全世界都在宣揚真誠、公平和透明。以“公平的好處”為關鍵字在谷歌上搜索能得到30500條結果；然而，用“公平的成本”來搜，結果只有6條。歌頌領導力的“圣歌”影響之深遠可見一斑。

但別忙著跟誰都推心置腹，因為說假話也并非一無是處，這里有些證據。

期望效應

大約50年前，哈佛大學一位社會心理學家和舊金山一位小學校長研究了教學過程中的皮格馬利翁效應。他們編造測試結果稱一些學生的智力很有可能提高，學年結束后這些學生的智商測試結果真的提高了。一、二年級學生的反應特別明顯。報告公布后類似研究活動蓬勃開展，最初是在教育領域，隨后延伸到了經營管理領域。

以色列學者多夫?伊登通過大量研究表明，如果領導者表示對某些下屬期望很高，這些下屬就會比沒有受鼓勵的同事表現好，從銷售人員到軍人都是如此。后來有人系統性梳理科學文獻，證實了期望會影響個人表現，而且發現此前表現差的人受影響更大。

期望影響個人表現的方式至少有兩種。一種叫做防御行為。如果聽說自己沒什么希望，就會放棄努力，這也很合理，既然注定失敗何必還要浪費精力呢？另一方面，如果聽說很有機會成功，就會投入更多的時間和精力，因為相信努力會有回報。

再來說第二種影響，人們對待某人的態度經常會被其他人的評價左右，教師和管理人員也不例外。一篇文章指出，如果跟某人打交道之前先了解一些特點，比如外表和聰明與否等，人們的行為就會跟著聽來的印象走。舉例來說，如果認為交流對象是帥哥美女，人們會傾向于更隨和、更友善也更討人喜歡；如果認為交流對象沒什么魅力，人們會冷淡許多。

很多情況下，為了讓積極的預期改善個人表現，領導者或教師要傳達一些虛假信息。要想讓后進者相信自己有希望，努力追求進步，領導者可能就得說一些假話。

安慰劑效應

醫學方面也有類似現象，即安慰劑效應。接受了安慰劑治療，卻相信自己接受了藥物或治療的人往往反應明顯，僅僅因為他們心理上確信治療有效。舉個例子，一項研究表明，如果告訴一些可卡因濫用者給他們用了興奮劑（不是安慰劑），讓另一些濫用者服用同樣劑量的興奮劑但告訴他們用的是安慰劑，相信服用了興奮劑的濫用者生理代謝反應會高50%左右。

《新英格蘭醫學期刊》最近刊登的一篇文章指出，治療中的感官體驗，比如穿白大褂的醫生、醫院里的符號標志、用藥方案以及醫生護士緊張地安排治療都會激活大腦的某些區域，進而影響病人的內啡肽和多巴胺分泌水平。該文章稱，治療中的某些體驗對病人神經遞質的影響和真正用藥的效果相同。

安慰劑效應的作用既已確定，而利用鴉片制劑鎮痛導致上癮的問題又難解，已經有人建議在某些情況下用“假藥”為病人緩解疼痛，關鍵在于不使用（而且不提供）成癮性麻醉劑又達到止痛的目的。

再強調一次，要讓安慰劑效應發揮作用，就必須欺騙。如果有人老實告訴你吃的不是藥而是糖豆，安慰劑效應是不會出現的，這種情況下知道實情對病人來說沒好處。

自我實現預言

安慰劑效應和預期效應都是自我實現預言的例證。這個概念是指某些想法引發的行為讓想法成為現實，即便想法是假的。銀行擠兌就是個經典范例。如果人們相信某家銀行瀕臨倒閉就會爭相前去提款，導致銀行真的倒閉。

企業要取得成功，就需要投資者的支持、顧客的消費以及員工的才干和付出。但沒有投資者、顧客和員工想跟一家瀕臨倒閉的公司扯上關系。因此，領導者最重要的任務之一就是說服別人公司一定會成功，獲得各方支持。能充分展示信心的領導者就能贏得支持，而支持會讓信心變為現實。一旦人們相信這家公司會成功，事事都以此為前提，公司就會取得成功。

就像英特爾聯合創始人、前首席執行官安迪?格羅夫在舊金山灣區的一次哈佛商學院會議上所說，有時候，領導者心里沒什么底也得表現得信心滿滿，有時面臨困境毫無頭緒，也得表現得盡在掌握。

我和鮑勃?薩頓共同撰寫的書中引用了格羅夫的話，他說領導者為了鋪平成功的道路是需要欺騙的：“成功一部分靠自律，一部分靠欺騙。慢慢地謊言會成真。在這里，謊言是指給自己打氣，美化現實讓自己感覺好一點。過段時間會發現，只要表現得有信心，自信心真會增強。算下來謊言也不太騙人?！?

