Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity PDF

Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity Author(s): S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher Source: Daedalus, Vol. 145, No. 3, On Political Leadership (Summer 2016), pp. 21-34 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences St...

Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity Author(s): S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher Source: Daedalus, Vol. 145, No. 3, On Political Leadership (Summer 2016), pp. 21-34 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916685 Accessed: 28-04-2024 23:22 +00:00 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTORThis archive indicates article yourunder is licensed acceptance of the a Creative Terms & Attribution-NonCommercial Commons Conditions of Use, available at 4.0 International https://about.jstor.org/terms License (CC BY-NC 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. American Academy of Arts & Sciences, The MIT Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Daedalus This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher Abstract: Leadership is an influence process that centers on group members being motivated to reach collective goals. As such, it is ultimately proven by followership. Yet this is something that classical and contemporary approaches struggle to explain as a result of their focus on the qualities and characteristics of leaders as individuals in the abstract. To address this problem, we outline a social identity approach that explains leadership as a process grounded in an internalized sense of shared group membership that leaders create, represent, advance, and embed. This binds leaders and followers to each other and is a ba - sis for mutual influence and focused effort. By producing qualitative transformation in the psychology of leaders and followers it also produces collective power that allows them to coproduce transformation in the world. The form that this takes then depends on the model and content of the identity around which the group is united. "I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot. " - Nelson Mandela "I am, if I am anything, an American. I am an American from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. " - Theodore Roosevelt "Above all, I am a German. As a German I feel at one with the fate of my people." -Adolf Hitler1 S. ALEXANDER HASLAM is Profes sor of Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the Universi Effective leadership is the ability to influence peo ple in a way that motivates them to contribute to the ty of Queensland. achievement of group goals. As such, Nelson Man STEPHEN D. REICHER is Ward dela, Theodore Roosevelt, and Adolf Hitler were law Professor of Psychology at the all effective leaders. We may evaluate their vari University of St. Andrews. ous achievements in very different ways (it would (*See endnotes for complete con be worrying if we did not) but it would be hard to tributor biographies.) deny that their capacity to mobilize a mass constitu © 2016 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:io.n62/DAED_a_oo394 This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rethinking the ency to bring about these achievements - ership.3 But that is precisely what we do Psychology of js their capacity for leadership - was suggest - and what we hope to provide - Leadership , , , truly remarkable. in this essay. We start by explaining why a Because leadership mobilizes people new approach and is needed. This conviction focuses them on the achievement of derives from the cher fact that classical and ished goals - even where contemporary this requires ma understandings of leader jor social change - it is highly prized ship have been and constrained by an individu a major focus of academic and alistic public metatheory. This de has led researchers and commentators bate. In fields as diverse as politics and alike to re seek the roots ligion, science and technology, of effectiveart and within leadership lit the person erature, sport and adventure, and of the leader, andindus the ability of the leader try and business, leadership is commonly to satisfy the personal needs of followers. We then outline seen as the key process through whichour alternative peo approach ple are marshalled to contribute to that argues, in the that contrast, coleffective lead ership is always lective projects that ultimately make about leaders and follow histo ry. In light of this, two key ers seeing themselves questions haveas bound togeth fascinated scholars and commentators for er through their joint membership of the over two millennia : What makes people ef same group, and working together to sat fective leaders? And, if we discover this, isfy group needs and realize group ambi can we train others to be effective leaders tions. themselves ? In short, whereas the existing leader Answering these questions has spawned ship literature tends almost universally to see the psychology of leadership as an I an industry so vast that its scale is hard to fathom. For example, although their val thing, we will endeavor to show that it is ue has been seriously questioned,2 there actually a we thing. Where the vast major are close to one thousand different degree ity of the tracts on leadership write about courses in leadership in the United States its psychology in the first-person singular, alone, and it is estimated that U.S. com we argue that it needs to be written in the panies spend around $14 billion a year on first-person plural. Leadership, we sug leadership training. It has also launched gest, can never be "all about me" (the lead an academic literature that spans multiple er). As our starting quotes from Mandela, disciplines, uses multiple approaches from Roosevelt, and Hitler suggest, ultimate laboratory experimentation to historical ly it needs to be "all about we" - where we biographies, and again is so vast that no enfolds leaders and followers in the same one could digest more than a small fraction psychological group. of it. The British Library alone