We seem willing to follow leaders who put the mission first because we all make trade-offs, and life is rarely simple or idealized. We want to be happy in our work, but athletes also want to win, soldiers want to survive the battle, and businesspeople hope to prosper. That’s not to rationalize successful leaders who have a mean streak. It’s simply to say that a nice personality is not necessarily required for holding a compelling vision for the future. And when forced to choose, we’ll sometimes take a leader’s vision over their style. More broadly, if a leader is giving us what we think we
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