ENERGY AND PHYSICAL STAMINA

In the so-called information age, a list of individual attributes providing power and influence is more likely to begin with great genius or intellect than with a physical characteristic such as strength, energy, and endurance. But such emphasis would be misplaced, for it is quite often the case that endurance triumphs over cleverness. In a study of general managers in industry, John Kotter reported that many of them worked 60 to 65 hours per week—which translates into at least six io-hour days.¹ The ability and willingness to work grueling hours has characterized many powerful figures. Christopher Matthews, at one time the spokesman for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and now a political columnist and writer, noted that Senator Ed Muskie was able to get things done in part because of his physical stamina:

Lyndon Johnson, too, had enormous energy and physical endurance. The woman who worked with him in Congressman Kleberg’s office reported that he ran everywhere: “. . . whenever she saw Lyndon Johnson coming up Capitol Hill, he would be running.”³ He got to work earlier than the other congressional secretaries, and did not stop for lunch. Although most congressional offices closed by 4:30 in the afternoon, Johnson and his compatriots often worked past eight in the evening.⁴ After his first assistant left her job, Johnson obtained two young men he knew from Texas as assistants, and worked them even harder. Their willingness to put in long hours and expend tremendous effort was motivated by Johnson’s own example:

Robert Moses drove himself and his men equally hard. He would leave his New York apartment at 6 A.M. to catch an early train to Albany if he needed to be there for a meeting with Governor Smith and his advisers. “When the session broke up, usually well after the last train back had left at midnight, Moses would ask Smith for the use of a state car and chauffeur. . . . If he drove back at once, he’d be able to start in the morning.”⁶ Frank Stanton, who rose to the presidency of CBS under William Paley, was another driven individual who worked around the clock. Hard work was important to his success at CBS:

Energy and strength provide many advantages to those seeking to build power. First, it enables you to outlast your opposition, or to use sheer hard work to overcome others who surpass you in intelligence or skill. Second, your energy and endurance provide a role model for others, something that will inspire those around you to work harder. Working long and hard yourself not only shows your subordinates that such effort is humanly possible, but it also signals the importance of the task. After all, if you are willing to devote so much of yourself to the job, it must be worth doing.

In John Gardner’s book on leadership, he wrote, “If one asks people to list the attributes of leaders, they are not likely to mention a high energy level or physical durability. Yet these attributes are essential.”⁸ Without endurance and the ability to persevere, other skills and attributes are not worth as much.

FOCUS

All of us are limited in what we can accomplish. No matter how great our energies or our skills, they are far from infinite. People who exercise great influence tend to focus their energies and efforts in a single direction. All of us, when we were young, probably did the science experiment in which we took a magnifying glass and allowed the sun to shine through it, causing dry grass to catch fire. What that simple demonstration shows is that by focusing the sun’s rays, we can make them much stronger.

The story of Lyndon Johnson is a story of focus, of the single-minded pursuit of a specific goal-the presidency of the United States. Although Johnson was very poor as a youth and wanted badly to make himself financially secure, when he was offered the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an attractive oil deal, he declined, noting that to have oil interests might harm his career. This occurred in the early 1940s; at the time he was a representative in the U.S. Congress. To have oil interests was not likely to hinder the reelection of a politician in the Democratic Party in Texas, where incumbents, particularly Democratic incumbents, were virtually assured of victory.⁹ Nor, for that matter, would being known as a friend of the oil industry necessarily hurt Johnson’s chances of being elected senator from Texas, which, after all, was (and is) an oil state. Only if he chose to run for the presidency might Johnson be harmed by an association with oil. We see, then, that even at this early stage in his career, Johnson was focused on a clear objective and was willing to subordinate other interests to that objective. Johnson’s focus was also evident in his social life.¹⁰ When he went to social functions in Washington he used them as forums to cultivate political connections, thus forgoing the opportunity to meet eligible young ladies. He proposed to his wife on their first date, and many thought he was attracted to her primarily because of her father’s money, which turned out to be helpful in his early political campaigns.