holds over eighty thousand documents with leader The definition of leadership provided in ship in their title, including over fifteen our opening sentence contains at least four thousand books (of which around fortyimportant elements that we need to come are simply called Leadership). to grips with before attempting to make Given all this information and knowl headway. First, leadership is a process, not edge, it might seem arrogant, if not fool a property, and it is more akin to a verb hardy, to suggest that there is a need to fun than a noun. Accordingly, it is not some damentally rethink the nature of leader thing that a person possesses, but rath ship or that we require (to cite the title ofer something that he or she does. Second, the book we recently coauthored with Mi leadership can never be something that a chael Platow) a new psychology of leadperson does on his or her own. Precisely 22 Dœdalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms because it requires the mobilization of oth sires of the mass ? What is it that turns S. Alexander ers, it necessarily encompasses other peo one person's vision into a collective mis- Haslam & , ,. , r , Stephen D. ple beyond the leader. This point is made sion that directs the energies or pointedly by Bertolt Brecht in his poem sands, or even millions of oth "Questions from a Worker Who Reads."4 As we argue in The New Psycho "Who built Thebes of the seven gates?" ership, researchers have tende he asks, alongside a range of similar ques this question in one of three tions about the feats of other heroic lead Proponents of a classical appr ers. "In the books you will read the names ally provide answers framed of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of core qualities that particular rock?" Of course the answer is No. Third, possess (or lack). This, we arg this observation speaks to the fact that acteristic of an old psycholog ultimate proof of leadership is found not ship that has relatively few d within leaders - neither their character, day (at least in academic cir their vision, nor even their actions - but ing upon this, adherents of a in thefollowership of those they influence. approach supplement such an Brecht's poem speaks to the fact that in the a consideration of various features of the absence of hard work on the part of loyal prevailing social context that either facil group members, there can be no leadership itate or else compromise the effectiveness to speak of, no leadership book to write. of individual leaders. This approach takes Accordingly, by telling us only about lead many different forms and is characteristic ers, most analyses of leadership concealof what we see as the contemporary psy from us a key term in the leadership equa chology of leadership. Finally, as we have tion. Fourth, it is important not to conflate already intimated, the new psychology of leadership and a range of other process leadership that we will outline sets out an es with which it is commonly associated. identity approach. This sees leadership as a In particular, although leadership is often group process that centers on a psycho discussed as a process of power, coercion, logical bond between leaders and follow or resource management, it is fundamen ers grounded in an internalized sense of tally about influence. As the social psychol their common group membership ; that is, ogist John Turner put it, it is about power a sense of shared social identity or "we-ness. " through, rather than power over, others.5 It is However, to appreciate what makes this about taking people with you so that they approach new, and what is distinctive and want to follow and do so with enthusiasm, useful about the analysis it affords, we first rather than beating them with a stick (or need to spend some time reflecting on the offering a carrot) so that they participate forms of understanding that it seeks to grudgingly, or only for so long as one has challenge and move beyond. carrots to offer. The mark of leadership, then, is not whether others feel obliged to Plato is commonly acknowledged as hav do your bidding so long as you are standing ing provided, around 380 BC, the first for over them, but whether they will go the ex mal analysis of leadership. For him, as for tra mile for you and your cause even when Heraclitus before him, true leaders consti you are absent. tute a rare breed of people who are born In these terms, the question that lies at with a cluster of attributes and qualities that the core of the leadership process is what set them apart from the hoi polloi. These it is that allows the plans of an individu include quickness of learning, courage, al to be translated into the aims and de broadness of vision, and physical prow 145 (3) Summer 2016 23 This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rethinking the ess. Moreover, because these qualities are that have had the most enduring appeal for Psychology of so rareiy encountered in one person, when researchers and commentators alike : cha Leadership they are they need to be nurtured and re risma and intelligence. warded. As Heraclitus put it: "The many Max Weber's original definition of cha are worthless, good men are few One risma refers to "a certain quality of an in man is ten thousand if he is the best. "6 dividual personality by which [aleader] is Although largely conversational, Plato's set apart from ordinary men and treated as analysis provided a narrative framework endowed with superhuman, or at least spe that has dominated leadership thinkingcifically exceptional, powers or qualities. "9 for the last two-and-a-half millennia. Its This definition is therefore somewhat am influence today can be seen in the range bivalent, referring to both a quality that the of popular texts that proliferate in airport individual has, and qualities that he or she bookstores and that serve to catalog the is treated as having by "ordinary men. " In distinctive prowess of the leader of the mo the work of neo-Weberian leadership theo ment - often as "secrets" to be generouslyrists like James MacGregor Burns, this am shared with