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30 The European Business Review July - August 2017
DOMINANCE AND PRESTIGE:
Selecting the Leadership Approach that Fits
BY CHARLEEN R. CASE AND JON K. MANER
Maximising your organisation’s effective-
ness requires leaders who tailor their lead-
ership approach based on the organisational
culture, their team’s dynamics, and the specif-
ic task at hand. This article describes two
distinct leadership approaches – dominance
and prestige – each with their own advantag-
es and drawbacks. To help your organisation
reach its potential, select leaders who know
how to leverage both.
Selecting people to help provide leadership is
one of the most critical decisions an exec-
utive can make. When it comes to selecting
an appropriate leader for a department, project,
or any given team within your organisation, there
are many factors you might consider. For instance,
you probably will evaluate each candidate’s
domains of expertise, level of experience, and
the extent to which he or she is connected to key
people and sources of information in your organ-
isation and in the broader eld or market. Indeed,
these criteria are important to consider when
evaluating whether a person has the knowledge,
skill, and resources your team needs to achieve its
goals. What these criteria fail to capture, however,
is the extent to which a given candidate’s leader-
ship approach is – or is not – congruent with the
specic goals and nature of your team.
Recent research on leadership strategies1 and
the motivations that underpin those strategies2,3
highlights the importance of looking beyond
the knowledge, skill, and resources a potential
leader possesses. Rather than focussing merely
on what a person could offer your team as their
leader, you also should consider why it is that
that person wants to lead. What are the person’s
underlying motivations for seeking the leadership
role? In looking beyond candidates’ whats and
focussing attention on their whys, you will be able
to get a clearer sense of how they would behave
as your team’s leader.
We and our colleagues have determined that,
broadly speaking, there are two motivations that
drive people to seek positions of leadership –
dominance and prestige – and those motivations
In looking beyond
candidates’ whats
and focussing
attention on their
whys, you will be
able to get a clearer
sense of how they
would behave as
your team’s leader.
Leadership
www.europeanbusinessreview.com 31
shape the strategies people use to lead others.4 On
One hand, Dominance is characterised by a desire
for the authority, control, and power that comes
with formal positions of leadership. Prestige,
on the other hand, is characterised by a desire
for the admiration, respect, and elevated status
often bestowed upon leaders. Although these
two motivations are far from mutually exclusive
– people can desire both formal authority and
others’ admiration – the extent to which a
person is more oriented toward dominance
versus prestige has important implications for
their leadership behaviour.
As leaders, dominance-oriented people enjoy
making decisions for their team, giving orders,
and getting things going. They are interpersonally
assertive, sometimes overwhelmingly so. In
meetings, they often do most of the talking
and may even lower the pitch of their voice
as a means to intimidate others.5 Dominance-
oriented leaders often leverage their power and
positions of formal authority to coerce people
into doing what they want them to do. For
instance, managers who are highly dominance-
oriented tend to incentivise their employees
with bonuses and promotions and coerce them
with the threat of punishment. In essence,
they are less concerned with fostering positive
relationships with their team members than they
are with getting things done – the way they see t.
Prestige-oriented leaders behave quite
differently. Because prestige-oriented people
care deeply about their relationships with team
members, they avoid using intimidation or
coercion. Instead, they try to display signs of
wisdom and expertise,6 so that they can be seen
as a role model for their team. Unlike highly
dominance-oriented leaders, leaders who are
predominantly prestige-oriented are often able
to inuence their team because they are well-
liked by their followers.7 Prestige-oriented
leaders are not as assertive as dominance-
oriented leaders, instead tending to lead from
behind – providing guidance and direction but
allowing their team the freedom to make some
decisions on their own.
When it comes to selecting a leader whose
approach is in line with your team’s goals, there
is no “one size ts all” approach. Whether
your team would benet most from the kind
of leadership strategies employed by someone
who is predominantly dominance-oriented,
predominantly prestige-oriented, or a mix of
both largely depends on contextual factors. To
determine which kind of leadership approach
best suits your team, you should consider your
team’s goals and the type of organisational
culture you seek to cultivate.
What Kind of Teams Benefit from
Dominance-Oriented Leaders?
