Eugene Martin
Title: Leadership Run Amok
Authors: Scott W. Spreier, Mary H. Fontaine, and Ruth L. Malloy
Harvard Business Review (June 2006)

Introduction

* The title Leadership Run Amok speaks to the destructive potential of overachievers as it pertains to being a leader.

* The article went on to state that overachieving leaders can be successful in the short term but in the long term it will only reduce productivity and damage confidence in management both internally and externally.

* As a result, leaders who have a high achievement motive must be able to control the side effects of being an overachiever.

Why do most people have a growing drive to achieve?

* Most people are taught from early childhood to value achievement and for some the desire to achieve is innate.

* A study done by David McClelland in the 1960s outlined three internal drivers he called “social motives”. These included achievement, affiliation and power which also comes in two forms, personalized power and socialized power.

* He identified achievement as being most crucial to organizational and even national success. The study concluded that all three motives are present in everyone to some extent and that satisfying them energizes and pleases us so we tend to keep repeating them regardless of the outcome.

* Other research conducted on the high achievement scores of managers’ and executives’ motives concluded that achievement is driven by organizational, market and economic forces such as the quality movement, recession, downsizing and the dot-com era.

How does a leader’s motive affect leadership styles?

* Leadership styles include: * Directive – entails strong sometimes coercive behavior * Visionary – focuses on clarity and communication * Affiliative – emphasizes harmony and relationships * Participative – tends