ET Mueller

Origins of Alpha Leadership

David Mech coined the term alpha male after studying wolves in captivity. He described the dominant male as the pack’s ruler, an image that still shapes how we think about leadership today. However, after studying wolves in the wild, Mech observed that packs were essentially family groups led by a breeding pair. As it turns out, successful “alphas” were more of a stay-at-home dad than a hard-charging executive. Watch Mech’s explanation.

Frans de Waal’s study of primates led to a similar view. Alpha males invested in relationships. They mediated tension, built alliances, and shared food. Their position depended on their ability to hold the group together. Watch de Waal’s TED Talk.

Christopher Boehm describes similar phenomena in hunter-gatherer groups. He coined the term “reverse dominance hierarchies,” where the group prevents any one individual from becoming too powerful. Authority lasts only as long as it serves the group.

So why does the myth of the “Alpha” still hold such sway?

First, we inhabit a cosmopolitan and anonymous world. Selfishness scales faster than altruism, which incentivizes dominant alpha behavior. Rousseau may have been right for most of human history, but Hobbes gets the last laugh?

Nowadays we must relearn what smaller societies once knew instinctively: cooperation is a skill that must be cultivated. As sociologist Richard Sennett observed, collaboration demands attention, patience, and practice.

Second, our economic systems reward dominance. Competing for the top spot often comes at the expense of others with equal or greater capability. Hypothesis: societies with less income inequality tend to produce less “alpha behavior.” Where inequality widens, dominance displays increase.

Third, in an interconnected world, networks amplify hierarchies. Technology reinforces dominance through a mechanism known as preferential attachment: power accumulates not to virtue but to visibility. In other words, it pays to be famous for being famous.

A subtler factor is cognitive. As Gazzaley and Rosen argue, we evolved for scarcity, not abundance. Overwhelmed by excess information, we rely on shortcuts like status to decide who to trust. Bounded rationality is a feedback loop for hierarchy.

It’s hard to see this trend reverting without our intervention. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, AI may be amplifying the gains of top performers — a trend that, in my calculus, would only further incentivize negative alpha behaviors. Read WSJ article.

Whether AI becomes part of the problem or part of the solution remains unclear. In the next piece, I’ll take the side of the latter and tell a Return-of-the-Jedi-esque story about the distributed intelligence underpinning reinforcement learning.

Leadership in MARL

In the 1970s and 80s, Robert Axelrod and W. D. Hamilton used game theory to explore how cooperation could emerge in a competitive world. They launched a computer tournament to find the best strategy for the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The winner, submitted by Anatol Rapoport, was elegantly simple: Tit for Tat.

The lesson from this winning strategy endures: start cooperatively, reciprocate, forgive quickly, and keep it simple. After all, even a klutz can dance the Texas two-step.

Their work marked a turning point in the fusion of behavioral and computer science — a lineage that began with John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, and Herbert Simon, and continues today in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL).

In MARL systems, intelligent agents pursue their own goals while adapting to others. You could even say that good MARL architectures promote leadership:

• Reward functions shape cooperation, much like incentives do in teams.
• Nodes with high information flow become connectors (what I call Zeta leadership).
• And leadership emerges when one agent’s behavior improves collective outcomes.

Recent specific examples of cooperative behavior amongst agents:

• DeepMind’s population-based MARL models showed how agents spontaneously developed negotiation strategies in resource-sharing environments. Read DeepMind’s paper.
• OpenAI’s hide-and-seek experiments revealed the emergence of roles without any central command. Explore OpenAI’s project.

We can see similar decentralized intelligence across living systems: honeybee swarms selecting new homes (Seeley), neural networks in the brain generating cognition (Fornito, Zalesky & Bullmore), and ecosystems renewing themselves (Likens & Holmes).

And in our world, psychologist Michael Tomasello argues that shared intentionality is humanity’s evolutionary superpower. Morality, he suggests, is the oldest technology of coordination. Leadership, then, doesn’t depend on charisma or control. It emerges from alignment.

We’ve taught our machines to succeed without kings. Let’s make sure we don’t forget that lesson ourselves.

That may also mean rethinking what it means to be an alpha leader.

#Leadership #ReinforcementLearning #BehavioralScience

From Negative to Positive Alpha

“Highly intelligent, confident, and successful, alpha males represent about 70% of all senior executives.” So begins a 2004 Harvard Business Review article, Coaching the Alpha Male.

Rereading it today, what stands out are the assumptions underneath: that alpha leadership is necessary to run a business; that people are born alphas; that collateral damage is simply the price of brilliance.

