Should leaders be feared or loved? with historian Niall Ferguson
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That's the world I come from, in which the leader is capable of rage and haps, potentially in physical violence. I don't know about you, but I find that concentrates the minds somewhat more than a hug.

Everyone is adam grand. Welcome back to rethinking my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the ted audio collective. I'm an organizational of psychologist, and i'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts .

and new ways of thinking.

My guess today is historian neil ferguson. He's currently a fellow at stanford tuber institution. He's been named one of times one hundred most influential people and been united for his service to literature, publish sixteen books, advise john the can's presidential campaign and won an international m my for best documentary.

And in two thousand twenty one, he cofounded a new institution, the university of us, to say neal is contrarian and controversial, putting IT mile. But I don't think we should shy away from conversations with respected voices on the basis of objecting to some of their ideas, in this case, meals approach to counterfactual history. Considering events that could have happened but didn't, has made me think differently about .

effective leadership. Our conversation began by the discussion of whether you can achieve this through being nice alone, whether you have to be a bit nasty too. And I history is strongly on the side of the view that you need to the nastiness there as a potential new.

And I don't see either eye much. And that's why I appreciate a conversation with I learned a lot from how he thinks, even when and especially when I disagree with what he thinks. I hope this Sparks a thoughtful conversations for you.

It's you.

You never drill. Feel free to interrupt yourself. Correct yourself. Correct me all of the above.

I never do any of that.

Still, you've never corrected me, ever, or anyone else for that matter. Well, this is going to be fun. So the the genesis of at least this this idea for this conversation for me came from an event we were at together a couple months ago. And I think you are on stage maybe the next morning, and I was speaking at dinner, and you asked to a fairly contentious question from the audience, and I thought IT LED to a fascinating dialogue than more people have to listen to. I think IT was something to the effective.

Are you saying that .

leaders should always be nice?

I think I just market. Where was the effect that if you can make yourself loved, make yourself feared? And I think you were presenting A A portrait of modern leadership that was more empathy than anger.

My impression of leadership and history is that fear plays a considerable pot. And my own experience suggested that if people aren't a little bit afraid of you, they really don't work terrible hard. If they are afraid of you, they work there bit hardest. So there must be some elements of fear in leadership. And I think we're deluding ourselves if we think that that's not true.

My first reaction is to think of the great philosopher, Michael Scott from the office, who said that, do I want to be feared or loved both? I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. That was actually, in some way, a preference to my thinking on this, which is, I don't want people to be afraid of their leaders.

I do want them to be a little bit afraid of disappointing their leaders or fallowing short of their expectations. And I wonder if the type of fear that we're talking about really matters. Can I do my most creative thinking when i'm afraid that my boss is gonna fire me everyday? Probably not.

Can I do my most creative thinking when i'm afraid that my ideas might not live up to my boss? Is high standards potentially? What do you make that well being .

in the story and out, of course, study a eros in which leadership was very often war leadership. There must be some elements of fear to make men do frightening things. The way I encountered leadership was, as you've suggested, this admixture of a fear.

I'm not onna call IT love, but the desire to impress the most famous soccer manager of modern times shares a name with me, alex ferguson. Now ferguson was famous for his half time berating of uh manchets united players when he was the manager of man united. And the hair draw was ferget famously loud onslaught a half time on players who done the performed .

well out meal. Where where you historians love to argue by example, we organizational psychologists prefer to build theses based on evidence. So let's take .

examples are evidence and they're just particularly detail forms of evidence and you lose the detail when you start creating dataset. So aware that's a risk.

But i'll i'll take rigorous evidence any day over the collections of anecdotes. So let, let, let me throw one out there for you. One study that I love because IT looks at at hf time speeches and this is in college basketball.

That's not a serious thing. But okay, go ahead, go ahead with your so called evidence about your so called sport. That's fun.

So bayston colleagues are they scored college baseball coaches halftime speeches for anger, and they're interested in whether teams were more to win games after an angry halftime speech was given. And they control for what the score was beforehand and a host of other factors that I matter. And they they do indeed find that if as a coach, you've an angry halftime speech, your team is more likely to win.