Robert Moses also possessed focus. Throughout his more than 40 years in public life, he was concerned primarily with parks, and then with other public building projects. He did not win elective office, go into national government, or enter business. His power base was the state of New York, especially New York City and its environs, and that is where he concentrated his efforts. He spent all his time thinking about his projects, and his family either participated in activities associated with his work or were ignored. “If he couldn’t get home to his wife and children as much as he would have liked, he brought them to work.”¹¹

In Kotter’s study of 15 successful general managers, he found that they tended to have concentrated their efforts in one industry and in one company.¹² He concluded that general management was not general, and that the particular expertise acquired by concentrating on a narrow range of business issues is helpful in building a power base and in becoming successful. Concentrating your career in a single industry and in one or a very few organizations is also helpful because it means that your energy is not diverted, and your attention is focused on a narrower set of concerns and problems.

During his rise to power at CBS, and after becoming president of the corporation, Frank Stanton was extraordinarily focused on the company and his job. This focus meant that he directed his attention to activities that would enable him to do more and be more effective, and this obviously made him more powerful. The following incident indicates Stanton’s focus on his job at CBS:

One aspect of this focus is an obsessive attention to small details. Attention to detail is critical for getting things done, and it is the one characteristic that is often lacking in students and managers I encounter. Many are too smart for their own good, in the sense that they have so much intelligence and such a wide range of interests that they do not focus on one or a very few things. Effort is wasted by being spread too thin, and more important, details that may be significant in the effort to build power and influence are often overlooked. During his career in the House, Jim Wright understood the importance of paying attention to small details and keeping one’s efforts focused:

Just as focus is helpful in developing power and exercising influence, the absence of focus can hinder even the most worthwhile endeavors. In 1970, Peter McColough, the chief executive of Xerox, knew that Xerox needed to move beyond its copier business. Eventually the patents would expire or become technologically obsolete, and growth in the copier market would slow; hence new avenues for growth and development were required. McColough recognized that Xerox had great strength in research and development, as well as tremendous presence in the offices of America and the world. He also saw, quite presciently, the key role that information would come to play in the economy. He recognized that the office of 1980, or 1990, would look nothing like the office of 1970. His vision for the future role of Xerox was insightful and potentially energizing:

Two things conspired to prevent this grand vision from reaching fruition, and both were related to the issue of focus. First, Xerox was sued by the government for antitrust violations in the early 1970S. The suit, which took years to settle, diverted management’s attention and almost paralyzed the organization’s planning processes. Second, McColough became involved in numerous other activities outside of Xerox:

SENSITIVITY TO OTHERS

Power involves the exercise of influence over others; leadership involves inducing “a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers.” ¹⁷ In this effort to influence others, it is clearly useful to be able to understand them, their interests and attitudes, and how to reach them. This is what I mean when I talk about the importance of being sensitive to others and being a good reader of individuals.

It should be clear that being sensitive to others does not mean that one is necessarily going to act in their interests, in a friendly fashion, or on their behalf. Sensitivity simply means understanding who they are, their position on the issues, and how best to communicate with and influence them. The negotiating context provides a setting in which the importance of this ability is well recognized. In the dispute resolution literature, one of the most common recommendations for reaching agreement is to negotiate over interests, rather than positions.¹⁸ This simply means finding out what the other party in the negotiation really wants and needs, and why, and then, perhaps, accommodating those requirements in ways the person had not even thought about. In order to accomplish this, it is very useful to be able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, assuming his role, for a moment, and seeing the world from his perspective. This is a skill that is often helpful in reaching agreement when there is a potential zone of agreement.¹⁹

Gardner, writing about the attributes of leaders, notes that “leaders must understand the various constituencies with whom they work. . . . At the heart of skill in dealing with people is social perceptiveness—the ability to appraise accurately the readiness or resistance of followers. . . to make the most of the motives that are there, and to understand the sensitivities.”²⁰ Many people think of politicians as arm-twisters, and that is, in part, true. But in order to be a successful arm-twister, one needs to know which arm to twist, and how.