Nobody liked working for toxic alphas back then either. We just tolerated it, along with other moribund practices of the era like racism, sexism, and homophobia.

That HBR article came from the last vestiges of a corporate world where loyalty outranked integrity. Guess what? Millennials aren’t buying it anymore. Not in a world of decentralized power and distributed knowledge. Yes, give us a clear mission, dear boss. But after that, we’ll take it from there.

Because maybe the alpha archetype isn’t universal after all. Perhaps it’s just an American construct: born of empire, conquest, and the pursuit of endless growth.

Psychologist Fathali Moghaddam calls this the Americentrism of modern psychology: theories born from one society’s conditions, exported to the rest of the world as if they were human nature.

So where do we go from here?

First, the Alpha impulse is like fire: both creative and destructive. Our task isn’t to extinguish it but to harness it — to take the energy without the carcinogenic smoke.

Second, we must balance traditional alpha leadership with other types. Just as we reserve antibiotics for when we truly need them, we should apply alphaism sparingly and deliberately.

Third, we must reward its virtues (decisiveness, courage, clarity) and confront its vices (cruelty, arrogance, and fear) with courage.

Kim Scott, in Radical Candor, offers a portrait of a positive Alpha: a leader who listens more than instructs, debates rather than dictates, and makes disagreement productive.

A Positive Alpha leads through composure: steady under pressure, generous with credit, precise with feedback. They raise the energy of a room instead of draining it. Authority gathers around them because they give more than they take.

Think Henry V before Agincourt: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

Now is the time to recognize the full spectrum of leadership — from the Alpha to the Omega.

From the Alpha to the Omega

Leadership does not depend on authority. While authority can magnify a leader’s impact, it has no bearing on the quality of that impact.

Leadership is enabling others to accomplish something they couldn’t do on their own. Think of all the different ways people have helped you. It might have been a courageous act, a direct challenge, or a well-timed question. Anything can be an act of leadership when offered with the right intention.

Inspired by this thought, I attempted to create a taxonomy of leadership types. Alpha, Delta, and Lambda move us forward, although they can be a bit loud and obnoxious. Gamma, Pi, and Omega get most of the work done, despite the noise and distractions we make them endure. Epsilon, Kappa, and Rho hold the culture together, even if they spend too much time at the coffee machine.

From the Alpha to the Omega

• Α — Alpha: Momentum Builder. Leads with integrity and courage.
• Β — Beta: Best Friend. Loyal and supportive.
• Γ — Gamma: Builder. Transforms ideas into reality.
• Δ — Delta: Change Agent. Guides transformation.
• Ε — Epsilon: Mainspring. Keeps motion alive when others stall.
• Ζ — Zeta: Connector. Bridges people and ideas.
• Η — Eta: Mentor. Elevates others through teaching.
• Θ — Theta: Guardian. Defines limits and protects.
• Ι — Iota: Perfectionist. Pursues excellence with precision.
• Κ — Kappa: Custodian. Preserves continuity.
• Λ — Lambda: Illuminator. Creates purpose.
• Μ — Mu: Mediator. Finds common ground.
• Ν — Nu: Navigator. Charts the course through uncertainty.
• Ξ — Xi: Embodiment. Leads by example by aligning word and deed.
• Ο — Omicron: Operator. Sustains discipline every day.
• Π — Pi: Planner. Designs systems for efficiency.
• Ρ — Rho: Relational. Builds trust.
• Σ — Sigma: Synthesizer. Integrates perspectives.
• Τ — Tau: Teacher. A friend of the future generation.
• Υ — Upsilon: Energizer. Elevates morale.
• Φ — Phi: Philosopher. Grounds action in ethics.
• Χ — Chi: Decider. Weighs trade-offs under pressure.
• Ψ — Psi: Perceiver. Reads emotion and intention.
• Ω — Omega: Finisher. Completes the work.

Caution: each type is powered by a force that can be positive or negative, depending on the context and dosage.

Every good leader is also a follower. It’s the easiest way to create other leaders — which Mary Parker Follett insisted is the essential work of a leader.

Followership isn’t the opposite of leadership but its complement. As Robert Kelley argued in In Praise of Followers, effective followers think independently, act proactively, and shape outcomes as much as those formally in charge.

And as Jon Levy demonstrates in Team Intelligence, the best teams share information fluidly and align around purpose, so influence flows through the group instead of accumulating at the top. That gives new meaning to “Team Lead.”

#Leadership #Composure #SystemsThinking