But there are a couple of caviar. It's the first one is IT only works if you're not too angry. So modern anger is more effective than completely berating your players.

And secondly, IT only works if you're not typically angry because if you're angry all the time, people think you're just a jerk and they tune out whether if this is unusual, they think, what, we've done something wrong, and we've gotta now step up our game. And so I look at that evidence and say, okay, he should fergus and berate his players. Probably not.

Should he hold them accountable when they are under performing? Yes, but he should be careful about how often he goes there, because he loses his meaning, just like a parent who always yells at their kids. If you actually .

go through all the people who discuss fergus and style, it's clear that he didn't always use the hair dry. In fact, IT was rarely used, and this is the critical points about anger IT. If you can't be overused, in fact, ideally hardly ever used IT.

But IT has to be known that you could use IT. This is deterrence thereon. But to be credible, that has be some awareness that you are capable of being angry.

The study of history is about taking enormous numbers of cases from multiple periods, and not just the recent past where american social psychologists have been active. The great leaders, let's take winston churchill, which was rarely angry and generally appeared to have a kind of alcohol propelled boomy in his, in his manner. But if you do and do Roberts is excEllent bug py, you will see that that just all moments when the lion roars.

And i've lied this approach to my role as a parent. I have five children, so I have a bigger data, data set than most of the people you talk to you about this. They will all confirm, if you ask them that i'm capable of being angry, but that are very, very, very, really being angry with them as individuals.

And I do the same at work. So I once through a chair of the student, you can't do that anymore, unfortunately. But but I I remember the distant past at oxford before there were any real rules about how professors should behave. But I only had to do that once, and I didn't have a laci say again for the rest of the near ten years that I told her. So the key thing with anger is you need to use IT once as a demonstration effects.

and that should be enough. And finding us in much more agreement than I expected. And Frankly, that makes me comfortable. But I I think that there's there's real convergence y here between your take as a historian and an a point that evolutionary psychologists have made, which surprised me at first, given that self control has an almost endless host of benefits when IT comes to performance or success in in just about any domain you can measure IT.

Why do people have the capacity to lose control? And IT turns out that if you don't think someone could ever lose control, then you might get a little bit complacent with them. current.

And I think that's what you're speaking to. absolutely. I would not condoned chair throwing.

I wouldn't you to think that I threw chairs IT, that students at harvard in the lawsuits would have ruined me growing up. And glass go is a great education in itself, because glass goes a place in which there is a level of violence. And this is part of the culture of pubs and football clubs, ctr ism, all of that stuff, the culture of a hard man.

And it's quite a good introduction to the nature of powers to grow up in a place where there are gangs and where the alpha male is supposed to engage in violence. That kind of where you start to learn about power as a child and you learn quickly the the successful of male in that environment doesn't find very often doesn't need to, because at some point that person establishes dominance and usually some spectacular active violence. This is essentially the glassgow s strategy, which is, your retaliation should be awesome and terrifying, something so dreadful to behold, but people never want to see you again.

I think that was passive. What impelled me to throw the chair? I knew that within half an o everybody in the college would know that ferguson was this potentially explosive glass region who would throw a cheery, if he didn't get your S A.

done. There's a key point want to make in modern ideas of leadership. Oh, you could not possible throw a chat to how terrible, you know, you reacted in such a typical way called, but really, you gonna take that off the table.

We just gonna. Oh, no. Oh, your your s is late. I'm sorry. Duty canceling you suffering from any issues I should know about as soon as that your default it's like areas is going to be laid.

You're creating such a false choice though.

aren't you know it's a real one.

Well, i've never raised my voice student, let alone through on a chair. And I also don't think i've ever had a paper turn in late. So I just think your primitive methods are lacking creativity.

The way to determine this is really the performance of our students.

Oh, I like this. So what we need to do is we need to teach them some common material and then run the experiment and see who does Better on the exam.

or are the paper. The question is really, in any standard, any group of student, this is a distribution as Normal. And there a few brilliant people. The question is, can you get the few brilliant people to produce work of exceptional quality? That's the thing.

