Why efficient leaders risk appearing as jerks: people expect authority figures to accept organizational sacrificial harm, but view doing so as cold and immoral

Abstract

Organizations sometimes face choices where harming some employees brings overall benefits, e.g., downsizing under crisis. Similar to sacrificial dilemmas where causing harm saves lives, organizational sacrifices may communicate an affective-cognitive trade-off: sacrificing employees to maximize outcomes suggests a relatively cold but competent demeanor, whereas refusal to sacrifice may communicate warmth despite lower competence. Accordingly, people may expect leaders to sacrifice and conform to such role norms themselves. Finally, decision-makers may be able to influence such perceptions through verbal communication. Six preregistered studies (N = 2231) tested these possibilities. Consistent with prior work, people rated decision-makers who rejected sacrificial harm higher in warmth than competence, whereas managers who accepted sacrificial harm lower in warmth than competence. People also expected more sacrificial decisions from high- than low-authority decision-makers, even though they evaluated them similarly when making the same choice. Participants assigned to high versus low authority roles also accepted sacrifices more often, although this effect emerged only in less-experienced workers. Finally, expressing emotional concern for sacrificial victims increased ratings of warmth and moral character, and ratings of warmth and leadership when accepting harm. These findings suggest a paradox leaders may overcome with communication: People may expect sacrificial choices from leadership, even as they infer coldness and immorality (albeit competence) from such decisions—however, clarifying concern for victims may reduce approbation.

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