Kids on the playground and military generals both know that there are two ways to hold onto power. You either dominate everyone and demand their support, or you get them to like you and offer up their fealty freely.
Those two leadership styles—motivated by the desire for either dominance or prestige—are examined in research from Kellogg’s Jon Maner. Each one has pros and cons, and they work best under different circumstances.
“It’s not that one strategy is good and one strategy is bad,” Maner says. “They both can work in different kinds of organizations.”
And both can work within the same leader. The research shows that most people who have a drive to lead others harbor both skill sets; one is just generally more dominant than the other. The key to effective leadership, Maner says, is to be able to nimbly switch between them.
“Although the two traits are positively correlated, they have very, very different consequences for leadership behavior, often opposite consequences.”
“Part of maturing as a leader is self-insight,” says Maner, a professor of management and organizations. “And a lot of that self-insight involves knowing who you are as a leader and where your skills lie. How can you learn to leverage the strengths of both mindsets while avoiding the pitfalls of each? Because they do each have pitfalls.”