Stereotypes or headlines generated by mercurial CEOs shouldn't be mistaken as evidence that impulsivity leads to power, a new study finds.
In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers set out to better understand how perceptions of high and low self-control influence how power is perceived and accrued. Self-control is defined as the degree to which individuals act in accordance with their objectives.
Media headlines and fictional accounts of CEO leadership often link low self-control to disinhibition and associate it with greater power, a notion the researchers' work largely defied. Across seven experiments with approximately 3,500 participants, those with high self-control were consistently viewed as more powerful and deemed more suitable for positions of authority compared to those with low self-control.
"A meta-analysis of our mediation results showed that people perceived individuals higher in self-control as more assertive and competent, which was associated with greater power perception and then with greater power conferral," the authors, from UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, wrote.
The experiments varied. In one focused on goal-setting, a group of undergraduate students interacted with individuals who set different reading goals. Some set an ambitious goal of reading 200 pages per week, while others set a more moderate goal of 50 pages per week. In the end, each read about 100 pages, the same amount, but study participants perceived those who didn't meet their goal as less powerful and less fit to serve as a leader in later group projects.
"It did not matter whether the colleague seemed to deliberate before acting, or just acted without thinking," said Pamela Smith, study co-author and associate professor of management at the Rady School of Management. "What mattered for participants' judgments was whether the colleague acted in line with their goals. This pattern held across a variety of goals in our experiments, including saving money, being healthy and reading books."