When leaders prioritize their profit against the organizational goal

Abstract

Newspapers and television are full of stories about inappropriate behaviour by political and business leaders published weekly. According to Guinote (2008), an individual's behaviour will be changed when they reach a leadership position, which only a few can control. Many of these allegations, which show the headlines, are related to abuse of power and inappropriate enrichment. Although leadership has been defined as an individual's ability to face a goal, with this ability, they influence other people to follow her/him in the endeavour to achieve the goal (Western, 2019). The study of leadership has been approached from many perspectives. Nevertheless, they do not have the same perception of leadership in North American and European authors, nor between Westerners and Orientals (Western, 2019). Among common themes in the leadership literature, the debate over whether leaders are born or made remains open. Therefore, the chapter on whether circumstances transform an individual into a leader or, on the contrary, their personality make them leader remains open. For example, personality traits have been found to be medium to high heritability, so leadership traits may also be moderately heritable (Johnson, et al., 1998). Ultimately, leadership studies have been based on both the search for characteristic and personality traits (Kirkpatick & Locke, 1991) and what circumstances transform an individual into a leader (Western, 2019). Leadership is not power, since power is the ability to control others activities through any of the sources of power (coercive, rewarding, legitimate, expert and referral) (Hatcher, 2005), and leadership is the ability to inspire people to follow the leader in achieving a goal (Western, 2019). However, both concepts are related since a leader without power does not make sense (Hatcher, 2005). In this doctoral thesis, it is considered that leadership implies power and, precisely, this endowment of power can transform the leader's perception of her/his followers. By the inspiration of the tradition of studies based on personality traits (Kirkpatick & Locke, 1991), we intend to study what personality traits moderate an employee with power (boss) and make her/him act as a leader who seeks to pursue the benefit of the group (company) rather than their personal benefit. Various realms of knowledge have tried to find some explanations for this type of behavior. Either from economic theory with the agency dilemma (Eisenhardt, 1989), social psychology, through the concept of psychological distance (Trope & Liberman, 2003) or from evolutionary psychology, with the search for ultimate reasons of origin of leadership (King, Johnson, & Van Vugt, 2009). For example, the agency dilemma proposes that in a decision-making context, two actors may intervene: an "agent" (person or organization) who makes decisions by a delegation of another actor, a "principal" (person or organization), and whose result affects the principal. According to economic theory, the agent acting on behalf of the principal will be motivated to perform for her/his benefit rather than for the principal, posing a moral conflict (Eisenhardt, 1989). Another theory that attempts to explain the selfish position of those who achieve leadership position come from social psychology that considers social distance, a common concept in sociology, as a psychological distance (Stephan, Liberman, & Trope, 2010). Although it has covered several types of psychological distance, temporal distance is the most relevant for the study of leadership. It affects the interpretation of relationships between people or physical distance to places (Magee & Smith, 2013). In a sense, greater psychological distance becomes mindsets of cognitive abstraction (Stephan, Liberman, & Trope, 2010). Another area that has tried to find explanations for both the origin and development of leadership is evolutionary psychology (King, Johnson, & Van Vugt, 2009). Throughout evolutionary history, leaders play a critical role in achieving goals. Living in a group is full of compromise and conflict, so groups have demonstrated a need for leaders. Leaders use different strategies to solve coordination problems even in ancestral environments, such as group movement, intragroup and intergroup competition (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008; Van Vugt M. , 2006). According to researchers in evolutionary psychology, leaders can use one of the most beneficial ways to inspire their followers, sacrificing their self-interest and personal goals to benefit their followers and organization (Conger & Kanungo, 1987; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Indeed, these types of leaders with sacrificing behaviour have charismatic and influential personality compare to dominant leaders (Choi & Mai-Dalton, 1999; De Cremer & Van Knippenberg, 2004; Van Knippenberg & Van Knippenberg, 2005; Yorges, Weiss, & Strickland, 1999). Consequently, self-sacrificial leaders evoke more positive affect, trust, cooperation, and good performance between their followers (De Cremer, 2006; Van Knippenberg & Van Knippenberg, 2005). There are often conflated status hierarchies and decision-making hierarchies, but it will be helpful to discriminate between them. Leaders have a decision-making position in the group where individuals face problems and disproportionate influence on group decision-making and can prioritize resources in return (Van Vugt M. , 2006). Here in this research, we will consider the transformation process suffered by individuals who achieved a leadership position within a business organization and, therefore, a position of power in a business decision-making context. This consideration will be made both from social psychology and from evolutionary psychology. Although both fields have been developed from different theoretical processes, for two decades, multidisciplinary approaches have been recommended in marketing studies (O’Shaughnessy, 1997). Recently, social psychologists are interested in exploring the effect of the power of an individual’s behaviour; Power is an ability to influence other people and usually based on a position in the hierarchy (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003; Lammers, Stapel, & Galinsky, 2010; Maner & Mead, 2010). Today, in advanced societies, the hierarchical order of social structures is organized according to the merit of subjects that comprise it. Thus, the old structures based on aristocratic origin or family to which someone belongs have changed by social advancement based on merit. High achievers reach higher positions compared to less achievers (Smith, Jostmann , Galinsky, & Van Dijk, 2008). However, the social system does not have to work with great precision in all contemporary societies. What transcends to the community is that individuals who do not achieve positions of power are because they perform imperfectly are less capable or motivated than those who have reached powerful positions (Guinote, 2007). These beliefs, widespread in modern societies, that the powerful individuals reach their position by their own effort, meaning that when an individual comes to a place of leadership with power and authority in an organization, this fact leads to a process of personal transformation that changes the vision that s/he has of herself, her idea of others, followers or subordinates. It begins to see others as pieces that could be used to achieve their own goals (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003; Smith & Bargh, 2008; Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Lijenquist, 2008; Smith & Trope, 2006; Guinote, 2007a). Shreds of evidence have been collected on the mental transformation of individuals who have achieved positions of leadership and power. First, powerful leaders see the futures more optimistically, perceive that they control the destiny and lead them to make risky decisions (Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2009). Second, when individuals exert leadership, they begin to consider others, even former colleagues, differently. For instance, they begin to pay more attention to themselves than the needs of others (Rucker, Dubois, & Galinsky, 2011). They establish a social distance between themselves and the followers or subordinates (Kipnis, 1972) and even tend to ignore other people’s suffering (Van Kleef, et al., 2008). Third, through this process of estrangement and reification, they perceive their subordinates as mere instruments of manipulation to help them achieve their own goals (Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky, 2008). Although the literature praises leaders’ role, some individuals are capable of working beyond their own interest and even take personal costs to benefit their group or organization (Conger & Kanungo, 1987; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Nevertheless, there are many shreds of evidence in the literature that individuals who achieve a position of power are more likely to deceive (Lammers, Stapel, & Galinsky, 2010). In this sense, they tend to act socially inadequately, putting their interest in priority (Gonzaga, Keltner, & Ward, 2008). The classic book “Power, corruption, and rectitude” (Rogow & Lasswell, 1963) mentioned that leaders who exercise power obey two factors: the individual needs of the exaltation of ego and the organization's structure. Personality factors are under the influence of different circumstances; how they grow, their childhood, the type of education and the deprivations they suffered determine how they will use power as adults. And regarding the organizational context, tradition, reputations, and leadership are pointed as factors that encourage or discourage corrupted behaviour (Rogow & Lasswell, 1963). The focus of this thesis is on the effect of power on the behaviour of individuals. Additionally, we want to evaluate different personality factors, exploring what kind of personality traits discourage promoted leader from falling into the temptation to pursue selfish behaviour.