Beware the alpha leader
The Hay Group Leader looks at how the achievement drive can stall individual and organizational performance

We’ve all seen them before, those colleagues so devoted to their jobs that they are the first in the office in the morning and last out at night. A new term has been coined for them: “extreme jobs.”

A whole concierge industry has grown up around workers who barely have enough time to wash, pick up their dry cleaning, eat and sleep let alone see family and friends.

With workloads more associated with two or even three jobs, these individuals will be indispensable at meetings around the world, operating across multiple time zones, their back-to-back meetings extending into late client dinners.

These individuals form part of a wider trend in executive heroics – long work hours and an exaggerated executive focus on achievement. It is a trend from which business has benefited with productivity and innovation on the rise.

It would be wrong to assume that these individuals are slaves to the corporate world, stressed, burnt out, missing their neglected lives, families, sleep. They see themselves as “winners,” “achievers” bent on building businesses, empires and economies even.

Research indicates that the psychology of these individuals tends to be similar. They are often bold, self confident, occupying leadership positions. For them achievement or “results” is a prime motivation, but so is being in charge – these people will willingly shoulder levels of responsibility, that are daunting to most. It is for these reasons that they are often called “alpha leaders.”

Hay Group consultants Mary Fontaine, Scott Spreier and Ruth Malloy have researched the motives of managers and executives. They took as their baseline, the work of the late Harvard psychologist David McClelland. He identified three internal drivers of behavior. “Achievement” is one and is defined as the intrinsic enjoyment of the pursuit of excellence or improving performance. “Affiliation” relates to the development and maintenance of personal relationships and “power” involves influencing others and having an impact on them. It observed the rise from the mid-1990s in the achievement motive, while the power drive dipped and affiliation steadied.

Numerous organizational and market explanations for this trend have been suggested, however they also note, in their best selling Harvard Business Review article, that the rise in the achievement motive coincided with rises in a number of other McClelland indicators of high achievement including economic growth and innovation.

Not surprisingly the trend in what is known as “extreme jobs” for many spills over into their personal lives. The Harvard Business Review points to the increasing numbers of gyms offering climbing walls and kick boxing classes, as well as the growth in popularity of extreme sports such as skydiving, snowboarding, triathlons and bungee jumping as testament to this.

If not managed, the impact that this level of challenge has on relationships and family life can well be imagined. Yet home life is not the only thing that can suffer, there are implications for the role itself and the quality of leadership it produces.

A persistent focus on tasks and goals can damage performance. Overachievers can be overly prescriptive in their behavior, coercing people rather than coaching them and collaborating. This has the effect of stifling initiative and motivation.

Notorious alpha leader behavior includes taking short cuts and forgetting to communicate crucial information as well as asking questions and then answering them. These managers often either ignore, or are oblivious to the needs of those they work with.

In some cases, as in the case of Enron, the corner cutting can be at the expense of ethics and team working, with the group destabilized and colleagues pitted against colleagues.

The impact that these alpha managers can have on climate is as negative, creating demoralizing and exhausting environments in which to work. They risk missing the very goals that initially spurred them to adopt the achievement oriented behavior through depressing the performance of their teams.

Organizations, knowingly or otherwise, can be complicit in creating a culture which fosters alpha behavior. They sometimes reward what the Harvard Business Review calls “the achievement-at all-costs-mentality.” Understandably, they will recruit high achievers and, as long as they deliver good numbers, cast a blind eye.

While the achievement motivation can bring advantages, leaders who are excessively driven by it and who rely solely on an overly controlling leadership style risk weakening the organization. The best executives take a balanced approach, managing their achievement drive while leading through influence, collaboration and coaching.

Hay Group research had identified six different styles of leadership which are used to manage, motivate and develop people. They are at their most effective when used in combination. You can find out more about them by reading ‘What kind of leader are you?’ in this publication.

For more information go to haygroup.com