THE SENSE OF belonging and differentiating is the driver in every group, from the family unit to a major multinational corporation. Companies rise or fall on the ability to exploit that fact, as do governments, churches, and other organizations, whether the interactions are face-to-face or virtual. At the heart of when and how that sense of belonging occurs, or when and how that differentiation occurs, are the nature and style of a group's leadership.Marketers: Masters of Belonging and Differentiating OthersBOND > MAKE THEM FEEL DIFFERENTIATED > BEND THEM TO YOUR WILLTHE REPTILIAN BRAINSNAPCHAT > BONDING(CHATING WITH PEOPLE) AND DIFFERENTIATING (DAYS SPENT ON THE APP)a fact that automatically differentiates them from the unwashed masses. By the way, when we hear the term “family” used in relation to a product or group with whom there is no blood connection and only cursory ties, the Manson (that is, “lure of the cult”) radar goes up.Greg once had a student whose ex-wife purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of costume jewelry from QVC—a fact he knew because they split up and had to declare their property. She used her own money to make the purchases, so his concern wasn't that she had abused the joint accounts. His focus was on the weird attachment she had to the QVC experience. “Why would she do that?” he asked Greg.The reason is an essential factor in getting people to do what you want: the need to belong. Due to the ability of QVC employees to track customer purchases, when Sally called to order, the people would talk to her as if they knew her. They were more like gals from the club than salespeople: “Good to talk to you! Where have you been? We missed you!” All true statements, but for dubious reasons. Sally was home a lot because she suffered.The reason is an essential factor in getting people to do what you want: the need to belong. Due to the ability of QVC employees to track customer purchases, when Sally called to order, the people would talk to her as if they knew her. They were more like gals from the club than salespeople: “Good to talk to you! Where have you been? We missed you!” All true statements, but for dubious reasons. Sally was home a lot because she suffered from a debilitating disease, so these sales pros were a main connection for conversation and caring. They gave her a genuine sense of belonging by knowing her, and they engendered her differentiation as she purchased more and more jewelry. When her name popped up on the TV screen after she made a purchase, she would be acclaimed as “Sally, one of our favorite customers!”Differentiating by ChoiceTo belong is animal, to differentiate is human. You can be differentiated from others in your group or society because you have talent, wealth, athleticism, and attractive features. Or you can have the ability to know how to manage your virtual image, or the virtual image of someone else. All of those carry a positive connotation. But to be differentiated because you are weird is not a good thing unless you belong to a group of weirdos. (Being eccentric among a group of eccentrics can make you supertypical, as Maryann saw in her years in professional theater.) People look at the lone oddball and wonder what else in going on in his head besides the bizarre stuff that just came out of his mouth.So where does normal stop and weird begin? It depends on what is normal for the group. Don't project your own values onto the group as you attempt to draw a member of the group closer to you.The bottom line on differentiating might be summarized by an old phrase: You don't have to outrun the bear; you just have to outrun your friend. In your group, you will likely have people who are smarter and faster than you. You just need to be smarter and faster than some, though smarter and faster are also relative terms. Those in your group may be the slowest and stupidest humans on the planet, so that allows you to be smarter and faster in the cloistered group. Even if everyone in the group is smarter and faster than you are, you still have areas in which you outstrip their performances. Most people are good at finding that on their own.Instead of creating differentiation, you could develop isolation and distance. The audience needs to perceive the value of the message or the message doesn't have any value to them.Mechanics of ManipulationBelonging & Differentiating - DrivesBonding & Fracturing - ToolsFracture someone - by neglecting him so he increases his need to belong or stating he is too ordinary. Isolate him from the group. So he adopts the values you wantBonding someone - to bring someone to the group and influence him.Play the role of the source of approval of good and bad and let others measure to your standards. Be the source of values and ideas that others need to adopt.In short, if they are doing your bidding bond them if they are not fracture them. Pointing out to someone how you are different will stimulate his need to belong to you.abusive, luring him closer (bonding) and then literally kicking him away (fracturing)Bonding and fracturing are the operative concepts in making sure that the needs to belong and differentiate are met.We should clarify concepts here. The drivers are belonging and differentiating. The tools you use to prey on these