I agree with hobbitlass, if anything, it would have hastened Saruman's fall into darkness. Clearly Saruman was envious of the respects paid to him by those such as Galadriel and Cirdan, having to fall under his lead of the Council would have only irked him further. Saruman had a low opinion of Gandalf's way of working toward their given task; instead of concentrating directly on studying the Dark Lord and his Ring as Saruman did, Gandalf concerned himself with the peoples of Middle-Earth, even on such unrelated tangents as Hobbit-lore. Saruman, uncorrupted though he may have been early in his "career", simply did not think this was the way to go about things.
If Gandalf had lead of the Council, Saruman would resent and eventually reject that lead, for he could not see the point in Gandalf's unconventional and possibly unproductive approach. I'd say that the conflict between Saruman and Gandalf would have come to a head much earlier.
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