Adam Galinsky is a social psychologist and Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He conducts behavioral science research, having published more than 200 scientific articles. He has been a damage expert in numerous defamation cases and is also a producer on two documentaries shortlisted for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.
What’s the big idea?
Every leader leaves their mark on the hearts and minds of a workforce. This can go one of two ways: leaders can leave behind a legacy of inspiration, or infuriation. Based on thousands of perspectives collected from around the globe, Adam created a systemic formula for choosing and earning the lasting impact you want to have on others.
Below, Adam shares five key insights from his new book, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. Listen to the audio version—read by Adam himself—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Inspiring leadership is made up of three universal factors.
Inspiring and infuriating leaders exist on an enduring continuum that is made up of three universal factors. The exact same characteristics emerge in every culture and country across the globe. The three universal factors are:
- Being a Visionary, which represents how we see the world.
- Being an Exemplar of desired behavior, which represents how we are in the world.
- Being a Mentor, which represents how we interact with others in the world.
We can inspire others through our words, actions, and interactions. There are three universal factors because each one fulfills a fundamental human need:
- Being Visionary fulfills the need for meaning and purpose.
- Being an Exemplar fulfills the need for protection and passion.
- Being a Mentor fulfills the need for belonging and status.
These universal dimensions are demonstrated by a remarkable pilot, Tammie Jo Shults. She was the captain of Southwest Airlines 1380, traveling from New York to Dallas when an engine exploded and tore a hole in the side of her plane.
During the crisis, Tammie Jo was visionary, helping her passengers understand what was happening. As the plane was descending, she gave her passengers a reassuring WHY: “We are NOT going down, we are going to Philadelphia.” Those simple words transformed the cabin from pure panic to possibility.
After Tammie Jo amazingly landed her plane with no additional injuries, an EMT evaluated her, asking, “How do you get through security?” When Shults looked confused, he replied, “How did your nerves of steel not set off the metal detector? You’re completely calm.” Throughout the crisis, she was an exemplar, a calm and courageous protector.
After the plane landed, Tammie Jo Shults went row by row, making sure her passengers were okay. She understood her role as mentor, to not only protect but also to comfort her passengers.
2. Both inspiring and infuriating leaders are a big deal.
Leaders either inspire or infuriate because their behavior greatly impacts others. I call this the Leadership Amplification Effect. When we are in a position of leadership, all our words and expressions—positive and negative—get amplified. Constructive comments feel like humiliating criticism when they come from a leader. The phrase “I need to talk to you” sends shivers down our spine when it comes from our boss. And when leaders don’t respond to our queries, their silence can feel deafening. But it’s not all bad news. When a leader compliments or shares credit with others, it becomes glorious praise.
The Leader Amplification Effect occurs because when we are in a position of leadership, all eyes are on us. We are onstage. That means all our utterances, gestures, and interactions are intensely attended to and scrutinized. As my research shows, attention amplifies the impact of any stimulus and intensifies our reactions to it.
“We will have an impact, whether we like it or not.”
The Leader Amplification Effect tells us that leaders rarely produce neutral reactions. That means we will have an impact, whether we like it or not. However, we have control over the type of impact. We always have a choice of whether we inspire or infuriate. We have control over the words we use and the visions we set. We can be better exemplars by regulating our emotions and tapping into our passion. And we have the capacity to be a motivating mentor by empowering and elevating others.
3. Inspiring leaders are made, not born.
We are not born as inspiring or infuriating individuals. Rather, our current behavior inspires or infuriates us. Because there is a universal and systematic set of inspiring attributes, those skills can be taught, nurtured, and developed.
Let’s consider how we can become more visionary. We must present the right message in the right way at the right time. Inspiring leaders offer a big-picture, optimistic vision of the future, while infuriating leaders are small-minded pessimists.
But how you present the vision matters, too. Inspiring leaders simplify their big ideas to their essence and then bring them to life with vivid language. For example, “make our customers satisfied” is not as motivating as “make our customers smile” because we can viscerally see and feel that smile. My research with Vita Akstinaitė shows that politicians who use more visual language in their nomination speeches are more likely to be elected.
