In October 1956, when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush the nascent Hungarian Revolution and the national aspirations it represented, the communist empire seemed at its apex. With a strong leader, a command economy, and an iron will, it seemed undeniable that the West, with all its messy deliberation, would be unable to compete.
Yet Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a young Harvard scholar, saw things differently. Fluent in Russian, he had traveled throughout the Soviet Union and was struck by its underlying weakness. In particular, he noticed that barely half the crowd at a soccer game in Soviet Georgia bothered to rise for the national anthem.
Great leaders understand that people need to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves. Some seek symbols, like holding spectacles at the Colosseum or triumphal arches. But it’s not enough to merely command action and get people to do what you want. You need to inspire them to want what you want. They need to see your cause as their own.
Why identity is such a basic human need
Humans naturally form groups. In an fMRI study of adults who were randomly assigned to “leopards” and “tigers,” researchers noted hostility to out-group members. Similar results were found in a study involving 5-year-old children and even in infants. There is a large body of research suggesting that we, both consciously and unconsciously, communicate what groups we do and don’t want to join and what our identities can and can’t tolerate.
Evolutionary psychologists attribute this tendency to kin selection. Put simply, groups that favor those most like themselves are more likely to pass on their genes. As Richard Dawkins famously pointed out, what we traditionally consider altruism can also be seen as selfish genes conniving to perpetuate themselves.
Identity has always been an incredibly powerful force in human affairs. It influences who we trust, who we cooperate with, and what causes we choose to support to a much greater extent than extrinsic incentives or rewards.
It is for similar reasons that Marshall McLuhan predicted in the 1960s that electronic media would lead to a global village and people would be able to instantly exchange ideas and experiences across vast chasms of time and space. Communities would no longer be tied to a physical place, but intermingle with others on a world stage.
Yet McLuhan didn’t see the global village as a peaceful place. In fact, he predicted it would lead to a new form of tribalism and result in a “release of human power and aggressive violence” greater than ever in human history, as long-separated—and emotionally charged—cultural norms would now constantly intermingle, clash, and explode.
When identity goes awry
The idea of an organizational culture is somewhat of a misnomer. No enterprise is a monolith. Each contains multitudes. There are functional groups, geographic divisions, old-timers, and newcomers. Each of these subcultures has its own leaders, devoted followers, and operational ethos that in a healthy organization becomes a point of pride.
Once we accept our inclusion in a group, we want to prove our worth by demonstrating our commitment to it. In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that many of our opinions are a product of the “teams” we choose to belong to. Up to a point, this is a positive force. It makes us feel like we’re contributing to something bigger than ourselves.
However, as the group identity becomes intertwined with our own, we feel the urge to signal our identity to others. Group polarization leads to “moral outbidding” and a purity spiral ensues. Inclusion in the team is no longer enough. We want to be star players. The most extreme views are proudly displayed, creating strong bonds of group identity.
Then, as Will Storr explains in his bestselling book The Status Game, a dynamic emerges. As we become more invested in a particular identity, it becomes harder to relate to those who play different status games. Elite athletes, Special Forces operators, and members of religious cults, to cite extreme examples, often struggle to connect with people whose values, norms, and sources of status differ from their own.
Because our judgments are so closely intertwined with our identity, contrary views can feel like an attack. We feel the urge to lash out and silence opposition. For leaders, the danger is clear. The same forces that create cohesion within a group can also sow division between groups.
Creating shared identity
When Paul O’Neill took the helm as Alcoa CEO in 1987, the once-great company was struggling. But in his first public comments to investors and analysts, he didn’t talk about strategy, profits, increasing shareholder value, or anything that an incoming CEO would typically say to quell investors’ fears. Instead, he talked about safety.
It wasn’t that Alcoa had a bad safety record. In fact, it was better than average. Nevertheless, O’Neill proudly declared, “I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries.” The audience began asking the typical questions about performance, but O’Neill would have none of it. “I’m not certain you heard me,” he said. “If you want to understand how Alcoa is doing, you need to look at our workplace safety figures.”
Wall Street analysts called it the worst speech in corporate history. One of the investors in the audience rushed to the lobby and began calling clients on the payphone, advising them to sell their shares in Alcoa immediately, and telling them “The board put a crazy hippie in charge and he’s going to kill the company.”
What O’Neill understood was that safety wasn’t really about safety. It was about identity. By making safety his defining priority, he gave employees throughout the organization a shared commitment that transcended functions, divisions, and hierarchies. Whether you worked on the factory floor, in engineering, or in finance, everyone could rally around the idea that nobody should get hurt at work.
In other words, O’Neill shifted the company’s identity. Employees were no longer simply people who made aluminum. They were members of an organization committed to looking after one another. Safety became a shared value, a common language, a source of collective pride, and, ultimately, a gateway to operational excellence.
The results spoke for themselves. Injuries fell. Performance improved. Profits soared. By the time O’Neill left Alcoa 14 years later, net income had increased nearly fivefold and the company’s market value had grown ninefold, from $3 billion to more than $27 billion. The investor who had urged clients to sell later called it “the worst piece of advice I gave during my entire career.”
Forging an identity that can endure
Every leader creates a shared identity, whether they’re conscious of it or not. Often, they invoke a common enemy, such as a rival group, or a common threat, such as inefficiency, waste, or complacency. Other times they create an ethos around a particular methodology or philosophy, such as Six Sigma, stack ranking and the war for talent.
Yet enemies are rarely truly vanquished and, at some point, you must make peace. Every ideology and methodology is flawed, whether it is Soviet Communism or the latest management fad. Eventually, you need to adapt, make adjustments, and focus on new problems to solve. That requires agility.
That’s why strong leaders create shared identities rooted in shared values. Riling people up through emotion or ideological purity can drive action, but eventually they need something more sustainable. Values are how an enterprise honors its mission. At some point, you need to go beyond “us and them” and build a larger sense of “we together.”
“Identity can be used to divide, but it can and has also been used to integrate,” Francis Fukuyama wrote in his book on the subject. The challenge of leadership has never been to make people think alike. It’s to help people with different backgrounds, interests, and perspectives see themselves as part of the same story.
That’s how shared identities are built, and how institutions endure long after any single victory has been won.