most natural of human drives are bonding and fracturing. Think of it this way: Both of them function like a double-edged sword—cutting in both directions. This means each can potentially function in a positive or negative manner for positive or negative results. Fracturing can make someone stand out from the group when she is just a plain Jane, or to drive a wedge between her and the group and create a need to draw closer to the group or someone else. Bonding can be used to bring the isolated person into a group, or to take the alpha down a notch to a plain old monkey.Let's look at one scenario of how someone can manage another person's journey along Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We will use a Charles Manson–like example because his story is so well known.Our leader finds a young woman who is different from those around her, someone who feels like an outsider. He establishes a place of belonging so that she feels nurtured, safe, and protected. The insulation allows him to drive new “family” ideas into her head and to show her “the way”—the way to belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. This act of bonding her more closely to the family's ideals and making her feel as though she has a place in the group is a fracturing action that takes her away from mainstream connections. As she begins to understand how she fits and she adopts the family rules, she wants to be more like the leader (the supertypical). The leader sets the rules. Using his own leadership style, he informs everyone else how they measure up. When our subject starts to emulate the leader, she is attempting to differentiate just like a Boy Scout earning merit badges; she is living up to the standards that her group espouses. If she gets to a point where the leader fears he will lose control of her, he simply overdifferentiates and she starts to fracture from the group. Then the need to belong creeps back in. In effect, he drops her back to the “belonging” tier of Maslow's hierarchy.Before you can say “Tate-LaBianca murders,” our subject is so bonded to the groupthink that she does not remember how the outside world functions. She, like the young soldier described in Chapter 1, is getting all the self-image input she needs from those who understand “the way.” Only when she breaks from the group and starts to get new inputs and new standards by which to live does she consider that there was a problem. She may even say things such as, “He was perfect. Divine.” In fact, it was more than a description of exaggerated praise. The filter embedded in her by the group gave her a distorted self-image that made her believe he was divine and perfect—the light and the way. The result was a person who would do anything to achieve this perfection.Voluntary and Involuntary BondingThe only truly natural bond you have in life is blood. When you are born into a line of people, like it or not, you have a bond you cannot sever. You can choose never to speak, to see, or to think about that group again, but that very group will influence your thoughts, actions, and responses, regardless of whether you leave before you can crawl. That is, because you have the same DNA, you share the same operating system as your blood relatives. You can reprogram and fine-tune, but your new upgrades are still running on, and on top of, the same hardware and operating system as the rest of your family. It is easy (and convenient) to reject this assertion when we are kids, but we can't do it credibly when we're older because, as we age, we see more and more of our birth parents in the mirror. Many mannerisms, and even many thoughts, may be rooted in the biology, rather than the nurturing, we receive. We can walk away from all other organizations and erase all memory of the association.Think about the concept of artificial organizations as you wind your way through life. Look at how much you try to be like the groups you voluntarily join. Do you post on social media for adulation? Acceptance? Something else? More importantly, look in the mirror and consider how much effort you put into differentiating yourself from the group to which you cannot help but belong—your family.Each group, whether family or other, will establish leadership in a distinctive way, which is often determined by the dynamic that causes the core group to come into existence in the first place. For example, if a charismatic individual magnetically draws needy people to him, the dynamic takes shape from the moment of recruitment. Different organizational dynamics related to bonding and fragmenting emerge depending on the group's leadership factors: selection method, strength of the leader, the leader's style of influence, and the impact of isolation—whether real or virtual.Natural Versus Imposed LeadersAll groups have a leader, whether that person is sanctioned by a formal process or simply emerges in a position of authority.The simplest kind of leader is the guy in the office who steps up to solve a problem;Informal, or natural, leaders emerge in response to a power vacuum, whether or not the vacuum is evident. An example on the whimsical side is the guy who organizes the annual football pool at the office; a more practical example is the person who speaks up for his coworkers in front of the