Jim Wright was sensitive. He was “alert to and remembered everything, he could sense a colleague’s needs and weaknesses and what his constituents were like, whom his colleague listened to and how best to approach him.”²¹ Another Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, was similarly perceptive:

And, in the corporate arena, Frank Stanton was a sensitive and adept reader of others, particularly William Paley, with whom he worked for so long. Stanton and Paley had little in common.²³ Paley was mercurial and often fired people without warning. To survive so long at CBS, Stanton needed both to understand Paley and to know how to manage him. “Each used the other for his own ends. Stanton wanted operating control of CBS, and Paley wanted someone to operate it for him while he maintained ultimate authority.”²⁴ And Stanton understood how important it was not to threaten or challenge Paley in public, and to maintain Paley’s feeling of being in control:

Sensitivity to others requires an almost clinical interest in the observation of behavior. It requires not only self awareness, but more important, awareness of others. These skills are not taught in school or in management education courses, except in a few rare instances. At Stanford’s business school, two colleagues offer a course that has come to be nicknamed “touchy-feely.” Using groups, students learn how they affect other people and how they are perceived. For most of the students I talk to, however, the goal of the course is essentially self-oriented—to understand themselves better and to understand how they affect others. Few spontaneously talk about learning how to listen to others more effectively, or learning how to read others. To be sensitive to others requires one to be able, at least for a moment, to stop thinking about oneself and one’s own needs and beliefs. Somewhat ironically, it is this capacity to identify with others that is actually critical in obtaining things for oneself.

FLEXIBILITY

Sensitivity to others is not worth much unless you are able to use that information to modify your behavior. Great salespeople skillfully pitch the same automobile, for instance, as a luxury car for someone looking for prestige, and as an economical choice because of its safety and resale value for someone with a more practical bent. For politicians, flexibility is essential to success. The first requirement for effectiveness in politics is to get in office and stay there, and that occasionally requires adjusting one’s positions to the prevailing climate. As president, Lyndon Johnson showed his willingness to stand up for civil rights. The same Lyndon Johnson who sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and outlawed discrimination in employment, the same Lyndon Johnson who established the Office of Federal Contract Compliance to force federal contractors to develop affirmative action programs, the same Lyndon Johnson who sent federal troops to the South in 1965 to protect peaceful protests of civil rights activists, was a very different Lyndon Johnson in his senatorial campaign of 1948:

For 11 years in Congress Lyndon Johnson, who later passed more legislation protecting blacks, women, and other minorities than any other president, voted against every civil rights bill including an antilynching bill.

Although flexibility sometimes carries a negative connotation, it is a very important characteristic for those who hope to develop power. It provides the capacity to change course and to adopt new approaches, rather than clinging to actions that are not working. Flexibility also helps one to acquire allies, as it is easier to shift approaches to accommodate dif ferent interests. John Gardner noted:

In a television program profiling David Rockefeller, Bill Moyers probed the issue of flexibility. Rockefeller, as chairman of the Chase Bank at the time, was doing business with various countries, some of them totalitarian. One of the bank’s largest clients was the Shah of Iran. Rockefeller had arranged for the Shah to be admitted to the United States for medical treatment for cancer after he was forced to flee Iran, an act that led to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the holding of U.S. hostages for more than a year. How was it possible, Moyers wondered, to do business with someone who was accused of running a police state and of using torture on his political opponents. Rockefeller replied that doing business only with those with whom one agreed would mean having “fewer friends than one would like.” Having connections, having allies, is important for developing and exercising influence. This requires one to do business, literally as well as figuratively, with a variety of people from a number of different political systems, regardless of their beliefs.

One way of seeing the importance of flexibility is to consider a crisis that was created by its absence—the case of Frank Lorenzo and his battle with the machinists and Charlie Bryan at Eastern Airlines. Lorenzo and his Texas Air Corporation purchased Eastern in February 1985, and until its demise in 1990, he carried on constant battles with the machinists, which soon took on the aura of a personal vendetta against the union and their president, Bryan. In the struggle, Lorenzo apparently lost sight of the economic goals he was pursuing, and became obsessed with achieving an unconditional victory:

Lorenzo’s rigidity caused him to lose $365 million per year to save $150 million, and to eventually destroy the airline.

In a study of the personality of people who were politically very adept—so—called high Machiavellians—researchers observed:

The evidence from a number of sources seems clear: flexibility that comes from focusing on ultimate objectives and being able to remain emotionally detached from the situation is an important characteristic that enables one to develop power. Flexibility is particularly important when contrasted with its opposite. It is evident that being rigid hinders the development of support and also inhibits changing tactics and approaches when necessary to achieve one’s objectives. We may not always like the characteristic of flexibility in the abstract, but we quite often like what it is able to accomplish.

