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HUMANE LEADERSHIP^[1]
Paul R. Lawrence

These two Dilbert strips are the abstract of my paper.

The key words are, in fact, leadership, morality, and the pre-frontal cortex, (PFC).

This past June a business leadership conference was held at the Harvard Business School that attracted a wide range of leadership scholars. In the first plenary session we heard briefly from Joel Podolny and David Gergen. Joel spoke of the difficulty of doing robust research on such an elusive, even though important, subject as leadership. David spoke movingly on the world’s dire need for better leadership, and hence for a strong scientific and teachable theory of leadership. One comment in the general discussion that followed especially grabbed my attention—that our leadership theory can be no stronger than the model of man underlying it. This statement expressed a long standing and deeply held belief of mine: a belief that has captured my intellectual energies for the past decade. It motivated my work with Nitin Nohria that resulted in 2002 in Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices^[i]. It has motivated my subsequent work that now takes the form of an unpublished manuscript tentatively entitled, Being Human: A Darwinian Theory of Human Behavior^[ii]. In today’s session I will first briefly sketch out this new Darwinian model of man, and then, for the first time, spell out the model’s implications for leadership, humane leadership.

Before starting on this journey, however, I must add one all-important clarification. In adopting the title ‘Humane Leadership’ I am not professing some form of ‘soft’ leadership, leadership that is going along with lowered standards, etc. It is, in fact, a form of leadership that is more demanding on leaders than other models. It requires tougher brainwork on the part of leaders to achieve higher results, along several dimensions including, but not limited to, material well-being for all stakeholders. And this includes the leaders themselves.

I am calling the new model of man the Renewed Darwinian theory, the “RD” theory, of human behavior because it is built on Darwin’s own insights about humans. The theory posits four drives that are the ultimate subconscious motives that are underlying all human behavior.  They are the drives that came through the evolutional crucible of thousands of years of extreme drought that produced Homo sapiens. These drives are hard-wired in our genes as the “WHATS” of human behavior even as numerous latent skills are also carried by our genetic heritage as the “HOWS”, such as the basics of language, that help us realize the four WHATS.

These drives, as readers of Driven will recognize, are, to start with, the primitive drives, the drive to acquire (dA) the scarce resources that are essential for survival and procreation, and the drive to defend (dD)against all threats to these resources.

The next two drives are uniquely expressed in humans as independent goals, independently rewarded by our brains and not just as means to the two primitive drives that we share with all other animals. These two drives have been selected, over tens of thousands year of human history, because we could not have survived without intense collaboration with others and without constant learning.  As Darwin said, “the small strength and speed of man, his want of natural weapons, etc, are more than counterbalanced by his social qualities which lead him to give and receive aid from his fellow-men”^[iii]

This process created in humans the drive to bond (dB) in long-lasting relationship of mutual caring with other humans and the drive to comprehend (dC) the nature of ourselves and of our environment.

Now, how does RD theory posit that these four subconscious drives are manifested in our conscious mind and are involved in the complex process of deliberate decision making?

I will quickly walk you through this complex slide. It starts with an external event under observation by human’s sense organs: signals are sent over neurons to the brain’s sensory areas and on to the unconscious areas where drive modules are located, dA, dB, dC, and dD. Each of the drives makes an evaluation of the signals. Are the signals reporting an external event that is an Opportunity (O) or a Threat (T) to each drive? The sensory signals are then forwarded to the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) with an attached emotional marker of their evaluation (O or T). Some six modules of the PFC then process these signals as feelings in our working memory that can also tap into and juggle relevant representations stored in the wider cortex. Note the skills, cultural memes and personal experiences. This mix of signals generates possible action scenarios (fight/flight, etc.) that are recycled back to the four drives for further evaluation. This recycling continues until a possible action scenario is selected that (hopefully) at least satisfices all four drives. This becomes the intended action that picks up emotional energy from the drives and moves on to the brain’s motor centers for enactment.

Overall, this is a process of checking and balancing of drive impulses that ar depicted in this slide.

Note that finding a balanced, sustainable solution takes more brainwork than just trying to maximize the fulfillment of a single drive.

