Milgram's Implication for Leaders, Followers and Organizations

In 1961, Stanley Milgram¹ conducted what became a famous experiment about how people respond to authority. The experiment demonstrated that authority figures are capable of convincing someone to commit atrocious acts even with a moderate level of assertiveness. Fortunately the elaborately staged experiment was not real, but what was learned remains relevant to this day. This week's post highlights a recent study conducted by Reicher, Haslam and Smith, published in the Perspectives on Psychological Science.¹ Their work expands on Milgram's original research by linking its implications to leaders, followers and organizations.

Milgram's original study had three participant roles: "Experimenter," "teacher" and "learner."⁶ The teacher, unaware he or she was the subject of the experiment, was told the objective of the experiment was to learn how punishment impacts learning. The teacher also did not know the learner was an accomplice of the experimenter. 

Here is how the experiment was conducted. The experimenter and teacher sat in the same room and the teacher was placed in front of a "shock generator"¹ machine. The learner was hooked to what appeared to be electrical wiring and was positioned in the next room within earshot of the teacher. Using audio equipment, the teacher asked the learner memory questions. Whenever the learner made an error, the teacher was prompted by the experimenter to zap the learner with an electric shock by moving a clearly marked voltage switch on the machine. The teacher was also instructed to accelerate the shock level for each wrong answer. While there were no actual shocks administered, the teacher was told the voltage began at 15 volts and progressed to 450 volts (a potentially fatal dose).

When the supposed shock magnitude reached a significant level, the learner could be heard screaming and begging for the test to stop and eventually the learner fell silent. These reactions happened on cue at certain voltage levels. Some teachers, believing the learner was suffering, stopped the experiment. Others, however, continued because the experimenter nudged the teacher forward with carefully scripted language.

In the original experiment, 26 out of 40 teacher participants exacted the 450-volt punishment. Similar results have been found in several follow-up studies. Based on these outcomes, it becomes easier to see how the holocaust could happen or how an organization can convince a CFO to falsify financial results (e.g. Enron's Andy Fastow).

After these experiments, there was debate about why the teacher participants were willing to go so far. Milgram's thinking was that the conditions of the experiment elevated the experimenter to a position of authority whereby it tapped into the common human inclination to obey.¹ Further, the conditions did not allow the teacher any flexibility to object to what was happening, unless he or she was willing to be outright disobedient. It is frequently difficult for someone to take this kind of stand.

Reicher, Haslam and Smith's study¹ explored whether the results were based on more than obedience and looked at whether it was a social connection between the experimenter and teacher that led to the teachers' responses. A strong social bond is commonly found in a leader-follower relationship and it is expected that followers would want to please and accommodate the wishes of a leader. In the authors' test to isolate these ideas, their study concluded that the teacher was indeed reacting to his or her desire to solidify and build a relationship with the leader (i.e. represented by the experimenter).

The experiment provided a startling prediction of how a follower might react to someone in a legitimate leader authority role. This recent study's perspective of the Milgram experiment shifts the thinking away from the original conclusion that the teacher simply acted out of "blind obedience."¹ It also brings out some important implications for leaders, followers and organizations. To start, it tells us that not only should there be concern about who is appointed a leader, but also the degree of influence the leader is allowed to have on followers. Some important questions:

1. What is the leader willing to do to accomplish the goals of the business? This update to Milgram suggests that we need to select leaders who limit their actions and recognize that success is best achieved through positive means. Therefore, the leader who approaches everything with a "win at all costs" attitude is more likely to behave as the "experimenter" and may guide followers inappropriately.

2. Is the leader narcissistic? Narcissistic leaders spend a great deal of energy seeking sycophantic followers.³ It is not difficult to see how a submissive follower can easily fall into the "teacher" role.

3. Is the leader focused on his or her personal gain or is it directed to the benefit of the organization? Leaders who focus on personal gain are more likely to exercise authority in negative ways.

Similarly, there are concerns about followers: 

1. Do we want followers who are willing to blindly do what someone in authority tells them? Or do we prefer a follower to think critically about orders?⁵

2. Does a follower have such a low level of confidence that there is an unwillingness to challenge the leader?

And finally some questions for the organization:

1. How do we select leaders?

2. What is our tolerance level for extreme behaviors that might earn the desired returns but at a cost?

Leadership is a complex phenomenon and both the Milgram experiment and Reicher, Haslam and Smith's reinterpretative study² provides some interesting concerns that organizations need to consider.

To learn more about the specifics of the original Milgram experiment, see the publication from 1963 (available on the Internet)². I also found a recent video re-enactment of the experiment conducted as an audition for a British reality TV show. Found at:⁴ www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3adPFpm1p0 

Your comments are welcome. For additional readings and video, please see below.

References 

¹ Reicher, S. D., S. A. Haslam, et al. (2012). "Working Toward the Experimenter: Reconceptualizing Obedience Within the Milgram Paradigm as Identification-based Followership." Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(4): 315 - 324.      

² Milgram, S. (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67: 371 - 378.  [Note: I was able to locate this study on the Internet]

³ Arvisais, M. A. (2009). "Narcissus in the Workplace: What Organizations Need to Know." Submitted to: Journal of the North American Management Society.

⁴ Video uploaded to YouTube by STGBree on Aug. 19, 2010, and I retrieved it on Aug. 24, 2012.

⁵ See chapter on Followership in Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience. Mason, Ohio, Thomson Southwestern.

⁶ Milgram, S. (1965). "Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority." Human Relations 18(57): 57 - 76.

           

Related studies:

Zimbardo's Prison Experiment: See Youtube video retrieved Aug. 28, 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uNJjX01rJM

See Frank Bruni's article in the New York Times, Sunday, Aug. 26, 2012, Sunday Review Section page 3. Describes a new movie entitled Compliance that is based on a true story of obedience.