If those students are highly intrinsically motivated, then I think none of this is relevant. I think if if they're reliant on extrinsic motivation, then what what you're arguing is that we need leaders who are not just supportive but also demanding. yes.

And and I whole hardouin ly endorse that. I think it's well documented that high expectations and accountability are half of that equation. What I take issue with is the narrow and primitive range of strategies that you consider for being demanding and setting .

high expectations. But let me be clear, this whole region theater element has to be part of a, brought a psychological strategy to inspire, in mackie's sense, love as well as fear. There's no does in my mind that the rage is this rare thing that should only occasionally happen.

But IT needs to be known, that needs to be part of your reputations. And IT needs to be the thing that, in the senses, in contrast with your otherwise emotionally sophisticated engagement with the person, is working for you. You've want to understand them and you want to motivate them, and you want to give them a vision of the olympian heights to which they can inspire.

And that that the I would say that the the quantity, an approach to to good manager or good leadership is that is you want them to fuel motivated, praise them when it's good. You should you should praise them. But that needs to be this, I think without the elements of fear, without a potential um for that to be not just disappointment but real anger. I think the the process of collective endeavour of leadership and followership, it's it's diminished and people not produce their best work.

I just brial IT the the use of the term need, right? I'm a system theist. St, i'd believe in the principle of equipment ality that they're always multiple paths to the same end. And I think that we shouldn't we shouldn't confuse the descriptive with the the prescriptive. The fact that throughout much of human history, being a little bit nasty or having the capacity to be a little bit nasty has produced results, doesn't mean IT always has to be that way. And you, as a count of factors, st, would be the first to agree with that, won't you?

Because I think in the country fact that alex ferguson's much nice is sort of like you or maybe you're managing manage unit, they just don't win nearly so many trophies.

You don't respect basketball, but phil Jackson and drag pop of witch would be the counterpoint.

I don't respect basketball. I don't even know who those people are.

Arguably, ly, the two greatest coaches in N B, A history whose styles are much more aligned with what I typically recommend, which is servant leadership with extremely high expectations and a commitment to pushing everyone to reach their potential.

Well, we'll never know how that style would have worked in the much more demanding context of the english premier league.

I think where I hesitate a little bit is that the one of the risk of anger is that IT leads people to feel disrespected.

But I don't respect somebody who's done bad work. They are being disrespected. They've lost my respect. If the work that they produce is no good is gone, respect done, you want to win IT back, do Better world. And people can expect me to respect than twenty four, seven, regardless of performance who has not going to play.

I think there's a distinction. Christian Rogers and our college of man between earn respect and old respect. And old respect is treating people with dignity, because their human beings earn respect is evaluating the quality of their work and their contribution. And I think what you're saying is we shouldn't lose that element.

But there is a risk, I think, that when you feel people haven't earn your respect with what they produce, that then you lead them to feel more disrespected at a basic level as a human being, that can be to defensive, that I can also lead to withdraw. What I like Better about disappointment as opposed to anger, is that we know that when you express disappointment, that leads to guilt in the other person. And I think erma bomb back probably put IT best when he said that guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. IT may be the ultimate prosocial emotion in that I want to write my wrong and I want to make sure that prevent that from happening again. Why do you not believe the disappointment to guilt is just as powerful as anger to fear are?

Plenty of people where I come from who don't feel guilt .

are they still see oaths?

Now they are calvi sts. It's just a different religious culture where you, a member of the alex.

what happened to no bless a blesh .

does no no bless in glasses is pretty much like no bless freezing.

Are you claiming there's no such thing as Scottish kilt?

The culture is different. And I think i'm very I mean, american academic life is being infused with certain due sensibilities because the extraordinary successive of of using in scholarship of the last century has as naturally have that consequence. But guilt tripping doesn't work everywhere. IT really doesn't. And not unlike shame tripping can work in some cultures, doesn't make glass go other.

I'm not aware of any any research on ross cultural differences in reactions to disappointment and guilt, but on shame, my initial read of the evidence was that shame was kind of productive everywhere because that leads you to feel like you're a bad person, not just you've done a bad thing. And then that leads to attacker withdrawal, neither of which is the reaction we want.