At this point, in order to get a focus on the leadership question, we must say more about one particular skill – the human moral sense. This is an intuitive sense that evolved in humans as a means, a HOW, to help humans fulfill the drive to bond.

This exhibit offers a sample of the different skill sets in humans that are arrayed here in some relationship to the drives they evolved to help fulfill. The skill set of our moral sense adjacent to the Drive to Bond.

Now, more about this moral sense.  Nitin and I discussed this topic in Driven.  I have carried it further in Being Human. Our analysis started, not surprisingly, by our careful reading of Darwin and what he had to say about the human moral sense in his often overlooked book “The Descent of Man”. One of his most insightful statements reads as follows:

 “The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts… would inevitably acquire a moral sense of conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man.”

This is truly a profound statement. Later he reinforced it by adding:

“I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important.”

Other writers since Darwin’s time have commented on human morals and conscience in a similar way. But none have been explicit about the discrete rules of such a moral sense. I addressed this question in an article in 2004, The Biological Base of Morality? ^[iv]

I will quote this 2004 article:

“So far we have discussed morals in a very general sense. Can progress be made by using deductive logic to reason carefully about the content, the specific morals that could have been established as a skill set in human genetic memory? At this point a thought experiment, as philosophers would say, is relevant. If one strongly desires to establish a relationship of mutual caring with another, what kinds of behavior toward the other would help fulfill that desire? It is not a big step from the drive to bond to the practical rule that the key is to treat the other person, most of the time, as one’s self would desire to be treated in terms of the four innate drives. This “Golden Rule” has appeared in religious and philosophical teaching with regularity for three thousand years. From this start, and presuming that the four drives are in the other person’s head, what behavior would help the other person without violating one’s own drives? We would deduce basic rules as follows:

Moral Rules Deduced from the Golden Rule and Four Drives

dA   In support of the other’s drive to acquire: 

• Help enhance rather than steal or destroy, the other’s property.
• Facilitate, not frustrate, the other’s pleasurable experiences.

dB   In support of the other’s drive to bond:

• Keep, rather than break, one’s promises.
• Seek fair, not cheating, exchanges.
• Return a favor with a favor.

dC   In support of the other’s drive to comprehend:

• Tell truths, not falsehoods.
• Share, not withhold, useful information.
• Respect, not ridicule, the other’s beliefs, even in disagreement.

dD  In support of the other’s drive to defend:

• Help protect, not harm nor abandon, the other.

These rules are not always followed, of course. The other drives are always competing for preference and sometimes win. Therefore, the true confirmation of my hypothesis is not perfect observance of the rules but feelings of guilt, of a ‘bad conscience,’ when they are knowingly broken.”

The scholar who has gone the farthest in testing for the content of the moral intuitions of all humans is Marc Hauser. His path breaking 2006 book, Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, pulls together his own work on the subject and the widely scattered research of many others. He reports from these many studies that there is strong evidence of an innate moral sense in all humans. He goes much further than this by presenting empirical evidence for the existence of some specific moral rules, primarily the following: 

Hauser’s Universal Moral Roles:

•   Help others rather than harm them. 

•   Tell truths, not lies—except for white lies.

•   Keep promises. 

•   Seek fair exchanges that reflect merit differences.

•   Detect and punish cheaters.

Note the considerable overlap between this list and the one I predicted earlier.

Now, what does all of this discussion of morals have to do with offering a more adequate theory of leadership? In proposing a theory of leadership based on the RD theory of human behavior, I will be following the clear precedent of Jensen and Meckling in building their Agency Theory of corporate leadership on an explicit theory of human nature and its underlying motivation. As we generally know, their powerful theory is based on the axiom that all human behavior is motivated by rational self-interest. For them it logically follows that owners of capital goods will strive to maximize the ‘rent’ or profits from the use of their capital goods to the limit of the law. And that the senior agents they employ to help them achieve this will need to be monitored and incentivized to comply. This will be necessary, not only to keep the agents behavior consistent with the rational self-interest of the owners, but also to keep them minimizing the cost of engaging other stakeholders, such as suppliers and regular employees, who are also contributing to the adding of value.