ABILITY TO TOLERATE CONFLICT

Power has been defined as the ability to overcome resistance, to get others to do what you want.³⁰ Inherent in this definition of power is the assumption that disagreement is one of the constant realities of the social world. The disagreement may be about the goals to be achieved or the connection between means and ends, or both.³¹ Power, therefore, is exercised in situations in which there is conflict. If everyone agrees on what to do and how to do it, there is no need to exercise power or to attempt to influence others. Because the need for power arises only under circumstances of disagreement, one of the personal attributes of powerful people is the willingness to engage in conflict with others.

Not everyone shares the taste for conflict or disagreement.

The aphorism, “to get along, go along,” is often inculcated at an early age. Many, if not most, people experience conflict as aversive and unpleasant. Conflict is one predictor of stress in organizations. Robert Kahn and his colleagues studied role conflict and role ambiguity.³² They reported that various forms of role conflict—such as differing demands from different persons with whom one interacted, demands that conflicted with pressure from others outside of the organization, and demands that conflicted with one’s sense of self—were all experienced as stressful. To avoid such stress, some individuals will acquiesce to the wishes of others, or will avoid bringing conflicts into the open, hoping that by ignoring them, they will cause them to disappear.

If you shy away from conflict, you are not likely to get your way very often. Conversely, if you are willing to assert your views, and even to behave in a bullying fashion, you can often obtain power in a situation—albeit occasionally at some long-term cost. Being pliable may win you more genuine liking among your co-workers. But it is not the case that those who are the most liked by others for their pleasant personalities are inevitably the most powerful or able to get things accomplished.

Conflict is a form of deterrence. “Deterrence . . . is concerned with influencing the choices that another party will make, and doing it by influencing his expectations of how we will behave.”³³ Deterrence involves letting other people know that if they don’t do what we want, the consequences will not be pleasant—and since many people dislike conflict, being willing to do battle, vigorously, with others over something we want provides a strong incentive for them to go along. Writing about the exercise of power in Washington, DC, Smith reported on an interview with Christopher Matthews, the spokesman for Tip O’Neill when he was Speaker of the House:

Being willing to fight, being difficult, was also a source of power for Averell Harriman. It was something that distinguished him from Chester Bowles, another very intelligent person with a distinguished career in government, particularly in the State Department.

One source of Robert Moses’s power was his willingness, indeed some might say eagerness, to contend with others who disagreed with him. His inclination to engage in conflict was evidenced most dramatically in his struggle with Mayor LaGuardia over the city-operated ferry, the Rockaway, which crossed the East River every twenty minutes. LaGuardia had agreed to mothball the ferry so that the land its terminal occupied could be used “for the East River Drive approach to the [Triborough] bridge and so that the motorists who had been using the ferry would be forced to drive over the bridge instead and pay tolls to the Authority.”³⁶ The ferry, however, had its supporters, not the least of whom were the 1,700 persons who used it each day. They appreciated both its charm and the fact that it was substantially less expensive than the bridge was going to be. LaGuardia attempted a compromise, ordering the ferryhouse turned over to the Triborough Authority, but also saying that the ferry service should continue for 60 days so that the riders would have time to find other means of transportation. Moses, however, did not want to wait 60 days, or any days at all:

LaGuardia was forced to call the police to stop the demolition, and he ordered public works crews to repair the damage that had been done during the day. Caro noted that “On July 23, 1936, readers of the New York Times were served . . . a headline reading MAYOR CALLS POLICE TO HALT RAZING OF FERRY BY MOSES.” But Moses had the final victory as soon as the headlines had faded; on July 31, near midnight, this time with LaGuardia’s acquiescence, the ferry terminal was torn down for good.³⁸

This conflict was over the question of who was to be the ultimate authority in matters having to do with parks, parkways, and bridges, the objects of Moses’s interest. By demonstrating that he was not afraid either of the mayor’s authority or of a public battle with the mayor, Moses was able to win out in the conflict and to become substantially more powerful.