Dominance tends to function best when the
organisation needs team members to get on
board with a particular plan and to move
forward with that plan via a highly coordinated
and unied effort. Within such teams, it can be
useful to have top-down leadership – someone
who can call the shots and who expects his or
her subordinates to fall into line. For example,
in launching a new product in which the launch
strategy is set and ready to go, a manufacturer
may need the marketing team, sales teams, and
product manager to work together to organise
the launch. When each entity constitutes an
essential piece of the puzzle, there is little
room for independence. Each needs to do their
part and that sometimes requires dominant
leadership to provide clear direction.
When it comes to
selecting a leader whose
approach is in line with
your team’s goals,
there is no
“one size fits all”
approach.
To determine which kind of leadership
approach best suits your team, you should
consider your team’s goals and the type of
organisational culture you seek to cultivate.
32 The European Business Review July - August 2017
Timing is another important factor. Imagine that the
aforementioned manufacturer is facing a deadline for the
product launch. When there is a tight deadline or insufcient
time for out-of-the-box thinking, teams benet from
dominant leaders who are able to present a strong vision and
make rm executive decisions. One benet of dominance is
that dominant leaders are in a position to provide structure
and clear guidance to subordinates. Dominant leaders can
cut through indecision to give subordinates concrete goals
and benchmarks they need to meet. This approach can be
effective when time is short, and you need everyone working
quickly toward a desired outcome.
Dominance also works well in organisations that have a
traditional command-and-control style culture. When people
are used to following orders and adhering to a strict chain of
command, dominant styles of leadership t well with people’s
expectations. Indeed, in contexts with a clear hierarchy, many
subordinates prefer strong guidance and like to have mandates
that help structure their operations.8 In such contexts, adopting
a leadership approach that is too non-directive (i.e. prestige-
oriented) can leave people feeling as though they lack the
proper guidance and structure needed to do their job well.
When Prestige Works Best
Prestige, on the other hand, works well for teams that prioritise
innovation, creativity, and out-of-the-box thinking. An
advertising group that is looking to create a new ad campaign,
for example, can benet from leadership that lays out the
goals of the campaign but places few constraints on the
means to get there. This approach empowers team members
to think creatively and pursue potentially novel solutions and
sometimes surprising strategies that may promote success of
the campaign. In such contexts, prestige-oriented leaders are
not necessarily hands-off – they do provide essential input
into the development process – but they avoid being overly
directive or assertive. Rather than articulating a clear vision to
the team, a prestige-oriented leader will provide the necessary
means to facilitate the team’s vision. And at the end of the
day, if needed, that leader can help distill team members’
individual contributions into a coherent strategy.
The prestige-oriented leadership approach works best when
the team consists of people who possess the expertise and
motivation to provide opinions, ideas, and self-direction. This
leadership approach also is most effective when the team has
the time necessary to arrive at a solution in a non-linear way.
That is, because prestige-oriented leaders tend not to herd
their subordinates into a decision, devising new strategies
and solutions under this leadership approach can take time
and multiple rounds of back-and-forth revision. Although
decisions might take longer to nalise under this leadership
approach, the end-result can often be highly innovative.
Prestige works best for organisations seeking to foster
cultures of empowerment, in which workers are free to
take chances and think outside the box. Prestige resonates
with organisational cultures marked by relatively egalitarian
relationships among coworkers, in which people at all
levels of the organisation are accustomed to sharing their
viewpoints having those viewpoints heard and respected.
Putting it All Together
Both dominance and prestige provide valuable approaches to
organisational leadership. Different tasks and organisational
cultures lend themselves to one leadership approach
versus the other. The best leaders are able to leverage
both approaches, tailoring their strategy to the specics
of the situation at hand. For example, in the initial stages
of designing a new product, the organisation might want
individual team-members to generate innovative ideas for
exactly how the product might function. And at that stage,
prestige-oriented leadership can empower individuals within
the team to generate a creative end-solution. However, once
the plan is set, and the job is to get a range of people within
the organisation working in a coordinated fashion to deliver
on that vision, a more top-down dominant leadership
approach could work best.