boss. The social version is the neighbor who arranges the holiday parties and organizes everyone in a protest against a new megastore. The neighborhood or other non-work-related leaders are the kinds of informal leaders who get harder to avoid. You can change jobs, but changing neighborhoods is a bit more traumatic.The second type of leader is formal, or imposed. The underpinning of formality is a recognized process to select the leader who fills an official slot and carries the crown and scepter of the position. We describe this leader as imposed because, in most cases, not everyone has a say in who gets the role. When the board of directors hires your new boss, you likely have little input in the decision. His leadership is imposed and, although you can opt to leave, that is likely as much power as you can exercise. At the same time, it doesn't mean that simply reminding people of his status will enable him to accomplish anything.The Army learned from this fiasco and replaced the lieutenant with a seasoned sergeant who had done the jobs of the people sitting in the office. He got cooperation and respect as soon as he demonstrated the understanding borne of that experience. His opening remarks communicated the message, “Give me permission to help you,” and that gave people the opening they needed to respect him.He finds that he first needs to go into the organization and listen to the people who carry the loads, the people who execute the work. Only after infecting the people who make a difference with his vision can he do what he calls “overwhelming the immune system of an organization” to make that change stick.Through the use of charisma, or just plain people skills,In one case, an informal leader used his physical or intellectual appeal and charisma to get others to see things his wayHe then exploited the innate tendency of humans to adopt ritual to reinforce a sense of belonging. He developed powerful rituals and trappings to tap into and hasten the sense of belonging of the German people. The Nazis developed emblems and held huge rallies. They took belonging to a new level and tapped into a homogeneous society who felt underappreciated and created a sense of pride. Step one: belonging.Hitler and Manson are people who understood the power of informal leadership and influence. They used that voluntary surrendering of authority as a foot in the door to ask for, and get, absolute power over others' lives. In some cases, the request centered on using the absolute authority granted by a small group to enforce authority over a larger group. In either case the informal morphed into formal and imposed.People use this same skill set in everyday life. Whether imposed or informal leaders, many people will create a cult of personality and use the seemingly inconspicuous opportunity as a means to gain increasing levels of authority over others. There is an adage that few people ever surrender power, so be very careful to whom you surrender yours.Strong or WeakRegardless of how the leader rises to power, strength of leadership plays a role in his success. Although it is difficult for the informal leader to seize all power immediately, it is not impossible. An informal leader can use sleight of hand or overt techniques to capture power from those below and above him in the hierarchy. Depending on personal agenda, the informal leader may truly only want to represent his people, and will rein himself in accordingly, or he may see the opportunity to become a de facto ruler. In the latter case, he leverages the power base he created with those he is “helping” to show that he is a factor that cannot be overlooked. Hitler used this to great effect in his rise to power. Once the informal leader begins to get the power base established with those above him, the power he wields over those he represents becomes more formalized. Regardless of whether the leader is formal or informal, the personality of the leader will affect how he wields this new power. The informal leader has to walk a fine line. Exercise too much authority, and he will be ousted; too little, and he will be ineffective. The skill set needed to be an effective informal leader is so complex that those who master it are often recognized for their prowess and become formal leaders as a matter of natural progression.Although informal leaders may be in the role for the fun of it, most formal leaders are in it for gain, whether financial or esteem. This means they have more at stake than most informal leaders. People say, “The power has gone to his head,” but the core truth to which that statement points is much more insidious. When a person has more at stake, stress rises. Stress changes the personality style of many people, and they go to what has worked in the past, either for them or for one of their role models. In many cases.PEOPLE FRAGMENT OVER TIME - TO DEFRAGMENT THEM AND ALLY THEM GIVE THEM COMMON CAUSE OR ENEMY TO FIGHT AGAINST.LIKING BEATS > AUTHORITYDori is an acclaimed artist who moved to a community with covenants. Although she is focused on adding anything to the world that inspires people and makes them delight in beauty, she also has to adhere to her home owners association policies. One day, a man with a ruler came to her home and measured the length of