And then my colleague, ric pagosa, published a paper looking at sales people in the netherlands s in the Philippines, and showed that reaction among dutch sales people. But in the Philippines, IT was different, that when they felt ashamed, they actually regulated IT differently and said, well, i've i've got a trans, send that shame and and earn honor. And now i'm going to worked harder to build relationship with customers and be as as helpful and caring and effective as possible in saying of people .

in the netherlands and people in the Philippines behave in the same way, be completely at odds with all we know about the the history of those countries and their religious, uh, history is particularly one of the key lessons that you learn as a historian is that even in in the most extreme circumstances of on combat, close combat, they are profound ing. Cultural differences in these are huge consequences. Uh so I think you should not be surprised to find that the one strategy that works in crich masstige tes would not work in in a, in a comprehension public in glove IT almost certainly wouldn't IT speaks to something .

that i've often been struck by. As we've had, they stopped provoking clashes, which is I think that the research I do is informed by everyday behavior of ordinary people most of the time. And what you've spent most of your your career studying is extreme cases where the stakes are extremely high and we get to see people in their greatest moments and also their worst moments. I'm curious about what else that teaches us about effective leadership. What else would you say as a historian is is vital to being an effective leader?

Can I ask you a question of you may have you for punch somebody in the face only in the six years .

of creating that I did.

but never that kind of I don't know.

It's definitely not interesting. Are you saying I should not .

it's just that kind of what we really talking about here. You have never had to do that.

but I I do think there are people who should have been punched in the face.

but not by you.

I'd rather I I guess I think it's more of a chAllenge to see if I can reason with them.

Yeah, I just think there's there is a kind of big dividing line in in the world between people who've been in contacts where they have had to use violence and those who've been so function as never to have to use violence when you are confronted with the resin. Dear thor, at least of being hurt when you have to risk E A life, at least risk injury. Uh, this is when there is a moment of revelation.

So i've been much more interested in that kind of thing than in what you call everyday life. And the reason is that for most of history, everyday life for most people was violence, with a meaningful risk of violence just going about your ordinary business with very limited protection for many states, if you were a an ordinary person. And and so actually for most of history, people have been grappling with this problem is still the case that all over the world, the people who are in the privilege bubbles that we didn't have to have this to deal with daily life is being able to be sufficiently credible in your potential user force that people won music, mug, hurt you, steal from you.

Hunter gather societies were extremely peaceful, on average, is my rate of anthropology wo and that most of human history is del .

not evidence we have on prehistory, of course, is ohio. Logical evidence is the prehistoric societies were really quite violent, with lots of clashes of violating lots premature death. And the just think about human history is IT. IT can be construed as A, A, A civilizing process with the amount of daily or ordinary violence diminishes, and violence then become structure into warfare. But during peers of piece, there's much less of .

IT to go back to the personal perspective, I have been punched in the face once I did.

you know, punch the person back.

No, I was the shortest kid in my class was second grade. I got to know this blade sent right to the principles office. IT was over before I started, and right after that I started karrada. And our sense was very clear. He said, if you ever start to fight, you should intend to finished, and you should never hit someone unless you do not want them to walk away. My stance on that was was shape pretty early, as in eight year old, to say, I don't never want to attack someone unless my life is in danger and only one of us is going to be left standing.

Maybe you estaban credibility just the martial arts lessons, but nobody hate you subsequently.

no, I haven't had to use that. Thankfully, there's an interesting new on here that I want to pull out, which is, I agree with you, words are not violence. I think we need to make a distinction between physical harm and intellectual discomfort, and and even feeling degraded or devalued. But the words we use do have a big impact on whether violence happens and also whether it's rationalized and justified.

So where do you draw that line? I think there's a very cleared lying between the way that we speak, the things that we say and the things that we do. It's obviously wrong, and it's it's importantly wrong to to call for somebody to be killed.