Nor is the taste for confrontation a source of power solely in the public arena. Harold Geneen of ITT was well known for intimidating his managers in the monthly financial performance review meetings. De Lorean tells of a General Motors executive who got his way because he was ugly and mean-looking, and intimidated others. Organizational bullies may get their way simply because others will choose to back down, rather than to stand and fight. The stomach for engaging in conflict, then, provides a source of power in any organization.

Ross Johnson, eventually CEO at RJR Nabisco, demonstrated during his rise through the corporate ranks that he would not shrink from a fight. His willingness to engage in conflict was one source of his influence. The first battle occurred at Standard Brands. Beginning as president of a Canadian subsidiary, he was appointed head of international operations in 1973, a director in 1974, and president and heir apparent to Weigl, the CEO at the time, in 1975. He and Weigl were totally different in style—Johnson being lavish and Weigl quite frugal. Weigl had torpedoed previous potential successors, and now set out to do the same with Johnson. He hired a private investigator to gather information on Johnson’s extramarital affairs and dispatched auditors to go over Johnson’s expense reports. Johnson, however, was not one who readily shrank from a fight.

A conflict ensued in front of the board of directors, during which Johnson threatened to resign (a ploy that was also used by Robert Moses). When the board offered to make him president in another year, Johnson turned down the offer, demanding that Weigl retain only the position of chairman with the proviso that his office not be in the headquarters building. “That bit of hardball brought Johnson command of a New York Stock Exchange company.”⁴⁰

When Standard Brands was merged with Nabisco, Johnson was once again willing to play rough to get his own people installed at the company and to eliminate any competitors he might have for the CEO position when the present CEO stepped down. For instance, Dick Owens was Nabisco’s chief financial officer and apparently at the height of his power, having been made an executive vice president and appointed to the board of directors. But Johnson laid a clever trap for him:

After Nabisco had merged with Reynolds, Johnson again seized an opportunity to gain power through threats and confrontation. Wilson, the CEO of the combined companies, had expended some $68 million on the development of Premier, a smokeless cigarette, without the authorization of the board of directors. When Johnson heard that the board, now apprised of the product’s failure, was unhappy with Wilson, he moved quickly. He told several board members that he was thinking of leaving to head a British food company; as the merger was now complete, his job was over. Several of his allies on the board asked him to delay his decision, and he was soon installed as CEO, with Wilson receiving a generous severance package.

In each of these instances, we see that Johnson was willing to gamble and to fight for a position, on occasion using ruthless tactics. He did not wait to get selected, but pushed hard, and occasionally deposed those who stood in his way. This is not the only way to obtain promotions, and certainly some of Johnson’s behavior was unattractive. But the point is that his willingness and indeed eagerness to engage in combat helped his corporate career immeasurably.

In contrast, the unwillingness to fight diminishes power and influence, and often results in our being defeated by someone who is less fastidious. That is certainly one lesson that can be drawn from Lewis Glucksman’s successful attempt to oust Peter Peterson from his position as co-CEO at Lehman Brothers.⁴² In 1983, Glucksman confronted Peterson and asked him to leave the firm:

Glucksman was right. Having faced medical problems, and not really wanting to run the firm again on a day-to-day basis, Peterson negotiated an excellent severance package, and with that in hand, agreed to turn the firm over to Glucksman. Glucksman won, in part, because he had more stomach for a fight than his opponent.

People who want to be liked by everyone are not prone to engage in conflict. Consequently, people who are effective in exercising power are those who are independent enough to not need approval or intimacy with others.

SUBMERGING ONE’S EGO AND GETTING ALONG

Sometimes it’s important to fight, to be difficult, to make rivals pay for getting their way instead of doing what you want done. At other times, it is important to build alliances and networks of friendship by getting along. People who are able to develop great power often seem to have the knack for changing their behavior according to the needs of the occasion. Ross Johnson of RJR Nabisco was able to ingratiate himself with his bosses at times, and also to fight and move them out of the way at other times. Robert Moses could fight with LaGuardia, but was always the deferential subordinate to Governor Al Smith, the only politician he never called by his first name. The problem in getting along, building alliances, and developing a coterie of supporters is that our ego sometimes gets in the way. Thus, the final characteristic I have identified as a source of power is the ability to submerge one’s ego in the effort to get something accomplished. It is related to the characteristic of flexibility, since it entails the ability to trade present restraint for greater power and resources in the future.

