The stereotype of a good leader often involves them being fearless risk-takers. Research from Yale explores this trend and reveals that we tend to reward risky behavior, especially so when the situation is a competitive one.
“A lot is already known about what leads to risk-taking—people’s personality traits, conducive social contexts— but the consequences of risk-taking, especially for whether or not these people ascend hierarchies and attain standing in organizations, are very poorly understood,” the researchers say. “That’s what we wanted to explore.”
Risk-taking leaders
The researchers conducted a number of experiments to try and understand when risk-taking garners support for leaders. For instance, risk-taking could demonstrate one’s dominance but it could also demonstrate one’s competence and knowledge. It turned out that both were actually true.
For instance, in one experiment Israeli citizens were asked how they planned to vote in an upcoming election while also rating each candidate on their risk-taking, their dominance, and their prestige among their peers. The results showed that those regarded as risk-takers were also seen as having higher levels of both prestige and dominance. However, while boosts to one’s prestige garnered more support, the reverse was the case with boosts to one’s dominance.
“These perceptions created a bit of tension,” the researchers explain, “as perceiving dominance in an individual typically results in an unwillingness to freely grant them power, whereas perceiving them as prestigious results in the opposite. So perceived dominance undermined people’s willingness to vote for risk-takers, whereas perceived prestige made them more willing.”
Circumstances matter
The key to explaining this is the situation in which people operated. Volunteers were shown a range of LinkedIn profiles of people whose profiles suggested they were either comfortable or uncomfortable with risk. As before, people were asked if they would support that person as a leader or not, but this time the question was framed by circumstances that were either competitive or cooperative.
When placed in a competitive setting, the risk-takers were favored over their more cautious peers. In such a scenario, people placed a lot of emphasis on both dominance and prestige together.
“The dominance route to leadership, which is normally negative and stops people from handing power to risk-takers, shifted around and became positive under competitive circumstances,” the researchers say.
This wasn’t the case in more cooperative settings, where prestige was a more accurate predictor of support than dominance was.
Gender differences
A final experiment then tackled the issue of gender, as stereotypes suggest that women are often more risk-averse than men, which contributes to a perception that they are poorer leaders than men are.
“We know from decades of research that women face a double-bind, whereby we want them to showcase stereotypically feminine qualities, such as communality and warmth, but people don’t typically associate these qualities with leaders,” the researchers say.
The results suggest that no real penalties were seen by women who take risks. People generally responded to them in the same way they did male risk-takers. The general consensus around risk-taking is something that the researchers believe has clear implications for our careers.
“If you aspire to a higher position, then it’s better to not take too many risks in a cooperative setting, as you may come across as overly dominant,” they say. “But in competitive situations, you might strategically take more risks to make precisely that kind of statement.”