I know a loss about this because people are frequently called for my wife to be killed. My wife, I unhasty ali, has been that spoken Christmas of radical islam ever since the time of nine eleven, and are continues to receive threats, the direct threats of calls for violence against the individual. A very, very wrong.

They can lead to violence. This can be, can be the period to to murders. And that's something that I i've had to think a lot of both, especially because i've seen the effect that IT has to be regularly threatened in that way.

That's different from them, more general, so called hate speech that people love to talk about these days. And that's a category I M really wary of because ton is infinitely elastic. What gets classified as hate speech?

There's an important question this raises for me, which is going to be a hard to answer in the this space we have for today's conversation. But I do want to get your reaction to IT, which is I hear you're saying .

violence is wrong.

absolutely. I also have read you in some ways, defending changers choices in the period .

that I am writing about. The moment the period of the cold war, there was a large scale communist st. Entity, the sobber union, that was highly repressive to what's own people lent than the peoples that imposed its ideology and system on.

And that was, I think, a legitimate gum. And we should resist the spread of that amp, that there should not be multiple cubes, for example. And the consequences of the people are so, you know, of defeat.

We're terrible because the collapse subsidy nam was attended by hyda spot chat just as the regime of pull part another extremist communist regime was A A genocidal one and and IT wasn't actually that hard to persuade americans after the ninety forces that they had to do something to stop the expansions of communist part. Reason, be easy self until things not really difficult in vietnam. So in most of history, policymakers, to make the answer short, have to choose not between nice things, peace and bad things, war, but between lessin Grace of evils.

I'm on your turf here, but I will say that where I struggle is just looking at cambodia an example. The bombing of cambodia for me is just unacceptable across the moral line. IT was not necessary and therefore is not justifiable. And I I don't know with the right. I'm not knowledge able enough to make an argument here.

but was the north economise violation of cambodia neutrality and the use of cambodia for military bases? okay.

No, I don't think it's okay. But one is much worse than the other. I think that this for me is is one of the dangers of counterfactual history. I can make IT all too easy to justify any matter of.

since I don't think that at all. It's the opposite. The problem with history is that there are team seldom discussions of the kind of factors, which means that we just accept what happened is the only thing that possibly could have happened.

And that creates a sort of deterministic fatalism. Now you have to consulate the counter factors, because that's what contemporary have to do. Anybody making a decision is, in fact, confronted with multiple scenario, and you don't know which one is going to be the factual.

There all counts of factors to begin with. And if we dismiss that, and we just say, well, this is what happens. So let us look at that, then we are depriving ourselves of an understanding of the true process of historical change, which is like a garden of faulting part. To use a great phrase from barcas.

I I think that, right? Actually, I I agree with you on all of that. I think where is tRicky though, is, as I understand counterfactual history, I say this is an an interloper guilty of what David dunning would call epistemic tress passing for him and out of my own here.

But there is no fence around history that says trust passes. Keep off.

Well, well, thank you for for permitting me on your lawn. I I might end up paying on IT. But here I go. I think that when I read counterfactual history, IT seems very quickly to become acute italian.

And we start to then ask, well, did did this choice leads to the greatest good for the greatest numbers? But we never really know the second order consequences of any decision. And so I prefer rule utilitarian m where we ask, what are the consequences of following the principle, or even continent on ethics, where the ends don't justify the means. And I think from either those perspectives, I would say bombing cambodia, wrong as a principle, regardless of what procedure.

the wrong and bad.

the net negative, what do you make of that?

Well, kinds of to use another philosopher are really ate about recapturing past thought, the great of philosophy of history. Argy collingwood said that we really engage with historians and try to reconstitute past thought from whatever has been left IT with dies and letters, the fragments of past thoughts.

And as you do that, if you do IT faithfully, then you realize that there are these choices that are constantly being made, some very large and some smaller, but the there is this constant process of choosing. And that's not just by the people in the situation room, by ordinary people too, making decisions about whether to fight on, whether it's a flea. And when you do that kind of history, you realize that there must be multiple counts of fractures.

