Dr. David A. Waldman
Professor at Arizona State University

The Science of Leadership

We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. David Waldman, a professor of Management at Arizona State University, and the co-author of Leadership of Organization. He is one of the top researchers in the area of leadership and has consulted for a number of companies and governmental agencies. His recent research topic includes leadership with neuroscience methodology, responsible leadership, and technology transfer.

Be a Bold Decision Maker

Sato:

What do you consider effective “leadership” to be all about?

Dr. Waldman:

The trait I associate most with effective leaders is decisiveness, which involves being able to make timely decisions based on principles, or moral clarity, that an individual demonstrates consistently over time. I once read a quote from a CEO who said that the definition of a good chief executive officer is somebody who can make three important decisions in a day, have two of them go bad, and still be able to go home and sleep like a baby. The problem is that some leaders are so afraid that one decision that they might make will not turn out all that well. Because of that they become paralyzed and can’t make decisions. Leaders make decisions, they take action. They have the courage and moral clarity to do that. To some degree, they are risk-takers. Just so you know, it doesn’t mean they have to be reckless.

Another thing you have to keep in mind is that sometimes people use the term “leadership” and other times they use the term “leaders”. I consider those two things differently. For example, the leader of an organization is, let’s say, Joe Smith. That doesn’t mean Joe Smith shows leadership qualities or behavior. It’s a mere position title. Rather, I look at leadership as a process of influencing other people in terms of their behaviors, their values, and their beliefs in the pursuit of some goal or vision. Here, influence must be willingly on their part, not by force. The thing I always like to tell my students is that I could take a gun and point it to your head and say, “Give me all your money”, that’s influence too. I will influence you and you will give me all your money. However, that’s not leadership, but rather coercion. Leadership implies that the people you’re influencing are doing it willingly on their part.

Leaders Who Can’t Lead

Sato:

What are some of the biggest struggles that people commonly face when trying to demonstrate effective leadership?

Dr. Waldman:

The first thing that comes to my mind is a book written by Warren Bennis, an old leadership guru, Why Leaders Can’t Lead. I think the point he was trying to make throughout the book is sometimes people get into a context, a situation, an organization, or an industry sector where the institution itself constricts the behavior of the leader and as a result, they cannot show leadership behavior. Indeed, leadership involves doing things that are bold, different, and not constrained by bureaucratic rules and procedures. Those rules and procedures  are only going to be obstacles for them, like a headwind, to show leadership.

Another struggle is a lack of understanding of how they come across as leaders. In other words, they don’t have a good self-concept and fail to act in a proper way as a leader. To make matters worse, they are often not aware of how they come across as leaders. It’s one of the reasons why good leaders are attuned to feedback that they might get about their behavior, and about how they’re impacting other people.

Be Authentic to Yourself (Even If You’re Not Too Great)

Sato:

In order to overcome the above issues, what habits should we acquire?

Dr. Waldman:

First of all, let me get down to actual behaviors and personal qualities of good leaders.

One thing that I always talk about when it comes to effective leadership is to be authentic. Don’t try to be something that you’re not. I once asked Bernard Bass, a famous researcher in leadership, “Let’s say that I’m authentically a jerk. That is, authentically, what I am. Should I authentically be a jerk in front of other people? Or should I try to hide it?” His answer is, “it’s best to simply do it”. People will figure it out any way that you’re a jerk. So, just go ahead and be authentic and put it out there. As long as you have other good qualities as a leader, you have people’s best interests at heart, and you have ideas and everything else, they will tend to overlook that you’ve got this one fault. The worst thing that you can do as a leader is to portray yourself as something that you aren’t.

Get Out of Your Office and Get Among Your People

Dr. Waldman:

The second principle is to lead by example. Too many people tell others what to do, but they’re not willing to step in and do it themselves. There are times when leaders need to show things by example. They need to maybe even step in and do their subordinate’s work in busy times. It has a symbolic effect when leaders lead by example.

There’s a similar concept I call “Leading by walking around”. Some people who get into leadership roles will issue directives from their office, oftentimes from the top floor of their buildings, and never be among the people that they’re trying to lead. I would say that’s wrong. You need to get out of your office and get among your people in order to find out what’s going on out there. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, was famous for this practice. He went out in his pickup truck to Walmart and figure out what’s actually going on rather than just having reports sent to him. Remember, he was a multi-millionaire, or even a billionaire by that time, but he still took the time to lead by walking around. We start to get the feeling that everything can be done through Facetime, but we still need that face-to-face contact with the people who we are trying to lead.

