Truth 22. Five Leadership Myths Debunked

With the possible exception of wrinkle removers and weight-loss programs, there may be no subject with more nonsense masquerading as truth than the topic of leadership. Let’s look at five popular leadership myths.

Myth #1. Leaders are born, not made. A prominent myth is that leadership qualities are inherent in the individual: A select group of people are born to lead, while most of us are born to follow. The evidence indicates that genetics does have some influence on leadership emergence. Studies indicate that about 30 percent of leadership emergence can be accounted for by genetic factors. But that still leaves 70 percent to environmental influences. So while a few traits associated with leadership are genetically determined, leadership can be learned. We are not prisoners of our genetic makeup when it comes to whether or not we choose to seek leadership positions.

Myth #2. Successful leaders have common traits. The media are particularly guilty here of looking for and promoting a common set of characteristics they think leaders have. They identify leaders such as Richard Branson, the late Steve Jobs, and Barack Obama in terms such as charismatic, enthusiastic, decisive, and courageous. What does the evidence reveal? A number of traits seem to regularly appear that differentiate leaders from others. They include ambition and energy, the desire to lead, self-confidence, and intelligence. Overall, it appears that these traits are relatively powerful at explaining people’s perceptions of leadership. However, you shouldn’t put much faith in the belief that successful leaders have common traits. Why? First, traits provide no guarantees. Rather than being applicable across all situations, they appear to predict leadership in selective situations. Second, the evidence is unclear in separating cause from effect. For example, are leaders self-confident, or does success as a leader build self-confidence? And finally, traits do a better job at predicting the appearance of leadership than in actually distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders. We can’t say that possessing traits like ambition and self-confidence will predict effective leaders, merely that others are likely to perceive them as such.

Myth #3. Men make better leaders than women. Leadership positions have historically been held by men. As such, perceptions of leadership are often characterized in masculine terms such as strong, aggressive, and assertive. The evidence, however, indicates that men have no advantage over women when it comes to leadership. Since men historically held the great majority of leadership positions, a stereotype developed of leaders that had a masculine bias—task-oriented, directive, unemotional. But as organizations have increasingly become structured around flexibility, teamwork, trust, and information sharing, the male stereotype of a directive leader has become far less pervasive. Organizations increasingly need fewer leaders who use a command-and-control style and more who encourage participation, share power and information, nurture their followers, and lead through inclusion. The most recent evidence suggests that, although the differences are small, if one gender does have an advantage, it’s probably women.

Myth #4. The MBA creates effective leaders. Master’s degrees in business administration are popular and expensive. The U.S., alone, is turning out more than 155,000 MBAs every year. And the price of an MBA is not trivial. The cost of an MBA at a top university now exceeds $100,000. For many fast-trackers, pursuing an MBA also means giving up a full-time job and, typically, an income of $150,000 or more during that two-year period. Given these facts, you’d think there would be substantial evidence that MBA programs are successful in creating leaders. The evidence says otherwise. Little of what goes on in the conventional MBA program helps build effective leadership skills. These programs are great for learning about business, but they don’t train leaders. While they talk a lot about the importance of leadership, actual leadership is learned through experience and practice. And these are areas where MBA programs come up short. As one noted authority put it, “the MBA trains the wrong people, in the wrong ways.”

Myth #5. Leadership always matters. Given all the attention leadership receives—in business schools, politics, the media—you’d think leadership was always necessary for a group or organization (or country) to be successful. It isn’t. Data from numerous studies collectively demonstrate that, in many situations, whatever actions leaders take are irrelevant. Why? There are individual, job, and organizational factors that limit the influence of a leader on his or her subordinates. Characteristics of subordinates such as their experience, training, or indifference toward organizational rewards can substitute for the effect of leaders. Experience and training, for example, can replace the need for a leader’s support or ability to clarify work tasks. Jobs that are inherently unambiguous and routine or that are intrinsically satisfying may require little direct attention from formal leaders. And organizational characteristics such as explicit formalized goals, rigid rules and procedures, or cohesive work groups can minimize the role of formal leaders.