We all make “the leader attribution error.” First, we attribute to leaders events whose geneses lie elsewhere. Second, we credit leaders for outcomes that are positive. Third, we blame leaders for outcomes that are negative.
Sonja Hunt, a psychologist who years ago wrote a chapter for a book I edited titled, Leadership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, described the role of leadership in our construction of reality. “The emphasis on leadership may derive from a desire to believe in the effectiveness and importance of individual action, which is potentially more controllable and understandable than complex contextual variables.” In other words, we make the leader attribution error because leaders help us to make sense of a world that otherwise is disturbingly, distressingly, complex.
The phenomenon came to mind again recently as I read a long article in the Financial Times about “How Google Lost Ground on AI.” The focus of the piece was nearly entirely on Google (Alphabet) CEO, Sundar Pichai. Further, Pichai was compared, always unfavorably, to the man who is often seen as his major rival, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella.
We tend to place them side by side, to compare them. Both are Indian in origin; both are at the forefront of American technology; both are leaders of one of the most iconic companies in America; and both are now, along with a handful of others, such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, running an all-out race to see who can first, and best, master AI.
Still, the degree to which the article focused on Pichai’s shortcomings – in contrast to Nadella’s lack thereof – was striking. It was especially striking because even in the recent past Pichai was highly esteemed, and because even the near future cannot possibly be predicted with certainty. This is not to say that Pichai is blameless for what appears to be Google’s recent sluggish performance. The buck does after all stop with him. It is, however, to say that blaming one individual for whatever has gone wrong is simplistic, reductionist.
According to “multiple interviews” conducted by the FT, Google suffers from 1) “simmering tensions between rival factions”; 2) a “lack of clear leadership”; 3) “struggles to adapt from its position as the search market’s dominant incumbent”; 4) the absence of “wartime leadership,” that is, of a leader who can execute “under pressure”; 5) a leader who had to admit he was “caught by surprise” by the suddenness with which AI burst on the national scene; 6) “cultural and organizational problems” that “loom large”; 6) a lack of “clear leadership, particularly in the wake of recent rounds of lay-offs that have left staff rattled”; and 7) a “low key leadership style that may not be suited to a time when Google needs decisive change to close the AI gap with Microsoft and OpenAI”.
The contrast between Pichai and Nadella is implicit throughout the FT article – and sometimes explicit. As here: “Pichai’s incremental approach stands in contrast to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, who has made a series of bold bets on AI, including investing about 12 billion dollars into an alliance with OpenAI, a smaller investment in a French startup, Mistral, and rolling out AI in Microsoft products widely.”
The authors of the FT article took the easy way out. First, they assumed that something had already gone badly wrong at Google. Second, they assumed that blame for whatever went wrong rests solely with the leader of Google. If you believe the first, and you own Alphabet stock, I suggest that you sell it. If you believe the second, I’ve a bridge to sell you and I suggest that you buy it.