Some people, maybe a lot of people, don’t consciously choose leadership in advance. They are invited to become a manager when they are excelling in their work. The pay and the title are attractive. So, they step into the job without truly understanding what it means. Over time, they may be happy they did accept the role, or they might find they don’t really like the added accountability, the lack of direct control over the results they are responsible to achieve, the constant demands on their time, dealing with human relations issues, etc. Every leader should examine their motives to lead.
Here are the five reasons I’ve catalogued in my observations of human behavior, as to why a person pursues a leadership role and career:
- Higher income
- Desire to have more autonomy and control over decisions
- A desire to help other people and be recognized for that
- Wanting to feel the elevation of status, prestige and advancement that comes with leadership positions
- The job needs to be done by someone, and there’s no one better volunteering
These various motivations to be a leader can be operating singly or in combination. Let’s take a look at each.
Higher Income
It is true that to achieve the higher income levels in most career fields it is necessary to go up the leadership ladder. But that reason loses its appeal after a while because whatever greater compensation is achieved, if there is no other reason behind one’s desire to advance in leadership roles, the work itself becomes less and less meaningful. And it is well-established that once the higher income is in effect, it takes less than a year before the money loses its behavioral reinforcement properties. We get used to the new level quickly. It becomes a “hygiene” factor in our motivation, as the psychologists phrase it: when the money is coming in, we are not dissatisfied. But we’re not actually satisfied. There is no finish line for the motivation of money.
People who work for such a leader are not inspired to sacrifice, serve others, contribute as a team member, or think beyond the dollars. If they stay, they learn to be self-centered, concerned about how much of the pie they are getting and compete with everyone else within the organization.
Autonomy
The motivation of more autonomy and decision-making control is often found to be an illusion. Sure, a leader can make more decisions than an individual contributor, but not a lot more. And those decisions still need willing support from those led to have the decision turn into the expected results. The leader can’t force someone’s hands to move on a keyboard, turn a wheel, create a report, lift a package, make a phone call, etc. And even as a CEO, you know that you are always “reporting” to someone else anyway, whether it’s your customers, your shareholders, your board of directors, regulatory agencies…the list goes on.
Even if you are making a lot of the decisions, that will only limit the ability of your organization to grow beyond your personal capacity. Therefore, the motivation of full autonomy turns out to be a goal that is difficult if not impossible to achieve, if you are leading an organization of more than a few people.
Helping People
The motive to “help” people might sound like servant leadership, but it’s not really aligned with that philosophy, if by “helping” you are creating co-dependency. The “helping” leader is someone who wants to feel of value to others, to be accepted and praised for their support. Employees who enjoy working for a “helping” leader experience less accountability for results and fall into the habit of learning how to need the help. It’s similar to the over-protective parent who steps in to solve problems for their children, preventing the scraped knee or breaking up the tussle before their kids learn to do it themselves. The child learns to wait for help and doesn’t increase their ability to solve their own challenges. This reality is another reason why I don’t like the phrase, “Take care of your people”. For one thing, they aren’t “my” people. I don’t own them. We are equal beings with different responsibilities. Taking care of them infers protecting them from harm and satisfying all their needs. That is a parental way of viewing the leader’s role. This type of leadership does not create true engagement; it creates entitlement and learned helplessness.
Status
A leader who is attracted to “advancing” up the leadership ladder wants the feeling of status and prestige that can accompany the elevation. There are still a lot of organizations who actively appeal to that motivation. Executive offices are on a higher floor in the building. They get the coveted corner office, and the office is bigger than anyone else’s. They get a parking spot that is convenient, while others must walk a quarter mile to the front door. They fly first class while other employees hunker in coach. People motivated by elevation of status can be heard to speak of being the leader with comments like, “The view is better if you’re the lead dog on the sled”.
If that is your motivation to lead, you will be communicating your disdain for people “lower” in the hierarchy simply by availing yourself of the trappings of capitalism’s royalty. And you don’t have to be the CEO to create a negative effect by this motivation’s demonstration. Even a first-line supervisor can behave in a way that says, “I’m better than you are now. I have privileges you don’t have.”
The only people who will happily follow a status-driven leader are those who similarly want the same. If the organization is largely made up of such people, there is constant competition for recognition, access to senior leaders, the next promotion to the next better office, etc. There is no “we”, just a bunch of “me-s”. There are huge companies who still today follow this philosophy of leadership. Some make a lot of money. I wouldn’t want to work in any one of them. I think there are more people who don’t want that kind of environment than there are who do.
Service
The motivation to rise into leadership because it needs to be done, and no one else is stepping up who is better able, is the most objective, selfless and enduringly rewarding reason to be a leader. I say this out of personal experience, and observation of thousands and thousands of people, across all kinds of companies and industries, over nearly 50 years of being a student of human behavior in the context of business. This motivation is the foundation of servant leadership, i.e., being of service to the entire organization by performing the difficult, often thankless role of a leader.
We’re all human. All five motivations apply to all of us, particularly at varying times in our life, at least to some degree. But ask yourself, “Which one of these five motivations to lead is the biggest source of my desire to be a leader?” If you’re not sure, you can ask the people you lead what they think your motivations are. They watch your behavior daily and are likely more capable of answering the question for you than you are. If they feel safe enough to be honest.