The Professor and the Demagogue

Stardate 99592.99.* Who would you prefer to captain the starship Enterprise? Charismatic James T. Kirk or Analytical Vulcan Spock?

You might be surprised to know that a heavy game-theory-laden article addressing this question was published recently: “At the Helm, Kirk or Spock? The Pros and Cons of Charismatic Leadership” by Benjamin Hermalin.

In our ‘superstar economy’ era, the Kirks seem to get widespread exposure. You don’t hear much about the Spocks – wonky low-profile folks who can’t seem to fan up any flames of enthusiasm. In my own area, higher education, I increasingly observe that leadership searches implicitly or explicitly prioritize charisma. Kirks rather than Spocks get the top jobs, and increasingly so.

Would the typical space-cadet prefer to have Kirk or Spock as captain? As you might have guessed, the answer is “it depends”. Hermalin’s article explores (1) why charisma is viewed as a positive attribute in leaders, and (2) why charismatic leaders don’t always do well. The game theory formulation is dense (to a neophyte like me) and the typical reader will be bogged down by equations, propositions and lemmas. I won’t go into any of those details, but instead highlight some of the interesting conclusions from the model.

The main point: There is a tradeoff between inspiring your followers and giving the hard facts in a challenging situation. Hence, a leader needs to make a choice between when to provide more information and when to dial down the information and give more inspiration instead. When times are good, charisma matters much less. Everyone’s happy hearing all the positive-sounding facts. But when times are bad, it gets trickier. Hermalin explores the calculus that a savvy leader (one who knows the hard facts) and is able to maximize the highest output by figuring out the balance between inspiration and information.

But that’s an ideal situation. We all wish our leaders, or we ourselves, are ideally savvy. Hermalin then explores two polar opposites: The professor is either a low-charisma leader or one who rarely utilizes emotional (inspirational) appeals, and therefore mainly opts for the information approach. (A low-charisma leader utilizing inspiration almost always is viewed suspiciously.) On the other hand, the demagogue does not have good access to the facts, and can only make emotional appeals. Interestingly, ‘rational’ followers, i.e., those who recognize when someone is making an emotional appeal and not providing many facts, are less suspicious of a higher charisma leader who often makes emotional appeals compared to a lower charisma leader. Thus, in a challenging situation, it seems that having a charismatic leader potentially leads to better (productivity) outcomes.

In contrast to the rational followers, ‘emotional’ followers fall into different categories and may respond more positively or more negatively to the demagogue. The article goes through the different possibilities in more detail, but then comes to the conclusion that a highly charismatic demagogue will tend to outperform the professor, while a less charismatic demagogue may elicit a weaker outcome than the cold hard facts approach of the professor. This is scary, because it suggests that from outward appearances, highly charismatic demagogues will outwardly be perceived as more effective – and we might expect to see such types increase in leadership positions of highly complex organizations.

Why is this potentially dangerous? Hermalin’s analysis suggests that “a highly charismatic leader is tempted to substitute charm for action… less likely to learn relevant information and, on certain margins, works less hard…” to the detriment of the organization. While the real world is certainly full of nuances and complexity that may not be captured by Hermalin’s ultra-theoretical model, his broad conclusions don’t seem far-fetched. But this may be a “that’s obvious” response from a casual reader.

In a leadership role, my core personality and approach fits well with the professor category. I can turn on the inspirational charm when I think it’s absolutely needed, but am very reluctant to do so because I find it emotionally draining. I’d like to be more of a savvy leader; I have a lot more to learn in this regard. As a follower, I’d like to think I’m particularly skeptical of demagogue leaders, but this article made me consider that I should pay attention to the charisma-level of a leader and how often emotional appeals are made from said leader. It’s a good reminder to be aware of one’s own implicit biases.

*Stardate calculated from this website based on the article’s publication date, assuming noon.