Some morning-or-two-afterthoughts in relation to the selective altruism paper...possible material for including in a revised version for journal submission...
First (and maybe last) thought of the day: Does the selective altruism analysis cast any light on the standard business practice of having both a big picture CEO and an executing President (as well as having a policy-making board and employees of the firm; corporate life can be described as a nested series of visionary-executive combinations), and on parallel practices in politics (e.g., political appointees and career employees in agencies) and in the government and non-profit sectors (e.g., policy setting school boards and implementing superintendents)?
A subquestion of particular interest to me as an administrator in a business school department that has a major concern with operations issues: Does selective altruism cast any light on the reality that it is the visionary as opposed to the executive who is at least nominally on top in all these dyads?
Okay...let's think...
Maybe selective altruism does shed light here, at least in regard to the second question. A key issue with the selective altruism model of leadership, as with others, is whether one can in the end prevail on everything as a leader, or whether there is a division of labor with the preferences of the follower prevailing on plenty of things or even most things. The second view seems plausible to me for normative and practical reasons. Selective altruism I believe should take that into account. Servant leaders and the other types don't simply win by their selective altruism, as in the paper. Some of the time they actually do wash the feet of the followers. Otherwise, it is hard to see how in the end all the types avoid collapsing into the masterful leader, who for all his considerable virtues is also a troubling character and whose consistently commanding style should be only one way to lead, not the way.
So, on why the executives report to the visionaries rather than the other way around: It is plausible to me that a commitment to lead based on one or another character type is less abrasive to others when it relates to intangible matters of vision than when it relates to concrete matters of operations. Relatedly, it is plausible that a character type with a commitment to lead as to vision finds it easier to pass the screen of ethical acceptability than a type with a commitment to lead as to specifics. The latter type has some obvious advantages in the struggle for life, and we should expect it to be an important character type with a number of variations. But it is a type that finds it difficult to pass the screen of ethical acceptability.
Another way to put the point: Egalitarian, forgiving, sympathetic, and servant leadership are all readily translated into types of visionary leader that pass an ethical screen, bu are not so readily translated into operational leaders. The masterful leader is the reverse: very easily translated into operational leadership, but with greater difficulty in passing the acceptability screen.
One way for masterful leaders to pass the acceptability screen is by getting extraordinary results; that greater pressure on the masterful type to perform to overcome its ethical deficiencies leads to an empirical prediction that the results associated with masterful leaders will be better than those from the other selectively altruistic types. I hasten to note such an empirical relationship would not necessarily show that organizations should prefer masterful leaders; what the hypothetical relationship would show in my view is that masterful leaders are more likely to get weeded out when they perform badly, not that the type is better at the creation of value than other leadership types. It does seem to me, however, that such an empirical relationship could lead an organization in that direction; a boss who is masterful would more readily be held accountable all else equal than the other types of selective altruists and thus should be preferred in hiring and promotion. The counter I take it is that compared to a Smithian sympathetic manager who cares about highest joint value outcomes, the masterful leader is likely to entrench himself and to in fact be difficult to remove. Accordingly, certain other types of selectively altruistic leaders may wind up being more accountable.
Much as submissiveness and deference are very important parts of our makeups, human beings are nitty about being ordered to do things. The visionary leader who avoids that type of direct order is thus advantaged as a type over the operational leader.
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