And it's quite hard to touch retrospective probabilities because only one of them, in the end, only one outcome happened. But you have to recapture the uncertainty, the exactly the world probabilistic example, that seem the decent chance that if you could hit those north uta spaces and supply lines in cambodia, you'd meaningfully disrupt the no vietnamese and vehicle efforts to kill americans and inside the vietnam's troops. And so there was a military ration all for doing that.

They were keenly aware of the risks and accurate of bombing at that time. This was before precision weaponry. So one has to have at least make at least the good faith, attempt to understand the thoughts process in the past, and to realize that there was some rationale, even if IT failed.

I'd also to see that the work counts of factors, all I try to do as historian, is to return us to the uncertainty the past act is confronted so that we don't treat the past to some story, some theatrical or fictional narratives, that we just sit back and joy. It's not like that is actually to bring our conversation. Bix, where IT began, this is is much more like a game.

And pick your game. You can have a serious game like football and unserious one like basketball, but it's essentially uncertain to us at the beginning of the game or even a half time, even five minutes from the end, who's who's actually going to win. And that's history. It's not a story. History is much more like one of those incredibly close games that that keep you on the edge of your seat.

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If you're up for IT, just got to on. Okay.

here we go. First question, what is the worst advice you've ever gotten?

The worst of ice I ever was given was to consider a career in the police. You, yes, he was IT wonderful spite ful oxford tutor who didn't like my abras of style seminars that probably people listening to this, he thinks he was right.

What is something you've change your mind about or .

rethought lately? I I used to think that sAiling was a boring activity, then I couldn't understand its appeal. But one of the things I did, my fifties was to take up ceiling. And it's transfer by attitude towards the natural al world and given me a great respect for for sailors and boats with sales i'm so .

glad didn't stake off in my he golf. Who is a historical leader you admire who's .

not male that who's .

one of the unsung heroes of history, whose female well.

these days there's a fair amount of of singing about Elizabeth first, but that's a very interesting and important and consequential rain for english history. And I learned an enormous amount from studying history of the eab, an period as an undergraduate. So needs even more glory.

This is almost a ridiculous question to ask you, because this is what you do for a living. But give me give me an unpopular opinion or a hill you're willing to die on.

Well, british empire was on net a good thing.

You've had many critics over the course of your career say you the excusing and legitimate of all the violence that went on there. That's a lot to call a net positive. How do you react to those critics?

Well, they should first read the book and apparently none of them never go around to that. The book, uh, which I think in amErica had the subtitled the rise and demise at the british world order from the book does not of course admit the crimes and and since on the country details them in quite a graphic way but the point I make instead any historical phenomenon has to be understood as having uh some costs and benefits and most of the history of the world is the history emmy's and ampas vary from being absolutely brutal. And motorists think of hitless to be relatively liberal and economically developmental.

The room epa was certain independent mental, and some of the chinese dinner sites were on the british and pop security in the ninety and twenty centuries. balls? No, but IT was some kind of model the scandinavian welfare state.

But simply that you go to be prepared to recognize that the right way to make the story's argument is it's not enough to say bad things happen. Therefore, IT was bad. That's just moronic.

Bad things happen in every independent nation stay. Does that mean nation states are bad? One has to be able to be a little bit more subtle than that. And much of the attempt to criticize or to revise the history of employee is is just based on a failure to understand that you could make meaningful comparisons with that. How would india have been had IT not been unified on the british rule?

Can be a prediction for the next couple decades that you see as a historian and that the rest of us won't the .

united states going to to lose cold war too.

I have to ask a follow up with what effect? And to him.

the to china and china will create a kind of global surveilLance regime that will make us all perform in astoria for american power.

And what's your confidence interval around that prediction?

I think all predictions should just be tree IT is a speculative that flights of a fancy designed to provoke for I will be the pretentious is to give IT a confidence in able but I think the problem is that most people have a very optimistic view of the united states will win cold war two because he won cold war one. But the sample size seems a little small to draw their inference.

And at this point, my senses that the country is far too divided in death and strategy. Ally clues to do well against a far more economically formidable force than the soviet union ever was. So that's my yeah my unfashionable opinion. But it's as much designed to change people's minds and make people realize that we were not doing nearly enough to avert this outcome.