her grass. By terms of the covenant, it could not exceed two inches. Appreciating what Dori had done to bring a playful and aesthetically pleasing sense of landscaping to her lawn, the man with the ruler was terminated by the HOA.The best indicator that you have weak leadership is infighting. No one has had the ability or vision to establish a common cause or a common enemy. Chimps in a tribe will beat each other up on a regular basis, but as soon as a chimp from a rival tribe shows up, all the focus is on beating him up. A strong leader finds a way to spotlight the foreign “chimp.” Draconian leaders tend to become a common enemy for the group and drive a more cohesive team. The downside is that the parties at war will only stop fighting for one purpose: to sabotage that enemy. The best indicator that you have weak leadership is infighting. No one has had the ability or vision to establish a common cause or a common enemy. Chimps in a tribe will beat each other up on a regular basis, but as soon as a chimp from a rival tribe shows up, all the focus is on beating him up. A strong leader finds a way to spotlight the foreign “chimp.” Draconian leaders tend to become a common enemy for the group and drive a more cohesive team. The downside is that the parties at war will only stop fighting for one purpose: to sabotage that enemy.Neither of these styles is impervious to the cult of personality that can evolve in a vacuum, and both extremes have a tendency to create fractures. The Draconian leaders' fractures just take longer to show up. Either leadership style lends itself to being usurped, as well as informal leaders with Machiavellian intent.Unless you were a feral child, you have had imposed leaders at least until you were old enough to choose. In two-parent families, one is often the disciplinarian (translate: Draconian leader) while the other is the pushover—or so it appears. The division of authority that goes on between the parents in healthy households is a good example of power-sharing and using the dynamic of each other's strengths.Neither of these styles is impervious to the cult of personality that can evolve in a vacuum, and both extremes have a tendency to create fractures. The Draconian leaders' fractures just take longer to show up. Either leadership style lends itself to being usurped, as well as informal leaders with Machiavellian intent.Unless you were a feral child, you have had imposed leaders at least until you were old enough to choose. In two-parent families, one is often the disciplinarian (translate: Draconian leader) while the other is the pushover—or so it appears. The division of authority that goes on between the parents in healthy households is a good example of power-sharing and using the dynamic of each other's strengths.In some cases, the imposed leader will unwittingly, or even knowingly, give his authority to someone else who is a natural leader and a more forceful personality. This kind of transfer of power goes on in all kinds of organizations from the smallest to the largest.Even in a family of two, you can have both types of leaders. A smart, rational teenager in a house full of distracted adults and rambling toddlers could emerge as the informal leader. Through inaction due to paralysis that is caused by dealing with other issues, the parent surrenders authority to the adolescent. Or worse, a strong natural leader personality emerges in the child of a parent who finds it amusing but does not know how to handle the precocious little bundle of joy. The next thing you know the parent is in the role of tender to the ego of the child.In artificial groups such as the workplace, most people have to deal with an alpha whom they did not select and over whom they have no control. These alphas were not elected—the boss, the Pope, or the commanding officer—but each one has an unnatural amount of authority that is hard to supplant. Here, too, the natural leader may usurp authority and hold court by getting the blessing of the appointed alphas and, to use an Army term, “wearing their stripes.”The United States military offers an undeniable illustration of this kind of behavior. Army wives often assume the rank of their husbands. The wife of an officer, for example, may treat the husband's subordinates as if they were her own. Worse yet, she may try to manage the wives of her husband's subordinates as if they were her subordinates. This creates some unusual and complex dynamics, both in the workplace and in social settings.Even in a family of two, you can have both types of leaders. A smart, rational teenager in a house full of distracted adults and rambling toddlers could emerge as the informal leader. Through inaction due to paralysis that is caused by dealing with other issues, the parent surrenders authority to the adolescent. Or worse, a strong natural leader personality emerges in the child of a parent who finds it amusing but does not know how to handle the precocious little bundle of joy. The next thing you know the parent is in the role of tender to the ego of the child.In artificial groups such as the workplace, most people have to deal with an alpha whom they did not select and over whom they have no control. These alphas were not elected—the boss, the Pope, or the commanding officer—but