格羅夫還強調，即便“沒有人真的知道前路如何”，領導者也不應該表現得沒主見沒把握。

世上確實有只為個人利益的行騙者，暫時忽略這些吧。請相信領導者的目標都是最單純的，他們只是希望別人取得成功，不負厚望。或者領導者只是希望公司成功，因為成功能鼓勵員工為公司付出更多努力一直留下。又或者醫生希望借助安慰劑效應來提高治療效果。

所有這些情況下，人們都得一本正經地說謊。所以我有時會說，能說謊說得讓人心悅誠服也許是最重要的管理能力。簡而言之，在管理和醫療領域，許多情況下都要借助自我實現預言的力量。盡快接受這一理論，越早納入領導力學習的范圍，效果就越好。

作者：杰弗里?費弗爾（Jeffrey Pfeffer）是斯坦福大學商學院Thomas D. Dee II教席組織行為學教授。

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

The world is awash in claims of the benefits of truthfulness, candor, and transparency. A Google search using the phrase “benefits of candor” returned 30,500 entries, with just six for the opposite phrase, “costs of candor.” The kumbaya nature of leadership advice shows through.

But before you run off and tell everyone precisely what you are thinking and feeling, here are a few pieces of evidence in favor of the opposite approach.

Expectation Effects

About 50 years ago, a Harvard social psychologist and a San Francisco school principal studied Pygmalion effects in the classroom. They found that students who had been labeled, on the basis of fictitious test results, likely to experience spurts in intellectual growth showed increases in measured IQ over the course of the school year. The effect was particularly pronounced for children in the first and second grades. This research led to a boom in similar studies, first in education and then in management and leadership.

An Israeli academic, Dov Eden, conducted a number of studies demonstrating that when leaders communicated high expectations for individuals ranging from sales people to military personnel, those individuals performed at a higher level than people not subjected to similarly high expectations. A subsequent systematic review of the scientific literature confirmed the effects of expectations on performance and found that the effects were more pronounced for people who had previously been poor performers.

There are at least two mechanisms by which expectations have an effect on a person’s performance. One is called defensive effort. People who are told they won’t do well will, reasonably enough, not try very hard. Why waste energy on a fruitless quest? On the other hand, people who are told they are likely to succeed will invest more time and energy because they expect a payoff from their efforts.

Second, people, including teachers and supervisors, behave differently toward people depending on what they are told about those people. One article noted that when a person is provided with stereotype-cuing information about another individual with whom they expect to interact—for instance information about physical attractiveness, intelligence, and so forth—their behavior changes in ways that act to confirm the stereotype. For instance, people who thought they were interacting with a physically attractive person were more sociable, friendly, and likable than those who thought they were interacting with a less attractive individual.

In many cases, for positive expectations to improve performance, leaders or teachers must deliver false or bogus information to the targets. If poor performers are going to improve because they are told they are expected to do great, leaders may have to say things they may not believe.

Placebo Effects

A related phenomenon in medicine is the placebo effect—people who believe they have been given some drug or treatment will react more just because they think they received a potent treatment. For instance, a study of the administration of a stimulant (not a placebo) to cocaine abusers found that the physiological metabolic response was some 50% higher in people who were told they were being given the stimulant compared to people who received the identical dosage but were told they were being given a placebo.

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that the therapeutic encounter—the doctor in the white coat, the other symbols and settings of medicine, and the apparent administration of some treatment—activated certain parts of the brain and affected patients’ levels of endorphins and dopamine. The article argued that some of these effects on neurotransmitters were identical to what was achieved when patients took actual drugs.

The potency of the placebo effect coupled with the tremendous contemporary problem of opiate addiction has led to the recommendation to sometimes use “fake” pills to treat patients’ pain. The idea is to achieve pain relief without the administration (and availability) of addictive narcotics.

Once again, for the placebo effect to work, there must be deception. If someone says you are getting a sugar pill, the placebo effect won’t operate and there will be no benefit to the patient.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Placebo and expectation effects are examples of self-fulfilling prophecies—the concept that a certain idea produces behaviors that make the idea, even if originally false, become true. The classic example would be a run on a bank. If people believe a bank is on the verge of failing, they will rush to get their money out, which then causes the bank to fail.

For businesses to succeed, they need the support of investors, the purchases of customers, and the talent and energy of employees. But none of these parties will want to be associated with a company that is going to fail. So, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to convince others that the organization can and will be successful and that it deserves their support. Leaders who convincingly display confidence can attract the support that makes the confident posture become true, as the company becomes successful because others believe it will be and act on that basis.

Sometimes, as Intel co-founder and former CEO Andy Grove once told a Harvard Business School conference in the San Francisco Bay Area, this requires leaders to display confidence that they may not feel and to act as if they know what they are doing even if they don’t.

As quoted in a book I wrote with Bob Sutton, Grove argued that leaders needed to use deception to create the conditions for success: “Part of it is self-discipline and part of it is deception. And the deception becomes reality. Deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. But after a while, if you act confident, you become more confident. So the deception become less of a deception.”

Grove also emphasized that leaders should not display uncertainty and insecurity, even if, to quote him again, “none of us have a real understanding of where we are heading.”

Forget for a moment the self-interested benefits that may come to people who deceive others for their own advantage. Suppose leaders have the purest of intentions and just want other people to succeed to fulfill the lofty expectations others may have of them. Or maybe leaders want their organizations to succeed because success inspires others to put in more effort and stay at the company. Or perhaps doctors want to improve treatment outcomes by tapping into the placebo effect.

In all of these instances, people need to be able to convincingly prevaricate—which is one reason I sometimes say that the ability to lie convincingly may be the single most important management skill. Simply put, many situations in management—and medicine—rely on the operation of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The sooner we recognize this and incorporate it into leadership training, the better off we will be.