At CBS Frank Stanton not only managed his relationship with William Paley masterfully, he also managed his relationships with other senior executives. Stanton was superb at acquiring and using power without lording it over his subordinates:

Stanton’s consideration won the loyalty and support of many at the corporation. He was able to do these things because he did not feel that by building up others, he was tearing himself down. He was secure enough in himself to submerge some of his own status and to improve the prestige of others in the organization—who then were bound to him with loyal gratitude.

The ability to submerge one’s ego to build support is an important source of power. The case of George Shultz and Casper Weinberger as executives in the Bechtel Corporation shows contrasting instances of the ability to build support by treating others as equals.

George Shultz joined Bechtel as a senior executive in charge of the Mining and Metals division in 1974, following the unexpected death of Raphael Dorman, a brilliant and popular executive with the firm. Shultz was an outsider, and his appointment broke a long-standing company tradition. “As with the military, Bechtel executives, including Steve junior, worked their way through the corporate ranks, one painstaking rung at a time.”⁴⁵ Not only was Shultz an outsider, but he was a nonengineer in a company dominated by engineering. He came to Bechtel from the position of secretary of the Treasury, and he had a long and distinguished career in government and in academia—but he was still an outsider. He would have to build a power base, and do it quickly.

Shultz went out of his way to set aside his status and power and to win the support of people in the company. He was unthreatening, and took time to talk to people, including secretaries, clericals, and whoever else was around. He “scored more points by downplaying his status, through such symbolic measures as choosing an Oldsmobile for his company car rather than the Cadillac to which he was entitled.”⁴⁶ He went through a crash course presented by the division’s senior engineers in the operations of the division. When people played jokes on him, or teased him, he reacted with good humor.

Shultz was also very helpful, of course, with the company’s overseas clients, with Bechtel’s contacts in Washington, and with business clients in the United States. In about a year, Shultz became president of the Bechtel Corporation. A lot of his success came from his acceptance within the organization and his consequent ability to get internal people to work with him and carry out his plans.

Just six weeks after George Shultz became company president, the former Health, Education and Welfare secretary, Casper Weinberger, joined Bechtel as its general counsel. Although they had both served in the Nixon cabinet, Shultz and Weinberger were not close, and indeed, Weinberger had resented Shultz’s influence in the administration. Weinberger had two immediate problems. First, he was replacing Bill Slusser, one of the best-liked executives in the company. Second, the timing of his arrival was bad. “As the second outsider to join Bechtel’s tight-knit senior management team in less than a year, he became the focus of the resentment that had been building since Shultz’s appointment.”⁴⁸

Weinberger’s imperious and aloof style made these problems worse:

He hired a host of lawyers to augment Bechtel’s outside counsel, who had worked for the company for 40 years. To tighten up the legal department’s loose operating style, he hired another outsider, Virginia Duncan, who was very much in his own image. “ ‘She ran the department like a butcher shop,’ groused one Bechtel observer. ‘You took your number and you waited your turn.’ ”⁵⁰ As Bechtel lawyers began leaving the firm in large numbers, Weinberger’s support in the firm eroded even further. Anxious to get back to Washington and having few friends or supporters at Bechtel, Weinberger jumped at the opportunity to become secretary of defense in the Reagan administration in 1980.

SUMMARY

The six personal traits discussed in this chapter are, of course, not the only ones that may be sources of power in organizations. However, as we think about the characteristics that provide people with power, we need to keep in mind that organizations almost invariably are characterized by interdependence, and frequently are arenas for competition and conflict among both individuals and subunits. For that reason, it is logical that attributes that are related to the capacity to garner support and allies—for example, sensitivity, flexibility, and being able to submerge one’s ego when necessary—are important sources of power. And similarly, attributes that are related to the ability to survive in a competitive arena—such as focus, energy and stamina, and the willingness to engage in conflict—are also significant sources of individual power.

One way to evaluate characteristics as sources of power, then, involves assessing the extent to which they solve the two critical problems that confront individuals seeking to become powerful in organizations—namely, garnering support and triumphing in competition. As situations change, and cultural norms vary, what it takes to win support and to compete effectively will likewise vary. But in most countries and situations, at least at present, these characteristics seem to be important individual sources of power.