each one has an unnatural amount of authority that is hard to supplant. Here, too, the natural leader may usurp authority and hold court by getting the blessing of the appointed alphas and, to use an Army term, “wearing their stripes.”The United States military offers an undeniable illustration of this kind of behavior. Army wives often assume the rank of their husbands. The wife of an officer, for example, may treat the husband's subordinates as if they were her own. Worse yet, she may try to manage the wives of her husband's subordinates as if they were her subordinates. This creates some unusual and complex dynamics, both in the workplace and in social settings.When a unit commander is strong in his leadership style at work but not so in charge at home, the dynamic can destroy an otherwise cohesive unit. Morale plummets.Styles of InfluenceThere are no simple criteria for what constitutes a good leadership style. We could argue the only criterion is effectiveness. Even in the military, successful leadership styles vary. Some leaders are benignly parental, others manipulative. Yet others distinguish themselves through coalition building.Authoritarian Versus DemocraticIn simple terms, this is telling versus asking. Telling may sound a lot like strength, but it is not necessarily the style of choice for a strong leader. Some Draconian managers routinely ask people to do what they want—“How would you like to take on an extra territory?”—and in the process create a tremendous following by getting positive outcomes. At the same time, they disenfranchise those who do not succeed in that system. The scenario plays out like this: An employee fails to comply with a manager's request. Not only does she express her disappointment in a swift and severe fashion, but she also creates an environment in which the person is ostracized. The effect of asking is that people often feel obligated on a much higher level than when the leader tells them what to do. The leader who asks is tying the outcome of the group to the request and creating a feeling of tribal obligation. That can be one of the strongest leadership tactics anyone can exercise.Open Versus ManeuveringEffective leaders can be open and straightforward, or maneuver like a snake in the grass and difficult to discern. Consider these two styles of leadership influence and think of the variations on them.Above-board. Whether authoritarian or democratic, this style of leader asks for what she wants upfront. She may be a strong or weak personality, but it is clear in her expectations of others. The benefit of this style is that people know where they stand, and situations rarely explode. The disadvantage is that it creates a lot of hidden intrigues because people under the leader try to find ways to counter her effectiveness. The key to dealing with her is to understand that just because she tells you what she wants tactically does not mean she is divulging what she is trying to accomplish strategically. She is still capable of having a grand scheme that is impossible to discern. She simply does not use.subterfuge to get it. She asks openly and receives each step in her master plan.Chess-playing. To this kind of leader, whether you are a subordinate or a peer, you are a piece on the board. The wise chess player understands that anyone can serve the function of an ill-placed pawn or have the killing strength of a queen. The chess player may tell some people his plan but use others as a blocking mechanism to set up his next move. The chess player needs to insulate himself with valuable pieces for protection. The danger is that a pawn may catch on, or a valued member of the inner sanctum may be sacrificed. The chess player's approach to the game often fails dramatically. To be effective, chess players need a fair amount of charisma or clout, or both.A broad band of possibilities exists in addition to these two. Consider the variations with just the chess player: he may be an aggressive leader who takes bold risks, or he will differ from the spineless chess player who sacrifices pieces timidly. The method of his rise to power will also dictate behaviors: Did people around him laud his methods, or did he talk his way into the game?Liabilities haunt both extremes of the chess player. The aggressive leader who uses his subordinates to lay a minefield for those who oppose him will probably be very effective until those subordinates have a crisis of faith: “Tell me again, why am I doing this?” And the timid leader who arranges to have his subordinates sacrificed will have hell to pay if he doesn't have a moral imperative and a decisive victory. In both cases, the perception of subterfuge can doom them.The crisis of faith will occur quickly for the above-board leader when those who have come to trust him for his honesty discover he has been hiding his agenda in plain sight. While the leader may not be hiding anything deliberately, his followers may have misunderstood the long-term objective or blinded themselves to the obvious. The most disillusioning turn of events in life can be the discovery that you have voluntarily followed someone to an end you did not predict. This sudden understanding of your own frailty can result in a tremendous backlash to the above-board leader.Naughty Versus