In a competitive world, mean leaders look smart

(Press-News.org) People who view the world as a savage social jungle are more likely to admire antagonistic leaders, praising their competence, while those who see the social world as cooperative and benign might just call those leaders clueless, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Why do some people see antagonistic behavior in leaders – especially when it’s particularly mean or forceful or disagreeable – as a sign of incompetence, while others view it as a mark of savvy leadership?” said Christine Nguyen, a doctoral student at Columbia Business School and co-author of the paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “We suspect the answer might be not only about the leaders but also about the people evaluating them, and how those people see the world. In other words, beastly is in the eye of the beholder.”

Nguyen and co-author Daniel Ames, PhD, a social psychologist and professor of management at Columbia Business School, theorized that people who believe society is competitive are more likely to value antagonism. 

“People who see the world as a competitive jungle may forgive, or even credit, leaders for being aggressive and heavy-handed. Those who see the world as a collaborative place may see such leaders as obnoxious, ineffective or naive,” said Ames.

Antagonistic behavior includes actions perceived as mean, tough, forceful and intimidating. On the other end of the spectrum are behaviors seen as friendly, kind, agreeable and caring.

Researchers conducted a series of surveys and experiments involving more than 2,000 participants. In one experiment, participants were asked to rate the impact of a series of behaviors, some of which would be considered antagonistic (e.g., being abrasive and blunt, calling out and blaming people, making threats or ultimatums). In another, participants read about hypothetical workplace environments led by managers with varying degrees of antagonistic behavior. Some were asked to rate past behaviors of real-world CEOs.

Across all the experiments, participants who saw the world as more competitive were more likely to rate antagonistic managers or leaders as competent compared with participants who saw the world as more cooperative. Participants with stronger competitive jungle beliefs were also more likely to rate antagonistic behaviors as having a more positive impact or being more effective than collaborative behaviors.

Researchers found similar effects when they asked participants to speculate about the past behavior of widely admired leaders. When people evaluated successful CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook or General Motors’ Mary Barra, those who thought the world was a competitive jungle assumed that those leaders must have used confrontational tactics more frequently on their rise to the top and believed those tactics helped them succeed. 

One especially interesting finding was that employees higher in competitive jungle beliefs said that they would be more likely to choose and stay with, and less likely to leave, antagonistic managers, than those lower in competitive jungle beliefs. 

“When we asked employees about their current managers, we found that employees higher in competitive jungle beliefs currently had more antagonistic managers compared with those lower in competitive jungle beliefs,” said Nguyen. “This suggested to us that, over time, through processes like employees selectively joining and leaving, antagonistic leaders may find themselves surrounded by a subset of employees with stronger competitive jungle beliefs, who are more tolerant and approving of their behavior.”

These findings shed light on how and why some antagonistic leaders succeed, despite creating tension or seeming off-putting, according to the authors.

“Our findings may help explain how and why antagonistic leaders might be endured, excused or even celebrated by those who work with or under them, allowing them to attain and remain in positions of power,” Ames said.

Nguyen noted that most participants were from the United States, which may limit how broadly the results apply. The study also focused on workplace scenarios and perceptions of organizational leaders. Future research could explore how these dynamics play out in broader social or cultural contexts.

Article: “Savvy or Savage? How Worldviews Shape Appraisals of Antagonistic Leaders,” by Christine Nguyen, BA, and Daniel Ames, PhD, Columbia University. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online July 14, 2025.

Contact: Christine Nguyen can be contacted at cqn2101@columbia.edu. Daniel Ames can be contacted at daniel.ames@gsb.columbia.edu.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes 173,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve lives.

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