One of a manager’s core responsibilities is motivating people to complete tasks that are sometimes tedious, unpleasant or downright dull. The question is, how? Some managers rely on dominance, issuing subtle threats or using coercive tactics to drive performance. Others avoid such behavior, choosing instead a more empathetic, collaborative approach.
So why do some managers—and people more broadly—gravitate toward dominance? Historically, researchers have examined dominant behavior through an evolutionary or environmental lens, often attributing it to ingrained personality traits or genetic predispositions. While those factors likely play a role, new research from Columbia Business School’s Daniel Ames, the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Business, and PhD Candidate Dean Baltiansky suggests another force may be involved: beliefs about how relationships work.
The pair began to question conventional explanations for dominance after noticing a behavioral pattern in negotiation courses taught by Ames. In mock negotiations, some students adopted an aggressive style, only to be caught off guard afterwards when told they were alienating their counterparts. “We started to wonder if there might be a blind spot where people misestimate the relationship outcomes of their behaviors,” says Baltiansky.
For Ames, the disconnect was telling. “The fact that smart, savvy people are getting feedback that surprises them suggests we often don’t really know how our behavior is playing out with others,” he says.
The research he conducted with Baltiansky confirmed that suspicion, revealing that dominant behavior may be driven less by hardwired traits than by faulty assumptions about how others will react. What’s more, those assumptions tend to be shaped by a broader competitive worldview. People who see the world as fundamentally “dog-eat-dog” tend to assume that assertive, forceful behavior is normal, necessary and relatively harmless, whereas those who view the world as more harmonious may anticipate relational fallout from such behavior and choose a different path.
Putting the competitive worldview to the test
Baltiansky and Ames arrived at their conclusions through a series of four complementary studies.
The first two studies set the stage. Drawing on self-reported data and responses to real-world workplace scenarios, the researchers found that participants who saw the world as relatively ruthless were more likely to endorse dominance and were more optimistic about its relational effects.
The third study moved beyond survey responses to real-time decision-making. In a role-playing exercise, participants were assigned to play either manager or employee. Managers were tasked with persuading employees to complete a tedious assignment and were offered a monetary incentive if the employee succeeded. The managers could choose between two messages, one cordial and collaborative, the other more domineering, featuring a not-so-veiled threat.
The pattern from the first two studies held. Participants with a strong competitive worldview were more likely to choose the dominant message and expected fewer relational costs from doing so. What’s more, the researchers found that the managers who acted dominantly tended to underestimate how badly their employees reacted.
The final study drew a clear throughline between expectations and dominant behavior. This time, participants in the manager role were prompted to reflect either on the potential relationship benefits or harms of acting dominantly before making decisions in the role play. The results were dramatic. Those who thought about the harms decided to act dominantly at only one third of the rate of those focused on benefits.
In other words, it’s not necessarily that dominant leaders don’t care about relationships. Instead, it may be that they believe, sometimes incorrectly, that their behavior isn’t harming—and could actually be strengthening—relational bonds.
Breaking the cycle of heavy-handed leadership
The study’s implications extend beyond how individual leaders make decisions. If dominant behavior is shaped by assumptions about how others will react, those assumptions can shape workplace culture, potentially normalizing forceful tactics. Baltiansky and Ames say their work converges with other research suggesting self-fulfilling cycles, where a leader’s cynical beliefs and resulting behaviors can create a toxic work environment.
What can leaders do to head off these behaviors and break these cycles? It starts with stepping back to consider their worldview and how it might affect their assumptions about the impact of their decisions. “Give yourself an opportunity to test if your assumptions are correct,” Ames says.
In lower-stakes situations, pausing to reflect on the potential relational consequences of a forceful move may be enough to recalibrate behavior. In higher-stakes contexts, seeking an outside perspective from a colleague could help reveal blind spots.
Ultimately, the research underscores a broader truth about organizational life: Perception shapes action. “We live in the world as we perceive it, and so we’re beholden to our assumptions,” Ames says. “We should have a little sympathy and compassion for ourselves—and for other people as well—as we try to get things right. But we should also keep trying to calibrate our assumptions to reality.”