Well, this is exactly what I always wonder when you make contrarian arguments, how much do you really believe them versus how much do you believe it's necessary to make them in order to push people's thinking?

I love freedom. I'd like to see what I think because I I think that's an extremely important attribute of a free society, and it's through provocative thoughts that we advance. You know, I say this because I want to avoid t the outcome. I'm not simply sitting watching possibly, and I deeply engaged in this because I don't want that to happen.

What's the question you have for me?

What would you be prepared to do to protect your family?

I'm struck by a news report I read a while back of somebody who refused to an intruder by offering them a glass wine. And how many people have tried that alternative? And in that case, at the the guy took the wine and said, what am I doing and walked out, right? So I I guess I believe in many situations where IT feels we have no alternative options, there may still be alternatives.

S that we have been tested. You're not in. Are you open to that?

Never do this in glass, go. If you ever live in a glass, go. Just got a change, your whole approach, because I be at lying down the street of people wanting to break into your house the glass of wine. Hey, this is where a ground lives.

I didn't play that to its logical conclusion. Well, I did want to end on a lighter node. Neo, once upon a time you doubled in comedy. What was your biggest lesson from that?

That I would not succeed as a professional comedian is much harder to be, uh, funny than to be serious I I told a very successful comedian sashed barkin, when he was at cambridge and sessions going on to make a career of being fun. It's really difficult. So I decided that I would law of of these expectations by being a historian. And then if i'm even slightly funny, people are so relieved that it's not going to be boring, but they laugh up horribly.

It's true. What was IT like to have borat as a student?

He played the part of a very earnest and scholarly student brilliantly. And IT took me about five or six weeks to realize that he wasn't actually doing any of the reading. And there was a memorable confrontation, like in those days, cameras on graduate read, their S, S, allowed in supervision ons.

And we got to a certain points in the S, A. We should set up until that point. Plausible, then IT seems to go off track.

And I remember interrupting him and saying, saha, have you actually read that book? Anyone like this? No, as such. And that was when I realized he was just playing the part of a very scholarly Young freshman, but was, in fact, mostly just acting and doing comedy.

And then, and then I know what happened next. You throw a chair at him and he quit your class.

No, no, that was a different. I was in oxford. I would never have grown a chair at saxes about foot taller than you. kidding.

Thank you as always, for chAllenging me to think differently and to think more deeply even when I disagree with .

you and think you're extremely wrong.

Well, you are entitled to your ironist opinion. You fine, as always.

has been my place. And oh, by the way, don't don't throw chairs. Students SHE very bad things to do.

He admitted.

Yes, IT was just a story. Discouraged, very strongly discouraged. Pictures maybe, but not picture. no. what? All right, let's go.

This debate with neil makes me think about a distinction in psychology between dominance and prestige. Dominance is leading with authority and even aggression. Prestige is seeking respect and trust. And of course, most leaders do a combination of the two. But in the short run, there are benefits to leading with domains is easier to gain power.

In the long run, though, the evidence suggests that there's a risk you create a zero, some world which breaks unhealthy competition and unethical behavior, and ultimately can topple you from your throw leaders who prioritize prestige, who strive to treat people with dignity and elevate them ultimately attending at the last laugh. In the long run, I think prestige is a Better option. Think about the leaders you admire most.

They don't undermine people. They elevate them. Rethinking is hosted by me, adam granp.

The show is part of the ted audio collected, and this episode was produced in mixed by cosmic standard. Our producers are hand icky sly mow in asia sympson. Our editor is one hundred. Our fact checkers pull derbin original music by hale sea and elson lin Brown. Our team includes a lisa smit shake of 未来， sia atoms, roxon high lash bending and chain Julia dickson with, depending on Rogers.

I just think if you open the gun covered in this, only a bottle of bottle IT could go, could go wrong too. But i'd like to ask.

of course, the good, of course it's good. I just say like the experimental list in me wants to to run that simulation hundreds of times and ask what's the probability that that works?

Yes, unfortunately, we don't get the luxury multicolor simulations of of sub situations.

P R X.