While both dominance and prestige have their advantages,
both also have potential drawbacks. For example, although
dominant leadership can provide important top-down
operational structure, overly dominant leaders can come
across as narcissistic and self-involved, and are often disliked
by subordinates and colleagues. This can undermine worker
satisfaction and, thus, the leader’s effectiveness. To help avoid
this problem, dominant leaders should try to remain sensitive
Leadership
www.europeanbusinessreview.com 33
to the feelings of others in the organisation –
to take their perspective so that they can avoid
behaving in a way that leaves others feeling
demoralised or exploited.
At the same time, being overly prestige-
oriented can lead executives to fall short of
providing others with proper guidance and
direction. Indeed, highly prestige-oriented
leaders sometimes can care too much about
what others think of them, and worry too much
about being negatively evaluated. This can lead
prestige-oriented leaders to prioritise what others
think of them over the performance outcomes
of the organisation. To avoid these problems,
prestige-oriented leaders should make sure they
provide clear goals and expectations to team
members, so that they can provide essential
feedback and course corrections when needed.
They should also work hard to build trust over
time with coworkers and subordinates, so that
when they do need to make unpopular decisions
or provide others within negative feedback, they
can do so while keeping their relationships intact.
Maximising your organisation’s effectiveness
means selecting leaders who can leverage the
advantages – and avoid the potential dangers –
of each leadership approach. Both dominance
and prestige have their time and place, and
both can be quite effective at motivating others.
Ultimately, the most effective leaders are those
who are able to diagnose the organisation, the
team, and the specic task and, based on that
information, implement the leadership approach
that will work best.
About the Authors
Charleen R. Case is an Assistant
Professor of Management and
Organizations at the Stephen M.
Ross School of Business at the
University of Michigan. Her work
explores how fundamental motives shape
organisational behaviour in the context of
leadership, social hierarchy, and coalitions.
BOTH DOMINANCE AND PRESTIGE HAVE THEIR TIME AND PLACE,
AND BOTH CAN BE QUITE EFFECTIVE AT MOTIVATING OTHERS.
Jon K. Maner is Professor of
Psychology at Florida State
University. His work applies an
integration of social psychology
and evolutionary psychology to
research on social relationships, leadership,
and social hierarchy.
References
1. Cheng, J. T., & Tracy, J. L. (2014). Toward a unified science
of hierarchy: Dominance and prestige are two fundamental
pathways to human social rank. In J. T. Cheng, J. L. Tracy,
C. Anderson (Eds.). The Psychology of Social Status (pp. 3-27).
Springer New York.
2. Case, C.R., & Maner, J.K. (2015). When and why power
corrupts: An evolutionary perspective. In J. H. Turner, R.
Machalek, and A. Maryanski (Eds.). Handbook on evolution and
society: Toward an evolutionary social science (pp. 460-473). Boulder,
CO: Paradigm Publishers.
3. Maner, J. K., & Case, C. R. (2016). Dominance and Prestige:
Dual Strategies for Navigating Social Hierarchies. Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology, 54, 129-180.
4. Ibid.
5. Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Ho, S., & Henrich, J. (2016).
Listen, follow me: Dynamic vocal signals of dominance
predict emergent social rank in humans. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 145(5), 536-547.
6. Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. J. (2001). The evolution of
prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for
enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and
Human Behavior, 22(3), 165-196.
7. Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A., & Henrich,
J. (2013). Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and
prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and inuence.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(1), 103-125.
8. Tiedens, L. Z., Unzueta, M. M., & Young, M. J. (2007). An
unconscious desire for hierarchy? The motivated perception
of dominance complementarity in task partners. Jour nal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 402-414.
What is the hallmark of the
leadership style?
Assertive, highly directive,
top-down leadership style
Table 1. Dominance-oriented and prestige-oriented styles of leadership in organisations.
Coercion, intimidation, power,
use of reward and punishment;
leveraging formal authority
Being overly assertive can cause
leaders to undermine trust and
worker satisfaction
Lead-from-behind style;
relatively non-directive
Cultures marked by
empowerment of employees
and relatively egalitarian
structure
Traditional command-and-
control organisational
cultures with hierarchy and
clear reporting structure
Admiration, respect, liking,
being a role model
Leaders neglect to provide
essential direction and
guidance; sometimes care too
much about social approval
What types of organisational
cultures fit best?
How do leaders exert social
influence?
What are the dangers of this
leadership style?
Dominance
Prestige
