A manifesto for friendly dominance

Five easy steps to increase your impact We live in a polarised world. Compassionate people stand eye to eye with their Machiavellian peers. The one thing they agree on is that they are different. Cries for a more compassionate world are ubiquitous. But why join these passionate yet largely ineffective cries; why merely contribute if you can take the helm and steer; indeed, why not set the agenda, why not set the goals, articulate a purpose, and inject the world with much-needed meaning and values. In short, why not choose to dominate? I appreciate "dominance" may summon imagery of alpha-male brutes lusting for power. Forgive the hyperbole, but is that a natural order? Contrast it with a real-world example instead. In his book Tristes Tropiques, anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss studied a people untouched by Western civilisation, deep in the Amazon jungle, the Nambikwara. He translates their word for leader “uilikandé” as “he who unites”. And his work describes how this uilikandé injects the group with a sense of purpose, rather than submitting it to a top-down logic - as is common in our parts. The uilikandé builds support from the ground up, through self-sacrifice and humility. Now, what I'm getting at here is this: the idea of dominance should not be thrown out along with our negative views of dominant types. Instead, we should harness it for good; we should cultivate a leadership culture in the image of the uilikandé - call it a friendly dominance. Moreover, this friendly dominance is something I believe can be studied and taught . Taking inspiration from great revolutionary pamphlets, manifestos, blueprints and white papers, as well as 8 Steps to Getting Killer Six Pack Abs to give it a chance in today's clickbait world, I shall break it down in five easy steps. 1. Learn to dominate in colourfully different ways People being people, we all have our limitations, we have greater awareness in some areas and blind spots in others. Taking myself for example, I thoroughly enjoy exploring and understanding things, but I feel others are generally better suited to building enthusiasm and mobilising energy in others. A long tradition studied these similarities and differences as personality types. It goes back as far as the Ancient Greeks, around 460BC, with Hippocrates’ Humorism, and more recently, Lacan's psychoanalysis (via Myer-Briggs), neither of which is particularly scientific, or funny despite its name. However, they open a window on a potential to dominate in very different ways. Of the various theories popular today I personally recommend Insights. This assigns colours to each of its four types, each representing the "energy" of the person: a blue thirst for knowledge, a green sensitivity to group harmony, a red focus on performance, and a yellow enthusiasm to inspire and mobilise energy in others. Each colour represents a temperament, an approach, a character, as well as a style. None of it is set in stone, it merely indicates a preference relative to others. The wider point, however, is that no one style is superior. And to harness the full range of humanity's colours, shapes and styles, we must to learn to dominate in colourfully different ways. I would love to explore this topic in further detail (as I said, I enjoy exploring ideas), but for the purpose of this text let me leave it at that. For further advice, feel free to turn to leadership coaches. A more budget-friendly option, is Keirsey's excellent book on MBTI. Or simply build on the literary canon, as great novelists traditionally do. Using empathy rather than theory, novelists not only paint the delicate dance of power and influence in the most vivid tones, they lift the veil on the inner machinations. 2. Master different languages Calling on people who are fundamentally different also requires a certain flexibility of mind. It works both ways. You cannot speak to someone's drivers if you cannot understand them. Think of is as the role of a casting agent, listening out for the unique traits that make an actor stand out in a role, and how you would notice a discord when an actor with a rather calculated and measured disposition plays a spontaneous, slightly rash character. Personality matters. A great story transports you psychologically in a different time and place. This isn't easy. One the challenges I faced writing my novel Vluchtlijnen, was creating sufficiently different characters with different psychological drivers. This was as much fun as it was testing, but it certainly helped me in my ability to approach different people with different styles. You can also see and hear this difference in practice in how people motivate their decisions. While one person may defer to positions of authority, another may be listing up statistics; another will soothe their doubts with inspirational language; and yet another will point to an intuition or a vague direction of travel. Listen out for these stylistic differences, as (alas) no two people speak the exact same language. I believe that no one style is superior. We can reflect, however, on how we ended up with our current balance of style and energies. As Jared Diamond wrote in his splendid Guns, Germs and Steel, history is mostly a series of historical accidents - not some grandiose civilising process culminating in our own existence. Our economic system has come to reward certain human traits but not others, and has thus come to amplify some energies but blunted others. That some styles thrive more or less is mostly a product of our times, and has no good reasons beyond the here and now. To unlock these diverse yet powerful energies we should try and speak to concerns we will probably never fully understand. There is great humility in accepting one's blind spots and appraise them as strengths in another. Like a bright-eyed foreign student, we must nevertheless aim for a fluency in their strange and unfamiliar languages. This can range from a lone moment of personal connection to inspiring a crowd. But by addressing them in their language, we empower them in their potential. 