Sato:

I’ve heard of some similar episodes of very successful CEOs. People who come to my mind are Walt Disney and Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines. If I remember correctly, both are known for putting their people’s names with faces quite well.

Dr. Waldman:

Exactly. The most important thing for you as an individual is your name because that’s where it all starts with regard to understanding you as an individual.

Another thing that I could point to is mindfulness, which means being here now. If I’m talking to you, I should not be not looking up every now and then or going back to my electronic devices. You should focus on who you’re leading at the time, that’s “be here now”.

Another habit that is important for leaders is recognition. I once read a quote from Mary K. Ash, who started Mary K. Cosmetics. In a metaphoric sense, she said everybody has a little sign around their necks saying, please recognize me, and please give me credit. There’s almost no way that you can give too much credit, too much recognition, and too much thanks. And yet, so often leaders forget to give recognition and credit, or they’re so selfish that they just want to have all the credit themselves.

One other thing I would say in relation to what I talked about earlier regarding authenticity. There’s a concept I call virtue signalers, that refers to people who attempt to show other people that they’re nice or have strong values. They try to do everything right in response to the increased pressure to be ethical and socially responsible. However, if the actions of their own actions and the actions of their firms don’t back up their words, that inauthenticity gets discovered over time. This is so uninspiring for their followers, customers, and so forth.

Neurofeedback Training Is on the Horizon

Sato:

What kind of training is effective in demonstrating better leadership?

Dr. Waldman:

First off, for traditional training, one of the things that I like to do is video-based case studies of effective leaders in which you study how leaders at all levels address various leadership problems and how the results their actions turn out. It’s a form of learning through video-based role modeling and allows the people to learn from the experiences of other people.

But training could also could be somewhat nontraditional. One of the forms of training that I’m trying to develop is neurofeedback. This is based on neuroscience and the idea that the source of our behavior all comes from the brain. Yet, traditionally, we didn’t try to get to the brain directly through our training. Now, we have a technology called neurofeedback, which has been around for a while and has been used as a way to help treat ADHD, various forms of anxiety, etc. It’s a form of biofeedback blended with artificial intelligence and involves a computer trainer sending feedback to the brain of the trainee. The analogy I like to use here is that of a professional sport. For instance, if you are a soccer player, you get physical training, specialized training for your position, and get taught various plays of your team. We seem to forget that we need to train leaders as well; but instead of physical training, it’s more cognitive and neurological. It might be on how you do better visionary leadership, or how you show individualized consideration, for instance. Along with my colleague, Pierre Balthazard, we have done research on this topic, and I would say we are close to the new era of training leaders by conditioning the brain through neurofeedback.

AI and Leadership: Look into the Future

Sato:

That’s interesting. Do you have any other thoughts on how future leadership is going to look like?

Dr. Waldman:

Absolutely. I think that leadership is going to have a different look 50 years from now in some ways. I have no doubt that Artificial intelligence is going to come into play. I don’t necessarily see it as threatening, but rather I think it could work to make things better.

There’s a concept called shared leadership in which team members share the leadership role, and I assume that a robot could be part of this shared leadership role. If you have more than one leader in an organization, who’s to say the entities sharing the leadership role have to be human? If you watched Star Trek, they have an android character called Data and he served as an assistant to the human captain of the ship. This is a good example of shared leadership represented in the movie, and it is quite forward-thinking. We tend to think about robots or non-human entities as a threatening thing in that they might take us over, but it doesn’t have to be that way. They could simply assist us. For example, imagine the future where the android undertakes mundane tasks for us that frees up the human leader to be more visionary and strategic because the human leader does not have to be preoccupied with small or mundane chores on a daily basis. That’s the future we’re looking for. I’m going to be revising my book, Leadership for Organizations, to include this topic because of its importance as we move further into the 21^st century.

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of The Way

Sato:

Could you share a message for readers of our media?

Dr. Waldman:

I’m going to leave you with just one thought because I like to take something complex and make it as simple as possible.

I think leadership is a great thing. However, naturally, not everybody wants to lead. That is fine. Some people want to follow. But if you don’t want to do either one, please step aside. Ted Turner, who founded CNN once said, you got 3 choices from which you need to choose. Either lead, follow, or get out of the way. If you don’t want to lead, follow. Be a good follower. If you don’t want to do either, get out of the way and don’t prevent other people who are trying to lead, or those trying to follow. In other words, don’t spend your life being an obstructionist.

Reference:

Zippia. “35+ Powerful Leadership Statistics [2023]: Things All Aspiring Leaders Should Know” Zippia.com. Jun. 29, 2023,
https://www.zippia.com/advice/leadership-statistics/