Have you ever worked with someone who had an amazing ability to influence through pure emotion and passion for the product, people, or position they were promoting? Did you notice some of these leaders seemed to have an intense infatuation with what they’re promoting, but that passion wanes quickly as they move on to the next big thing? Leaders with higher Influencer personality traits are the ‘Influencers’ of the business world. They stand out as leaders with their mercurial style and an incredible ability to make people fall in love with concepts and their creations.
It is hard to argue that influence is critical to leadership. John Maxwell famously made the statement that "Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less" and a McKinsey report found that CEO influence can account for as much as 45% of a company's performance. Paradoxically, influence is not a skill that comes naturally to most leaders. A 2023 survey by Judith Germain found that amongst leaders regarded as ‘competent’, only 14% were rated as being influential. While there are many facets to influence highlighted by experts such as Robert Cialdini, the innate ability of a leader to connect and compel people through passion and persuasive arguments is fundamental.
And with any personality trait, more isn’t necessarily better because context matters. Often, businesses need leaders who are steady, consistent, and adept at using rational arguments to make their case. Leaders with lower Influencer traits are the ‘Statisticians’ who have a reliably predictable style and the ability to apply compelling rational arguments to influence and persuade others. A large number of CFOs and CIOs are being tapped for CEO roles as the concept of ‘rational leadership’ and the skills of ‘rational persuasion’ become increasingly sought after in volatile and uncertain times.
Influencer personality traits are anchored in two things: their focus on influence, ranging from the use of emotional to rational arguments, and variability, ranging from mercurial to consistent. The psychology underpinning the Influencer leader is linked to Borderline personalities, which originated in the 1930s to describe the variability of emotions. Leaders with high Influencer attributes are the ‘Infatuated Influencers’ who have an unpredictable style and an ability to make people fall in love with concepts and their creations. Whereas leaders with low Influencer attributes are the ‘Steady Statisticians’ who have a reliably predictable style and the ability to apply compelling rational arguments to influence and persuade others.
Unpacking the Performance Personality of ‘The Infatuated Influencer’
Having high Influencer traits does not mean a leader uses all the elements of influence. Still, they are naturally adept at connecting and compelling at an emotional level with a mercurial style. Influencer leaders are natural marketing maestros and PR professionals. They can make people fall in love with almost anything, particularly when there is an emotional element to what they’re selling. Leaders with high Influencer traits read people’s emotions well, play to those emotions, and are typically masters of persuasion – highly skilled at the art of letting others willingly have their way.
The big risk for the Influencer lies in their mercurial style, which can trend towards unpredictability and volatility. If the Influencer can stay in love with the idea, person, or product, then the love affair continues, but with extremely high Influencer personalities, there is rarely a long, happy marriage beyond the infatuation stage. As the Influencer falls out of ‘love’, they may be dismissive or even derogatory towards something they were previously in love with. Imagine you’re in a role with lots of freedom and the ability to act without consultation. If your manager has extremely high levels of Influencer traits, then early in the relationship, you might be on their ‘good side’, being praised as an “autonomous go-getter”. However, as time goes by and the infatuation stage ends, you might find yourself on their bad side, with them berating you as a “conniving backstabber” who fails to communicate and consult with them. This highlights the importance of two key factors that contain the best and worst impulses of the Influencer – healthy relationship attachment and sincerity.
Their impact on the psychosocial safety of their team depends on how they manage their own emotions, messages, and mercurial style. The Influencer naturally reduces boredom by energizing the team. This can be an advantage when the task or problem at hand is itself under-stimulating or downright boring. If the leader uses their natural tendency towards strong emotions to stimulate in the right situations, then this can be a powerful asset, particularly if the leader needs to keep the team focused on solving problems requiring intense focus over long periods of time – executing a complex marketing campaign or sticking with a long-term pursuit of a major account.
The key psychosocial risk area for the Influencer is amplifying anxiety and ambiguity in their team. Anxiety is essentially the misdirection of energy toward an imagined, feared future, so volatile and inconsistent behaviour and emotional reactions from the leader can have an amplifying effect. If the team is already worried about something and is also concerned about how the leader might react, then it multiplies the potential to imagine a fearful future. This can drain cognitive resources and create inefficiencies if the team spends time and energy preparing for different reactions and avoiding a fearful future amplified by the leader's erratic behavior.
Finally, there is the risk of conformity in the team – the tendency to be overly agreeable – which can increase when working for a leader with high Influencer traits. The team may simply give up on arguing the point or choose to “pick the hill they will die on” and accept the leader’s position. With an emotionally volatile leader, the team may feel they can’t genuinely speak up or challenge ideas, and they continually accommodate the leader's whims to stay on their good side. Infatuated Influencers get better performance from their teams when they have low defensiveness and actively encourage debate and discussion.
Unpacking the Performance Personality of ‘The Steady Statistician’
Leaders with low levels of Influencer traits are the ‘Steady Statisticians’ who have a strong analytical approach to managing businesses and teams. They don’t get swept up in the emotions of individuals or groups; they recognize when the emotionality of an issue is a problem, and they can be difficult to sway emotionally. The expression “let cooler heads prevail” is often applied to these leaders, and these ‘cool heads’ can be incredibly effective provided they’re not too cold, detached, or emotionally rigid.
Lower levels of Influencer traits come with a highly stable sense of self - who the leader is today is likely to be the same next year and the following five years. The Statistician tends to be “solid as a rock”, which can be great if stability is what’s needed. However, if a dynamic sense of self and the ability to adapt to people and situations are required, then this can be a weakness, as they may hold on to initial impressions, and potentially inaccurate perceptions of current situations and people are not easily shifted, as they believe “a leopard doesn’t change its spots”.
While their logical, emotionally stable traits enable rational, sound decision-making based on facts and data, if left unchecked, this behaviour can shape the perception that the leader is uncaring, detached, and intractable. Most people prefer leaders with some emotional flexibility, as it makes them feel they’re dealing with a person, not a robot. Therefore, it’s essential for Statisticians to avoid letting stable emotions become fixed emotions. Just as it’s difficult to deal with unstable, high-energy emotions like anger, jubilation, and surprise all the time, it is equally unsettling for people to deal with monotonous, low-energy emotions like concern, boredom, and detachment day in and day out.
Steady Statisticians have traits that significantly lower psychosocial risk factors such as anxiety and ambiguity. If a team is worried that something bad might occur or is unclear about when it might occur, but they are presented with consistent facts and logic that support a more positive view of the future, this can minimise anxiety and ambiguity. This prevents a drain on the team’s cognitive resources and time, as they don’t have to expend energy excessively worrying about feared futures that may never come to be. Additionally, ambiguity is likely to be reduced as stable emotions and logic prevail, so there is little ambiguity around how the leader will react to situations. All of this improves team function and performance.
However, this stable and rational leadership style has a downside. In every business that needs people to perform, the right level of stimulation is critical to achieving a ‘flow’ state and optimal performance. Stimulation is often decreased by leaders with low Influencer traits, which poses a significant risk when many tasks lack stimulation or are downright boring. If a leader with low Influencer traits misjudges the situation and applies too much logic and decreases stimulation in situations requiring high energy, then this impairs performance. When it comes to passion and persuasion, leaders sometimes need to ‘show it’, not just ‘know it’.
Conformity can also be a by-product of the leadership style of the Steady Statistician, as team members with a strong gut instinct or previous experience that defies logic may give up on arguing the point when dealing with a leader extensively armed with logic, facts, and data. This lack of discussion and debate can limit collaboration and impair innovation. Statistician leaders with poor self-awareness and an inability to ‘read the room’ can create toxicity in the workplace while believing their calm, logical approach is ‘right’. While a cool-headed leader sounds extremely positive for the team dynamic, when that leader comes across as cold, detached, or emotionally rigid this can increase psychosocial risk factors and erode performance.
Identifying and leveraging the Influencers and Statisticians
So how do you know if you have the Influencers who create motion through emotion, or the Statisticians who are rationally reliable? As business becomes more complex and challenging, organizations can no longer rely on assessments that measure a leader’s ‘identity’ - their self-perception and the view others have of them. As things get tougher, measurements and data related to a leader’s actual capability must get better. Organizations need scientific, reliable data on the true personality of their leaders.
The Greyscale is the only commercial leadership test that uses science and psychology to measure what type of leaders you have - are they the Influencers who persuade with passion, or the Supporters who influence with information? To test your leaders and learn more, check out The Greyscale Assessment at http://tgsleadership.com.