3. Focus on common ground, but listen out for concerns I generally do not like managerial types, especially the ones labelled natural leaders. But the times a leader "got me" I will not easily forget. I remember feeling humbled how they would pause and peer across the room with a thoughtful look. After a strange build-up, they revealed a deeply personal observation. They were, in short, surprisingly friendly people. Crucially, they said what others were thinking and feeling. This is where dominance is often lacking. It is all too easy to become fixated on an specific angle or position, and act with only one set of interests in mind. To increase buy-in gradually, you can free up energy by articulating the underlying concerns of others and representing their interests fairly. This is explained well in Getting to Yes. Moreover, by lending a sympathetic voice to the concerns of others you increase your chances that anything you subsequently suggest will garner support, they write. Now, a fair assessment of everyone's concerns won't magically make anyone give up theirs. However, creating space for different concerns to be heard and representing them in a balanced light makes it a lot easier to focus on a higher principle or common standard on which to base an agreement. Even when you disagree. The atmosphere in which concerns are aired and taken onboard also invites creative thinking. It allows to come up with a range of win-wins for others to choose from. In summary, do not pin your hopes on one central demand as your impact will be greater when you listen out for underlying concerns and approach problems collaboratively. 4. Practice candid openness Another thing I have come to admire is how these friendly dominant people show a readiness to step out of their routines and reflect openly, independent of their position. As an immigrant myself, this has much in common with learning a foreign language. It takes a combination of perseverance and preparedness to get out there, in these wild and foreign lands. At first you are locked in a narrow world of utilitarian needs and desires. But as your vocabulary increases, that world develops nuance and subtlety. You inevitably make mistakes, but you learn, and in so doing, your palette grows. Our inner palette can undergo a similar refinement. Alain de Botton calls for a candid openness to oneself in this regard. It may seem obvious, but as a student of English only later in life, the binding together of the words candid and openness stuck with me. We must forgive the occasional crassness, and get out there as in a foreign land, to allow these sometimes difficult ideas and explore them in our minds. Nothing is really black and white. Like our language skills, emotional intelligence grows with a combination of experience and introspective refinement. The more we let go of preconceived notions and allow lived experiences to guide us in our understanding, the more refined our palette and, ultimately, the more perceptive we become. In terms of corporate culture, openness about one's private journey also goes a long way in assuaging the darker Machiavellian instincts in a firm; it nurtures a growth mindset. 5. Overcome the norm This brings me to the fifth and final "step". Along with the above call for open-mindedness I would equally like to warn against its opposite: the false comfort of the norm. It is terrifyingly easy to succumb to the pressure to live up to stereotypes and the expectations of others. It is unfortunate but for that reason many hold back their true colours and settle with a style that reflects their position and CV. We need an "Umwertung aller Werte," to use the great iconoclast Nietzsche's words - a revaluation of all values. His version of friendly dominance revalues and reorganises; it is artistic in that it is creates instinctively, yet it is also forceful, in that it imprints its newly created forms. What they do is to create and imprint forms instinctively, they are the most involuntary, unconscious artists there are: – where they appear, soon something new arises: a structure of domination that lives [...] Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morality (II-17) In a very different manner than Nietzsche, Oxford Professor Colin Mayer also challenges received norms and accepted conventions. In his book Prosperity, he puts forward the need to reformulate today's language of shareholder primacy into one that considers stakeholders equally. The philosophically inclined business writer (a rare breed as I have found) describes a number of first movers in an economy that in fact already largely runs on humane values and a sense of shared destiny. There are reasons to be hopeful. But there is still much work to do. We need to mobilise friendly dominance to build an economy that accounts for its externalities and develop a governance model suitable for managing globally shared resources. The very air we breathe, the peace and stability we take for granted: these are objectively good. In summary: more dominance not less Anthropologists studying societies in the most remote places on the planet have shone a different light on the "natural" social order. They remind us that compassion (and humility along with it) shouldn't be the reserve of the meek and humble. For the Nambikwara in the Brazilian rainforest for example, building support from the bottom up makes much more sense than imposing a fierce rule from the top down. But it is much more than a philosophical point. As Mayer shows this is also borne out in numbers. People are no longer solely machine operators, cogs in some dreary machinery. They are using their minds to add value, their thoughts as well as their feelings. According to UNESCO estimates, the proportion of human capital has multiplied over the last decades and makes up 55% of global GDP. The year I was born, about 80% of value sat in machines and factory buildings. It is hard to keep track, but the proportion of intangibles is rising enormously. This is measurable. As businesses change their ways to attract talent, sell their brand to consumers, and source patient capital from investors, economic value is changing before our very eyes. While theory struggles to keep up, a social consciousness is in fact already priced in. If you take away anything from this, I hope it is the following: that dominance can serve a social purpose . Increase your power and influence in five (admittedly not so easy) steps: Learn to dominate in different ways, Speak to different drivers, Address concerns and be imaginative in coming up with proposals, all the while Exemplify a candid openness to oneself, and Overcome the false comfort of the norm. And with that last point (about the false comfort of the norm) I also want to finish. It is all too easy to look back from a position of power and simply assume that it's your due. Too much human capital is being wasted. Considering the large proportion of GDP tied up in it (55%!), the incentive to make better use of existing potential is clear. It benefits productivity as well as work satisfaction; it raises living standards as well as improves civic participation; and ultimately, it inspires others to follow suit.