Leadership Styles in Negotiation: The Case of Ebay and Paypal
Having the leadership skills to identify shared interests and build them into an agreement often gets both sides to deliver on the terms of a deal. … Learn More About This Program 
Leadership Skills
People who leverage powerful leadership strategies are adept and skilled negotiators. Experience certainly informs these leadership skills, but negotiation training will take a negotiator’s negotiation skills to the next level. Leadership skills and negotiation involves an analysis of complicated negotiation case studies as well as learning an array of sophisticated competitive and cooperative negotiating strategies.
Relationships are critical to leadership – in fact, they are as important to leadership as they are to negotiation. A relationship is a perceived connection that can be psychological, economic, political, or personal; whatever its basis, wise leaders, like skilled negotiators, work to foster a strong connection because effective leadership depends on it.
Positive relationships are important not because they engender warm, fuzzy feelings, but because they engender trust – a vital means of securing desired actions from others. Any proposed action, whether suggested by a negotiator at the bargaining table or a leader at a strategy meeting, entails risk. People will view a course of action as less risky, and therefore more acceptable, when its suggested by someone they trust.
The Program on Negotiation includes many articles on great leaders in negotiations, such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the late Russian Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as other topics such as outstanding women leaders, interest-based leadership and ongoing stalemate between President Barack Obama and Congressional leadership.
Experienced executives and aspiring executives would both benefit from negotiation training like that found in the Program on Negotiation’s spring and winter training courses, Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems, the Advanced Negotiation Master Class, held twice a year, or the summer Harvard Negotiation Institute. Perfecting your negotiation and leadership skills will enable a negotiator to negotiate in a variety of negotiation scenarios, improve relationships, create and claim more value at the bargaining table, and resolve conflicts.