In parallel with agency theory the question now comes, given RD theory, what would be its logical implications for corporate leadership? I argue that it inevitably follows that leaders who are effective will be striving, as much as possible, to fulfill, in a balanced and sustainable manner, all four drives for all the essential stakeholders who contribute to adding value. This will include, of course, the final stakeholder, the buying customer. Acting this way will be humane leadership, based upon our emerging knowledge of human nature. Let me repeat this for emphasis: Effective leaders will strive, as much as possible, to fulfill, in a balanced and sustainable manner, all four drives for all the essential stakeholders who contribute to adding value:

To round out this story, consider the role of humane leadership in regard to all four drives, not only the drive to bond:

When humane leadership treats all stakeholders as shown in this slide, it will be activating and contributing to the fulfillment of all four of the basic drives, the ultimate motives, of humans. I hypothesize that the productive energy released by this motivating process, the value added, will exceed by far that generated by following the prescriptions of agency theory, the currently dominant theory in our business schools. Who among us will want to teach agency theory as a sound scientific theory when it can be shown clearly to be seriously incomplete? Yes, humans have drives to acquire and to defend, but they are only two of four. Trying to run a corporation on just two drives is like running a four-cylinder car with only two cylinders firing. Humane leadership does not deny the rational self-interest of Agency Theory; humane leadership theory actually provides a much longer-term and broadened definition of self-interest that makes it more rational, and much more reflective of our evolved innate nature.

Many years ago George Homans, in his chapter on leadership in “The Human Group” summed it up by saying, “The leader must live up to the norms of the group - all the norms - better than any follower.”^[v]

The reason effective leaders must follow these normative rules is because doing so will generate the bonds of trust with stakeholders whose whole-hearted and whole-minded cooperation is essential to creating the most multi-dimensional value. But it is a demanding and complex job.

Could this complex set of hypotheses, the RD theory, serve to help introduce humane leadership and humanism in business? My answer is clearly yes:

IF the theory is further checked out by systematic research and proven to be essentially accurate;
And IF it can be introduced and taught in our educational system;
And IF we can transform our existing institutions to be consistent with the theory.

Lest we think these tasks are impossible, I would point out some important helpful aspects of the current situation:

 Our amazing brains have been designed by evolutionary processes to succeed in solving just such multi-dimensional problems.

 In particular, the moral intuitions, that we will need to follow, can be counted on to be in the brains of all of us – almost all of us. Our intuitive conscience is there to be cultivated.

 We already have available some corporations, some business schools, some named here today, that can be studied as role models.

The theory can be taught and rehearsed in the classroom.

Using the theory is the best way for leaders to fulfill their own four drives.

Nitin Nohria and his colleagues, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee, have in the last few years been conducting extensive empirical research, designed to be a systematic test of RD theory. Their first batch of findings has just now been published in the latest Harvard Business Review.^[vi] I will cite just two of their findings. “An organization’s ability to meet the four fundamental drives explains, on average, about 60% of employee variance on motivational indictors (previous models have explained about 30%).  A company can best improve overall motivational scores by satisfying all four drives in concert. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. A poor showing on one drive substantially diminishes the impact of the other three drives.” This finding indicates that leaders to be effective will need to address all four drives for all types of stakeholders in a balanced manner. No one can expect to perfectly meet such multidimensional challenges but leaders who focus on developing such leadership skills will be able outperform their peers and be rewarded accordingly.

This research offers strong support for both RD theory and humane leadership – but more is needed. Cannot we, for example, test the hypothesis that in terms of power sharing the contrast between organizations under ‘Agency Leadership’ will contrast with organizations under ‘Humane Leadership’ like this:

And in terms of the closely related issue of the distribution of added value, the picture would be hypothesized to look like this:

Note the important difference in the hypothesized amount of added value available for distribution under the two systems, consistent with the Nohria article.

Finally, look at this slide as a hypothesis on how humane leadership can contribute toward the achievement of some top-level human values for all that ‘we can never get enough of’, as Homans often said.

These are the drives and values we are talking about. And this is the key role of Humane Leadership that would at the end of the road by judged wise and just.

So, let’s find out for sure which model of human behavior is the more accurate and which theory of leadership generates the better results.