Gather school-age children together, leave them alone with a ball, and a game will likely break out.
One child will name the game they want to play and begin separating the other children into two teams.
Another child will typically claim the second “team captain” role. Then the two sides begin to play the game. On occasion, a third child will step up to keep score, shouting out which team is winning throughout the game.
Parents and teachers observing this scenario believe they are witnessing leadership in action, with one or more children acting as leaders and displaying their potential to gain followership far into the future.
Young children often exhibit signs of what people think is leadership as they take charge, direct others, and organize activities for their classmates.
In reality, these children are expressing a strong need for dominance and control that is rooted in their personality and inherited from their parents. Until they are somewhat older, dominance and control will look and feel much like leadership to those who witness it.
Unfortunately, the need for dominance and control doesn’t age well.
By the time they are teenagers, children with a high need for control will be disliked, ostracized, and ignored unless they combine this trait with high athletic talent or other socially valued competencies, in which case their need for dominance will be temporarily tolerated.
By the time they reach college age, those with a high need for dominance and control will find it hard to make new friends, become accepted in new groups, or entice others to collaborate with them on projects.
What was once thought of as leadership is now a huge liability.
They quickly learn that others find their controlling behavior distasteful and obnoxious. The more they give in to this need, the more others reject or disapprove of them.
As they enter the workforce, those around them recognize that leadership requires confidence with humility, competence with warmth, and advocacy with listening.
But those early “leaders” have an exceedingly difficult time finding their way to such behaviors. Not surprising for a personality trait that has been fed for so many years.
They often spend the rest of their careers trying to overcome their innate tendencies to take charge and direct traffic in almost any situation.
The popular view of leadership, promoted by media portrayals of leaders, fools many people into thinking control and leadership are one and the same. As a result, organizations reinforce that illusion in talent selection, promotion, and career advancement.
This means many organizations pick the wrong people to be leaders, which is a painful lesson often repeated to the detriment of everyone.
While the ability to take charge, speak up, and organize activity is a laudable skill set, it is a very small slice of what makes for great leadership, and when it is driven by the need for control, it can become a significant drawback.
In addition to dominance and control, many personality traits have a long-term negative impact on whether others choose to follow people, including aggression, pessimism, arrogance, neuroticism, vindictiveness, and impulsivity.
None of them makes someone a better leader.
