial individuals to be power-seeking, self-promoting, and self-serving when they attained leadership positions. Taken together, these data reveal, ironically, that the leaders most likely to be elected are not the leaders most likely to show concern for those who empowered them.