Equally important is when you present your vision. You want to present it again and again and again because repetition increases clarity and understanding. When Blaine Horton and I analyzed TED Talk viewership and investments in entrepreneurial pitches, we found that repeating a core idea was the key to success.
So, how can we become more visionary? We can do so by attending to our core values. In one of my recent studies, unemployed individuals who contemplated their values for 15 minutes were twice as likely to find a job over the next two months as those who didn’t. Reflecting on our core values helps us see the big picture and be more hopeful.
To be more visionary, we can also practice simplifying and visualizing our messages. Similarly, we can guide ourselves to be more calm and courageous protectors through daily practices like meditation and visualization. And we can be better mentors by training ourselves to let go of the reins and stop micromanaging others.
4. Inspire people by thinking like an architect.
Just as an architect designs a building to produce specific reactions within people and facilitate certain interactions, we can design policies and protocols to encourage desirable responses and behaviors. As leaders, we are affecting people even when we’re not present. The policies and processes we set up influence people daily, encouraging some actions while discouraging others.
Let’s consider designing a weekly meeting. The goal of many meetings is to learn from each other so we can make wiser decisions and produce more innovative ideas. We could take a laissez-faire approach, believing that a lack of constraints will unleash creative insights. But that design choice often invites chaos, conflict, and inefficiencies, where the loudest people reign supreme. Making wise decisions requires staying on track and encouraging participation.
Thinking like an architect helps us be more visionary by recognizing the need to craft a clear and well-thought-out agenda. It helps us solve an offshoot of the Leader Amplification Effect: the Leader Silencing Effect, where authority silences other voices. One design choice we can make is when to speak. When we speak first as a leader, it sets a powerful anchor that can weigh the whole discussion down and make it harder for people to share their perspectives, especially if it doesn’t align with what we just said. In contrast, when a leader speaks last, others feel free to share their thoughts. Similarly, what we wear can reinforce or reduce the Leader Silencing Effect. During mission debriefs in the U.S. Army, one thing is left outside the room: uniforms. The military needs every perspective to ensure a full understanding of the completed mission, so they reduce rank differences by having these discussions in civilian clothing.
“When we speak first as a leader, it sets a powerful anchor that can weigh the whole discussion down.”
We can take the idea of empowerment one step further by designing a rotational system of responsibility for meetings. Sherry Wu of UCLA has found that letting workers run a 20-minute weekly meeting not only increases their satisfaction but also boosts their productivity. That’s how I run my doctoral seminars: Each week, a different student co-leads the class discussion with me.
Thinking like an architect can also help us resolve conflict. By establishing voting rules in advance, my colleagues and I reduced the discord that had permeated our hiring meetings. Similarly, I turned my warring sons into more loving siblings simply by changing their drop-off order at school—dropping my more impatient son off first made all the difference.
5. Reflecting makes you more inspiring.
Reflecting on times when we felt powerful and in control turns us into inspiring exemplars: it makes us more authentically confident, calm, and courageous. And when we want to improve at elevating and empathizing with others, we can reflect on their perspectives.
Two broad but powerful reflections can help us stay on the inspiring end of the continuum. Once a month, reflect on when you were inspiring and also when you may have been infuriating. When did you see, or fail to see, the big picture? When were you anxious and cowardly rather than calm and courageous? When did you empower, elevate, and empathize with others—or fail to do so?
Second, engage in the same reflection I’ve shared with thousands of people worldwide. Consider an inspiring leader from your own life and how you can emulate that person to foster a similar sense of hope and possibility. Also, reflect on a frustrating leader and how to avoid making others’ blood boil.
Finally, turn those reflections into practice. Here is one daily practice guaranteed to inspire those around you: Every morning, reach out to at least one person and praise a task that person did well or thank them for making your life easier. A CEO told me it takes him only minutes over his daily coffee to brighten someone’s day. But here’s the amazing part—it brightens his day too. His morning missives receive effusive replies that put a spring in his step. His daily gestures have created a virtuous cycle of inspiration.
To listen to the audio version read by author Adam Galinsky, download the Next Big Idea App today:
