Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [57]
Grove understood the importance of being able to put on a show. As Harriet Rubin noted, “Grove insisted that his brilliant but shy managers attend a seminar they called ‘wolf school.’ Attendees learned how to lean into a superior’s face and shout out an idea or proposal…. If they didn’t feel fierce, they had to pretend.”8
Andy Grove understood three important principles about acting with power. First, after a while, what started out being an act becomes less so. Over time, you will become more like you are acting—self-assured, confident, and more strongly convinced of the truth of what you are saying. Attitudes follow behavior, as much research attests. Second, the emotions you express, such as confidence or happiness, influence those around you—emotions are contagious.9 Walk down an airport corridor and smile, and watch people smile back; change your facial expression to a frown, and you will be met with frowns. A study of emotional contagion and its use in marketing found that when a person smiled, another individual exposed to the smile would be happier and also have a positive attitude toward a product—emotions not only jumped from person to person, but when someone was in a good mood because she had been exposed to someone who was happy, that mood spilled over to other things like items to be purchased.10 Third, emotions and behaviors become self-reinforcing: if you smile and then others smile, you are more likely to feel happy and smile. This reflexive quality in human interaction means that a mood or feeling, once generated, is likely to be quite stable. Grove may have had to act confident and knowledgeable at first, but as others “caught” that feeling, it would be reflected back, making Grove himself more confident.
If acting is important as a leadership skill and for acquiring power, it is important to know how to perform. One principle is to act confident. There are others.
BE AWARE OF YOUR AUDIENCE
Gary Loveman, CEO of the casino company Harrah’s Entertainment, understands that because many employees may see him only once in a year, he needs to be “on” when he is in front of them. Even in momentary interactions, Loveman must convey that employees work in a company led by caring, engaged people they can trust. Even if he is tired or feeling ill, in public appearances Loveman radiates energy and competitive intensity—and this competitive vitality has helped make Harrah’s successful.
You are on stage more than you think, and not just as a senior leader. Morten Hansen, who used to teach at the French business school INSEAD before moving to UC Berkeley, told me that he was sitting in the classroom one day watching some group presentations for his class. He had just come back from a long trip. In addition to watching the groups present at the front of the room, many of the students had been watching him. They noticed that he seemed tired, which they interpreted as not being interested in what the students were doing—and the class let him know. After that experience, Hansen has been much more aware of being on display, even if he is not in front of an audience.
To look engaged in meetings and other interactions, to signal that you care about those around you, put away the BlackBerry, the laptop, the cell phone, and all the other technological gadgets that compete for your time and attention. When you read an e-mail while you are talking to someone or in a meeting, the message you send is clear: I have other things to do that are way more important than paying attention to you. Some people will tell you that in today’s high-technology, attention-deficit-disordered world, people expect such displays of rudeness. People, having witnessed multitasking in their interactions, may expect inattention as the norm. So when you do what IESE business school professor Nuria Chinchilla does when meeting with someone—turn the cell phone off and put it away—the effect is powerful. When you do what the late Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America did—call people on the phone or go meet with them in person