In the spring of 2009, as the global financial crisis continued to roil markets and businesses, the chief executive of a multinational consulting company called an all-hands teleconference. Revenues had plunged, and everyone was braced for downsizing. 

As an outside adviser, I could feel the tension in the air. But when the CEO began to speak, his calm and steady voice clearly relaxed his audience. He started by acknowledging the stress everyone was feeling. “Like many of you,” he said, “I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights worrying about the future of our company and each of you.” He reminded everyone of the organization’s guiding principles: “Because one of our core values is empowering employees, I’ve creatively searched for solutions that would avoid layoffs.” And then he outlined a clear, values-driven plan of action. Everyone would take a temporary, three-month pay cut, with senior people experiencing steeper ones. For example, the pay of an entry-level employee would drop 15%, a VP’s would drop 40%, and the CEO himself would take no salary over that period.

While asking for this shared sacrifice, he also offered something in return: “Because we are heading into the summer months, when work is less intense, offices will close at noon on Fridays. Take your kids to the beach. Go for a long bike ride. Have a picnic.”

He emphasized that he would reevaluate the situation in August, with the hope of restoring full pay by September. He then ended with a plea for empathy: “This is a painful time for all of us. Please reach out and support your colleagues.” After those planned remarks, he patiently answered questions for 90 minutes.

In dire circumstances, while delivering bad news, this CEO had found a way to inspire his employees. And he left me inspired to study how leaders like him do that. In the decade and a half since, I’ve been investigating the science of inspiration—and its pernicious flip side—in the workplace.

In surveys of thousands of people around the world, I’ve asked respondents to tell me about their experiences with both inspiring and infuriating leaders. By analyzing their descriptions, I’ve uncovered three novel insights.

First, leaders move along a continuum from inspiring to infuriating, and where they land at any given time depends on how well they play three key roles: visionary, exemplar, and mentor. Whether in Australia, Thailand, Morocco, China, El Salvador, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Israel, or Germany, people want to see leaders embody that trifecta.

Second, those roles are universally valued because each one helps people meet fundamental human needs: Visionaries give us meaning and purpose; exemplars provide us with passion and protection; and mentors bring us belonging and status.

Finally, no one is inherently inspiring or infuriating; it is your current behavior that determines where you fall on the spectrum. For example, the inspiring CEO from the conference call was later accused of turning an infuriatingly blind eye to the abusive behavior of his executives.

But here’s the good news: Any leader perceived in a negative or a neutral light today can become more inspiring by building and honing capacities in each of the three key leadership areas. Here’s how.

Visionary

To be considered a visionary, you need to present the right message, in the right way, and at the right time. Let’s first address the what. Inspiring leaders offer a big-picture, values-based, optimistic vision of the future that propels people toward collective goals. Infuriating leaders, by contrast, are small-minded, valueless pessimists.

How you present the vision matters too. Inspiring leaders reduce an idea to its essence but then bring it to life with vivid language, as Drew Carton of Wharton and colleagues have shown in studies involving organizations, and my colleagues and I have found in political settings. For example, “Make our customers smile” is more persuasive and motivating than “Make our customers happy.” The combination of simplicity and vividness makes information easier to process, creating what psychologists call a sense of fluency, which increases retention and commitment.

Equally important is how often you present your vision, because repetition increases fluency, clarity, and understanding, as Blaine Horton and I have found by analyzing TED Talks and entrepreneurs’ investment pitches. When Frank Flynn of Stanford analyzed nearly 3,000 leadership assessments, he found that leaders were 10 times as likely to be criticized for undercommunicating as they were for overcommunicating.

How can you get into a more visionary frame of mind? Research shows that reflecting on your core values can both help you see the big picture and push you to achieve your goals. For example, in one of my recent studies, unemployed individuals who reflected on their values for 15 minutes were twice as likely to find a job over the next two months as those who didn’t.

Here’s a prompt you might find useful: List up to five values that are important to you. Now place them in a hierarchy, with the most important one at the top.

The CEO’s reflection on his company’s value of empowering employees helped him create and communicate a clear plan for managing fallout from the global recession. You can do something similar to create an inspiring vision for yourself and your organization.

I witnessed another example of this when I was a young assistant professor. One day the entire faculty at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management got an email from an anonymous sender that accused one of our colleagues of academic fraud. Angered by the shadowy nature of the claim, many of us rallied around our peer, while others called for an investigation. But our dean, Dipak Jain, calmed the uproar by focusing on our institutional principles. I remember that he said, “Although I am extremely upset by the accusation, and my first instinct is to vigorously defend our colleague against these claims, academic integrity is our core value; it animates everything we do. As a result, a thorough investigation is not only the right thing to do but ultimately is in the best interests of our colleague.” By reframing the situation around values, he inspired everyone to support his plan—and the professor was fortunately cleared of any wrongdoing.

Exemplar

Inspiring leaders are calm and courageous, facing danger and protecting others from it. They are also authentically passionate, espousing their ideas and principles with conviction while also embodying them. Those emotions and behaviors are infectious, encouraging others to be resolute, brave, excited, and driven.

Consider a study in which Jon Jachimowicz of Harvard, three others, and I analyzed the pitches of entrepreneurs appearing on the TV show Dragons’ Den (an international version of Shark Tank) and found that those rated as passionate were more likely to receive funding.

The emotions and behaviors of infuriating leaders are contagious too. They can make others anxious, cowardly, indifferent, and stagnant.

How can you be more exemplary? I and other scholars have shown in dozens of studies that recalling experiences when people felt powerful and in control or authentically passionate helps them embody those traits. Such reflections can make your voice more dynamic, your appeals more persuasive, and your ideas more creative, all while helping you be calmer.

Recalling times when you felt powerful can also help you see the big picture, as Pam Smith of UC San Diego and a coresearcher found, and infuse your visions with optimism, as Cameron Anderson and I have shown. Tapping into an experience of being super allows you to authentically become super in the moment.

Here’s a prompt: Think of a time when you felt powerful and in control. Describe the situation and why you felt that way.

Note that reflecting on your values can help you stay exemplary even in times of crisis or temptation. Otherwise you may become the most infuriating of leaders: a hypocrite.