NiceChris was a bully in high school, but a popular bully because he picked on people who were mean to the “weak.” He exercised strong informal leadership as a kind of heroic outlaw like Robin Hood. Chris carried that same persona into the Army, where he made his career. He often bucked authority, but commanded fierce loyalty from his men and always performed with distinction. Chris didn't change one bit when he retired from the Army and took a management position with a big construction company. A common description of him was, “He's the nicest SOB in the company.” For Chris, naughty sometimes translated as “nice.”The dark side of a naughty leader presents itself in the form of a mean streak that can arouse fear in some of the very people he works hard to protect. They are the people with fragile self-esteem and uncertainty about their competence. He keeps them in line because they never know when he might decide he dislikes a situation, response, or individual.In contrast, the nice leader strives constantly to build bridges, convey accolades, offer a sense of empowerment, and create an atmosphere of inclusion. She practices what workplace diversity consultant Melinda Epler calls allyship.Allyship is about understanding . . . imbalance in opportunity and working to correct it. Allyship is really seeing the person next to us . . . and first, just knowing what they're going through. And then, helping them succeed and thrive with us.9The problem with nice leaders is that they are people—and no person is always nice. The nice leader knocks everyone off balance when she's having a bad day or is profoundly disappointed about a result or situation. She turns into her naughty counterpart when she leaks sarcasm or criticism.What is your style, and to what style do you respond? To design a plan to get what you want, you need to understand how leaders motivate you to perform and what range of styles you can use to motivate others. In any case, both formal and informal leadership grant the leader a type of supertypical status if the person is effective in that role.Isolation as a Tactic of LeadershipA community with no external influences, or communication with the outside world that is funneled through a controlling source in person or through media, will become cloistered. As illustrated by Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment described in Chapter 1, the impact of that cloistering on behavior is potentially shocking. Whether formal or informal, the leader becomes the absolute authority for the group, the members of which seek his approval.If an informal leader seizes power abruptly, the result is likely displacement; the formal leader will see a mass exodus. Germany's wartime and post-wartime brain drain in the mid-20th century provides an example of the latter. Maryann participated in such an exodus from a theater company for which she worked. The board of directors hastily decided to put salaries for staff and actors on hold until the season subscription money came in. Not only was it an illegal move (“there's always unemployment compensation . . .”), but also disrespectful enough to cause six of ten staff members to leave.An extremely charismatic leader may be able to fend off the inevitable a bit longer than others, but the issue becomes not if, but when. If he can hold them long enough to initiate a transformation of the standards of the group, fracturing from societal norms is bound to happen. If he cannot, then his attempt fails.Given enough time, even if the leader is not particularly charismatic, he may be able to effect a turnaround by appealing to collective beliefs and altering them to play on groupthink in creating a cult of personality. In other words, he alters the collective consciousness of the group. This is the kind of phenomenon that has happened incongregations that splinter from the larger church community; as they bind closer to the pastor's pattern of thinking, they grow more critical of the policies and practices of the umbrella organization.With the needs of belonging and differentiating shaping so many of our decisions as humans, we have a duty to pay attention to the people in our lives who have the potential to satisfy those needs. On a grand scale, they are the imposed leaders of our companies and government. But the people who enforce neighborhood covenants or seize power at the Rotary Club meeting can have just as much impact—or more—on the sense of well-being associated with getting those needs met. Ask yourself: What is the reason she has so much sway over me? Is she exercising authority that has been given to her, or am I surrendering authority? Is she really charismatic, or am I perceiving her as charismatic due to circumstances? If you are the one in power, pay attention to the dynamic and polish your skills. If you are not formally in power, map the dynamic and use it to polish others' perception of you.A real-world application of this knowledge can help companies that acquire other companies. The balancing act is when to exit key leaders. Do it too early and you create mass exodus and a disengaged workforce; do it too slowly and the culture of the new company never takes hold. It is why companies twenty years after acquisition still refer to themselves as “the old X team.”