Why Leaders Need To Master Tribal Signals

Pundits often encourage us to find our tribe, but that has its downsides. Tribal thinking can make us suspicious of outsiders and can lead us to ignore new information and evidence that challenges our existing beliefs and paradigms. Sure, there is safety in sticking with our tribe, but we are unlikely to learn anything new.

Experimental evidence has long shown we are hardwired to be distrustful of others we see as different than ourselves. In a study of adults that were randomly assigned to “leopards” and “tigers,” fMRI studies noted hostility to out-group members. Similar results were found in a study involving five year-old children and even in infants.

Yet in his new book, Tribal, behavioral psychologist Michael Morris suggests a more hopeful view. He points to three tribal instincts—the peer instinct, the hero instinct and the ancestor instinct—that leaders can leverage to pursue common purpose. We can expand our tribe beyond simple conflicts of “us and them,” to forge bonds and move forward as “we together.”

The Peer Instinct

Humans have many disadvantages over other animals. We’re not strong or fast, we can’t fly or swim and don’t have highly attuned senses for sight or smell. Our superpower—and it is the most powerful one that nature has ever devised—is collective action. While it is true that social insects, like ant and termites, can work together in complex ways, these a pre-programed rather than adaptive. We don’t see a lot of innovation in anthills.

Research by Michael Tomasello at the Max-Planck-Institute found that while human infants are able to share intentions by pointing, apes do not. In a similar vein, Esther Herrmann and her colleagues found no significant difference between human children and chimpanzees in understanding space, numbers, and causality, but humans performed far better on tests that involved social learning, communication, and theory of mind.

Humans instinctively learn from our peers. This becomes especially clear in low information situations. I remember during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, we were always trying to get information on where to go and what to do. We would be on the Maidan and someone would get a text to go to Parliament of the Cabinet of Ministers and off we went.

Coordination is an important tribal skill. The Otpor! movement that overthrew Slobodan Milošević in Serbia had regular meetings among its dozens of chapters to share best practices. What proved successful in one region would quickly be replicated in another. This provided a strategic agility that the regime struggled to keep up with.

Researchers have long found we adopt new ideas through those we know. Everett Rogers emphasized the role of peer networks for spreading new innovations in his classic, The Diffusion of Innovations. Robert Cialdini pointed to the importance of social proof. Morris notes that these result in “prevalence signals” that signal shared habits across a tribe.

The Hero Instinct

While the peer instinct arises out of our need to belong, the hero instinct is rooted in our drive for status. Morris points to archaeological evidence of big game hunting to estimate that this instinct evolved about a half million years ago. For humans to bring down a huge wooly mammoth, one would need to risk his life by stepping in front with a spear.

Those who act in exceptional ways not only gain status, but also evoke “prestige signals” that others want to emulate. A child wanting to copy his favorite baseball player won’t only try to imitate his swing, but how he walks up to the plate, gestures and wears his uniform. These “hero codes” act as ideals for us to live up to.

Hero codes act as models for behavior. In the Soviet Union, stories of miner Alexei Stakhanov not only served as a Communist ideal, but were featured on the cover of Time magazine and influenced human resource management practices in the west. In Latin America, soap opera heroes were shown to positively influence literacy and family planning.

Status can take many forms. In The Status Game, author Will Storr explains how we evoke hero codes in three distinct ways. The first is prestige, which compels us to display success—perhaps with a corner office or expensive jewelry. The second is dominance, which drives us to assert control over others. The third is virtue, in which we signal moral superiority.

The Ancestor Instinct

The last is the ancestor instinct, which drives our reverence for tradition. This instinct is often expressed through symbols, ceremonies, myths, songs and other artifacts. By honoring these ancient codes, we signal our loyalty and devotion to the tribe and its ideals. American politicians, for example, often invoke the Constitution to bolster their moral standing.

Many ancient traditions are more practical than they first seem. Jewish kosher and Muslim halal procedures contribute to food safety. Traditional rituals for processing manioc developed by Tucano tribes in South America remove trace amounts of cyanide. Inuit Caribou divination rituals help randomize and prevent overhunting in a single location.

Again, this instinct appears to be distinctly human. In one experiment that involved an adult engaging in a feather waving ritual before taking a marshmallow from a jar, two-year old children as well as chimps and bonobos ignored the ritual. But by the age of three, children across cultures would imitate the ritual exactly before taking the marshmallow.

Leaders often use “precedent signals” to leverage our reverence for tradition. It’s no accident that Abrahamic holidays often fall on the same dates as earlier pagan rituals. For many of the same reasons, when Lou Gerstner set out to turn around tech giant IBM in the 1990s, he frequently invoked the company’s history and culture to support changes he made.

However, the ancestor instinct can backfire if the precedent signals it sends are seen as inauthentic, as Starbucks learned this the hard way, when its store mimicking Chinese culture in the Forbidden City faced enormous backlash.

Building A Bigger Tribe

Humanity’s superpower is collective action. We collaborate in large numbers and in incredibly complex ways. That’s how we managed to hunt animals larger than ourselves, build shelters for protection, and pass knowledge down through generations—something no other species does. Our tribal instincts made all of that possible.

Yet tribal instincts can also go awry. Our need to signal identity and belonging can lead to group polarization. Moderate voices are drowned out and extreme views dominate. Members engage in “moral outbidding,” a purity spiral ensues and those deemed insufficiently loyal are ostracized and cast out while outsiders are viewed with extreme suspicion and attacked.

Still, as Morris points out, wise leaders can harness tribal instincts to build a better future. “Precedent signals” help root new ideas in the cherished traditions of the past. “Prestige signals” encourage people to excel and be recognized. “Peer signals” drive us to seek out best practices and implement them in our own activities.

Tribal identities aren’t necessarily fixed. They can grow and evolve over time, incorporating new clans and new ideas to take on new challenges. “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. That insight is key to understanding how to make our tribal instincts work for us.

Wise leaders don’t resist tribal instincts, but channel them to evolve a greater whole.

Greg Satell is Co-Founder of ChangeOS, a transformation & change advisory, an international keynote speaker, host of the Changemaker Mindset podcast, bestselling author of Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change and Mapping Innovation, as well as over 50 articles in Harvard Business Review. You can learn more about Greg on his website, GregSatell.com, follow him on Twitter @DigitalTonto, his YouTube Channel and connect on LinkedIn.