How Does Animal Behavior Affect Leadership?

I’m about to give you the best piece of leadership advice you’re ever going to get.

But you have to promise to hear me out. Because if you don’t let me explain what I mean, this could easily turn out to be the worst piece of leadership advice you’ll ever hear.

Ok. Are you ready? Here it is:

Stop thinking people are special.

Now hang on. Remember you promised to hear me out.

When I say “stop thinking people are special” what I mean is “stop thinking people are special”.

People are human, and humans aren’t special. Humans are members of the animal kingdom, just like gorillas and wolves and chickens. And we act like it, too.

What does any of this have to do with leadership? It’s simple. The better we understand why people behave the way they do, the better we’re able to affect that behavior. And a better understanding of behavior does not, in fact, come from a bunch of jargon related to esoteric concepts.

If you’ve ever taken a class on leadership, or read any work by leadership experts, you’ve likely been exposed to some of these concepts, concepts like Leader-Member Exchanges or optimal matching in a Contingency Model. Fine, I guess. I’m not here to argue that those things are wrong, exactly. They’re just unnecessarily complicated repackaging of what’s actually happening, which is the establishment and maintenance of social influence and the allocation of resources. Let me demonstrate.

Imagine we go out on a trek in the wilderness and happen upon a troop of gorillas. At the center of it all is this really big gorilla. He’s sitting there, comfortably enjoying a large cache of food. Every once in a while another gorilla tries to step in and get some of that food. Additional gorilla #1 gets growled at a little bit but is allowed to pick off a small piece of fruit from the edges. Additional gorilla #2 is threatened as soon as he gets anywhere near the food and runs off empty handed. Additional gorilla #3 is allowed to walk right up and take whatever she wants.

Just from watching this series of interactions, what do we know? We know that the big guy in the middle controls access to the food. We know the big guy is willing to share with the first additional guy, but not so much that he risks giving up his position as the big guy. The second guy isn’t allowed anywhere near the food. That’s a good way to keep that second guy from

being any kind of long-term threat. And the third gorilla? The one who’s allowed to walk right up and take what she wants? Let’s not pretend she gets that privilege for free. If the big guy gives her what she wants now, that’s setting him up to get what he wants from her later.

While the specific context may be different, the logic that we use to understand what’s happening with these gorillas is the same logic we can use to understand what’s happening with any group of animals, including people. Who’s in control of what resources and how do they distribute those resources among members of the group?

Realizing that these basic motivations (to manage resources consistent with the establishment and maintenance of a social hierarchy) underlie people’s behavior can help us avoid falling victim to certain misunderstandings. What kind of misunderstandings? As far as I’m concerned, the misunderstandings that stem from believing humans are somehow exempt from the rules that govern all animal behavior.

“That’s absurd,” I can hear some of you say. “Of course gorillas act that way. But we are people, and are guided by far higher principles than that.”

Oh, ok. Then explain to me why the average male CEO in the U.S. is a full 3 inches taller than the average American man, with nearly a third of them being at least 5 inches taller. I’d love to give you the data for female CEOs, but the sample size is just too small to have any accurate information about that particular group of people.

“Well yes,” you say. “That’s because height is associated with other positive factors, like intelligence and competence.”

Ooh, so sorry. The preponderance of evidence does not actually support that statement. There is, however, plenty of evidence indicating that taller people tend to be more confident in their abilities (about most things, really) and may be perceived as more “leader-like”.

“So you’re saying leaders are only chosen for their roles because they’re tall?” No, of course not. That would be a ridiculous thing for me to say because it’s clearly not true.

What I am saying is that height, and physical formidability more generally, plays a big role in determinations of social hierarchies in humans as well as non-human animals. And social hierarchies in turn play a big role in the collection and distribution of resources. And what is leadership if it doesn’t involve the collection and distribution of resources?

So in your own realm as a leader, ask yourself: what resources are at play and what social influence is being leveraged? Am I rewarding the things I actually care about, like good ideas, hard work, team cohesion, and all those other things our fancy human brains can do? Or am I allowing myself to fall victim to the motivations that have guided the behavior of animals since before people were people?