O que o Experimento de Milgram Ensina Sobre Liderança e Tomada de Decisão em Inglês para Executivos

Por que tantas vezes seguimos ordens mesmo quando sentimos que algo está errado? Essa pergunta atravessa décadas e encontra resposta em um dos estudos mais impactantes da psicologia: o experimento de Milgram. Conduzido nos anos 1960, ele revelou até que ponto a autoridade pode levar pessoas comuns a agir contra seus próprios princípios, simplesmente porque alguém em posição de comando disse que era necessário.

Mais do que uma curiosidade acadêmica, essa descoberta continua atual. Em salas de aula, empresas e governos, a autoridade molda comportamentos, cria obediência e, muitas vezes, silencia a consciência. A grande questão não é se a autoridade deve existir — porque ela sempre estará presente — mas como usá-la de forma ética, inspiradora e responsável.

É nesse ponto que surge a conexão entre Milgram e um dilema contemporâneo: como uma startup de educação deve usar a influência dos professores para promover um aplicativo de aprendizagem gamificada? Professores são figuras de confiança, capazes de guiar comportamentos. Mas até que ponto essa autoridade deve ser usada para estimular a adoção de uma ferramenta, e em que momento ela corre o risco de transformar engajamento em simples conformidade?

Ao longo desta página, você vai conhecer o experimento de Milgram, suas principais implicações e um caso moderno que mostra como a autoridade pode ser tanto um catalisador de aprendizado quanto um perigo para a autonomia.

Milgram Experiment

Have you ever done something just because an authority figure told you to, even if you weren’t comfortable with it?”

Explanation of Milgram’s experiment

Real footage or reenactment showing participants administering shocks

“What were your thoughts as you watched the participants obey orders?”

“Why do you think most people continued?”

Discussion & Analysis

By the early 1960s, the shadow of World War II still haunted society. The world asked itself a disturbing question: how could ordinary people have participated in atrocities, claiming they were “just following orders”? At Yale University, Stanley Milgram set out to test this question in a laboratory, far from the battlefield but close enough to human conscience.

Participants arrived believing they were part of a study on learning. Assigned the role of “teacher,” they were told to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity whenever the “learner” gave a wrong answer. At 150 volts, the learner began to protest. At 270 volts, he screamed in agony. At 330 volts, he stopped responding altogether. The machine’s panel displayed labels like “Danger: Severe Shock.” Yet the man in the white lab coat, the authority figure, remained calm: “Please continue. The experiment requires that you go on.”

Most participants did. They trembled, sweated, and protested, but still pressed the switch. Two-thirds of them reached the maximum voltage. The experiment shocked the academic world, but more than that, it revealed a truth about human nature: obedience to authority can override morality, even in ordinary individuals.

In a leadership meeting, three questions are written on the wall:

1. What structures can leaders create to avoid blind obedience and foster dissent?

2. How can individuals learn to take personal responsibility, even when authority pressures them otherwise?

This structure keeps the class engaging, interactive, and focused on the real-world impact of Milgram’s findings.

Authority in Education: An EdTech Startup, Milgram’s Experiment, and the Ethics of Scaling Through Teachers’ Influence

By 2025, a young EdTech startup had developed an app designed to improve student engagement through gamified learning. The product worked well in pilot tests, but the real challenge was scaling adoption in schools. The leadership team realized that teachers were the gateway: if they endorsed the app in their classrooms, students and even parents would follow. Teachers, after all, were trusted authority figures.

In a strategy meeting, the team debated openly. One executive argued: “We should encourage teachers to use their authority to persuade students — even insist they download the app as part of homework.” Another countered: “If we rely only on authority, aren’t we at risk of manipulating? We should inspire adoption, not force it.”

The discussion evoked a haunting parallel. Decades earlier, Milgram’s famous experiment had shown how ordinary people obeyed orders even when it conflicted with their conscience, simply because authority told them to. The lesson was clear: authority is powerful, but dangerous if used blindly.

The startup’s dilemma was double-edged. On the one hand, leveraging teachers’ authority could accelerate adoption and generate quick network effects. On the other hand, it risked turning a tool for learning into an exercise in compliance — the very dynamic Milgram had warned about.

The CEO posed three questions to the team:

1. How can we use the positive side of authority — trust, respect, influence — to promote the app in a way that empowers students rather than manipulates them?

2. How can we teach teachers themselves to recognize when they are pressuring students into blind obedience instead of inspiring genuine engagement?

3. What safeguards can we build into our strategy so that adoption reflects choice and critical thinking, not just compliance?

The conversation shifted. Some proposed training modules for teachers that highlighted ethical leadership: how to encourage, not coerce; how to use influence transparently; how to create space for dissent. Others suggested role-play exercises, where teachers practiced giving instructions and students practiced respectfully challenging them. The goal was not only adoption of the app, but cultivation of healthier decision-making cultures in schools.

The case thus presents a modern twist on Milgram: authority will always exist, but leaders — whether teachers, managers, or CEOs — must decide whether to wield it as a tool of control or as a catalyst for critical thinking.

Answers

Q1. The positive side of authority can be used not as a mechanism of control but as a source of trust and inspiration. Teachers occupy a position of credibility, and when they present the app as a resource that empowers students to learn more effectively, the message comes across as supportive rather than manipulative. The emphasis should be on the benefits the tool brings to the learner’s autonomy and growth rather than on compliance with an external demand. Authority, in this case, acts as a seal of confidence that validates the usefulness of the innovation.

Q2. For teachers to recognize when they are drifting into pressuring students into blind obedience, it is necessary to foster self-awareness and reflection. This can be done through training moments in which they role-play scenarios and see the difference between coercive language and invitational language. Feedback loops with students also help teachers sense when their influence becomes too directive. The critical step is to shift authority from being a command to being a guide, ensuring that students feel invited into the learning process rather than trapped by it.

Q3. Safeguards must be embedded in the strategy so that adoption reflects choice and critical thinking instead of mere compliance. Clear opt-in mechanisms give students and parents the feeling of deliberate choice, while transparent communication about the goals and limitations of the app ensures they understand what they are engaging with. Creating avenues for feedback allows resistance and criticism to be voiced, turning adoption into a dialogue rather than an imposition. Finally, offering multiple ways of using the app, with space for personalization and alternatives, helps students exercise judgment. In this way, the company ensures that the teacher’s authority initiates engagement but that the lasting adoption comes from conscious motivation and critical evaluation.