Leadership and Negotiation — Dichotomies and Definitions

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, real leaders don’t negotiate. Leading people requires charisma, vision, and a commanding presence, not the elusive tricks for making deals. Discussions of leadership often consider the ability to lead groups and organizations as a special quality that one is either born with or gains through long, hard experience. Negotiation is not seen as central to a leader’s job. For many executives, negotiation is a tool to use outside the organization to deal with customers, suppliers, and creditors. Inside the organization, it’s strictly “my way or the highway.” Accounts of the leadership of Jack Welch at General Electric, Steve Jobs at Apple, Lew Gerstner at IBM, or Bill Gates at Microsoft rarely focus on their qualities as negotiators. That’s because most people think leadership and negotiation are two different skills that don’t have much to do with one another. For them, strong leaders command and weak leaders negotiate. Leadership is about inspiring followers by giving them a vision. Negotiation is for cutting deals that may or may not work out.