Aggressive Leaders Are More Likely to Be Punished for Their Mistakes

By Hemant Kakkar
Harvard Business Review | July 2019

DOI

hbr.org/2019/07/aggressive-leaders-are-more-likely-to-be-punished-for-their-mistakes

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Kakkar, Hemant. Aggressive Leaders Are More Likely to Be Punished for Their Mistakes Harvard Business Review hbr.org/2019/07/aggressive-leaders-are-more-likely-to-be-punished-for-their-mistakes.

Harvard Business Review, 2019

Abstract

Summary. Why do some leaders face greater backlash and harsher consequences for “honest mistakes,” while others are given the benefit of the doubt and let off the hook? New research points to one potential reason: it has to do with how the leader achieved his or her status. There are two ways leaders achieve status and wield influence in groups: either through dominance, by being assertive and forceful in getting their opinions across, or through prestige, by acting as a teacher and sharing knowledge. A series of studies found that leaders associated with dominance were punished more for transgressions of mistakes where fault was ambiguous (because they were viewed as more intentional and had less goodwill), in comparison to leaders associated with prestige.

Hemant Kakkar is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Prior to this, he served as an Assistant and Associate (untenured) Professor of Management and Organisations at the Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He received his doctoral degree in Organisational Behaviour from London Business School.
His research draws on social psychology and evolutionary theories of status and influence to examine judgments and behaviours of individuals and groups within social hierarchies. He also examines individuals' tendencies to engage in both positive and negative deviant behaviours.

He was awarded the 2021 Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Outstanding Dissertation Award, as well as, the Outstanding Dissertation Award 2021 by the International Association of Conflict Management. His research has also won Best Conference Paper awards from the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management (2021) and the International Association of Conflict Management (2021).

His research is published in leading academic journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Applied Psychology, Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. His research has also been featured in several popular media outlets, such as The Washington Post, Forbes, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Times UK, and the Harvard Business Review.

At ISB, Professor Kakkar teaches the core course in Organisational Behaviour.  He has also taught Foundations of Organisational Behaviour to postgraduate students and graduate-level seminar courses at the Fuqua School of Business. In 2021, he received the Award for Excellence in Teaching for the MMS program. Before joining academia, he worked as a Technical Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India.

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