readers. But the popularity ofbivalence largely disappears, and the focus this approach - and of this literary genre - is placed firmly on qualities of the leader : was cemented in the nineteenth century specifically his or her capacity to articulate through the writings of the Scottish histoa group vision, to recruit others to his or rian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. His her cause, and to develop close and strong best-selling text On Heroes and Hero Wor relationships with group members. Yet, as ship declared that "the history of what man we will discuss in more detail below, de has accomplished in this world, is at bot spite the fact that research provides fairly tom the History of the Great Men who have solid evidence that successful leaders tend worked here."7 to be transformational in being both vision This thesis of the great man invited ev ary and empathie, attempts to root this in eryone from schoolchildren to scholars tothe capacities of the individual have largely see leadership not as the stuff of ordinaryfailed. A key reason for this is that, on their mortals but as the stuff of gods, arguing own, vision (however brilliant) and empa that great leaders' distinctive and excep thy (however authentic) are not enough to tional attributes qualified them not only guarantee success. for responsibility and high office, but also In contrast, the dimension of Weber's for widespread admiration and respect.formulation that theorists tend to ignore Today still, it is the exceptional nature ofseems more promising. For research shows such "stuff" that is used to justify the ex that perceptions of charisma are critical to orbitant salaries routinely awarded to ex the leadership process. Reflecting on the ecutive leaders. But what precisely are the Greek meaning of charisma as a "special qualities involved? It is in pinning down gift," Michael Platow and his colleagues the details that the problems begin. thus observe that it is best thought of as Psychologists have studied an impressive a gift that is bestowed on leaders, rath array of candidate variables : everything er than one that is possessed by them.10 from conventionalism and confidence to Moreover, in bestowing charisma, follow sociability and surgency.8 Yet whatever the ers also commit their energies to the lead target variable, summary reviews have gen er. But whether followers bestow charisma erally concluded that personal attributes is not down to the leader alone. Indeed, at prove rather unreliable as predictors ofdifferent times and in different places, the leadership. This is true of the two attributes same leader may be seen as more or less 24 Dœdalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms charismatic. This is because perceptions of In response to the limited predictive pow- S. Alexander charisma are a function of the changing so er of approaches that focus exclusively on ™ ^ cial relationship between leaders and fol the character of the leader, most contempo- Reicher lowers and, more specifically, of whether rary leadership researchers endorse contex the leader represents a group that the fol tual approaches that pay heed to the social lowers currently identify with. So, in the environment in which leaders find them context of the 2008 presidential prima selves. Extreme versions of this interpre ries, Democrats supporting Clinton may tation suggest that context is everything not have seen Obama as charismatic. But and the character of the individual counts in the context of the presidential election, for nothing ; but for good reason, theorists those Clintonite Democrats are more like and practitioners have found these expla ly to have bestowed him with charisma.nations unconvincing. Accordingly, they And once president, even non-Democrats tend to embrace contingency models in which context is seen to moderate, but not entire may have come to see Obama's charismatic qualities. ly suppress, the contribution of the leader. Despite the fact that the construct of cha Standard contingency models essential risma has proved hard to pin down, one ly construe leadership as the outcome of a might imagine that intelligence would pro "perfect match" between two core ingre vide researchers greater predictive traction dients of the leadership process : the indi as a result of its proud psychometric heri vidual leader and the circumstances of the tage. Indeed, a key reason why this has been group that he or she leads. There are many an important focus for research is that in such models, and they constitute the most systematic reviews, intelligence typically influential way of thinking about leader emerges as the best single predictor of lead ship, both in formal academic treatments er success. Yet formal measures of leader in of the topic and in everyday discourse. In telligence (such as IQ.scores) still only ex particular, they lend structure and content plain a very small amount of the variance to a plethora of management and personal in leader success. In an attempt to improve development courses that try first to classi upon this, considerable energy has gone fy individuals as having a particular leader into refining the analytic construct of intel ship style, and then to train them to identi ligence. The upshot is that researchers now fy (or create) situations in which this style tend to argue that it is particular types of in will be effective. telligence that are especially important for The general notion that leadership is the leadership ; notably either practical intelli product between contingencies of person gence or emotional intelligence. Here again, and situation makes a lot of sense. Never though, the constructs prove hard to iso theless, a core problem with standard con late, in part because their form and mean tingency models is that they treat these two ing vary markedly across contexts ; and in terms as fixed and, most problematically, part because, as with charisma, what real as having no capacity to shape each oth ly matters is a leader's perceived intelligence, er. That is, they tend to neglect the capac which is not highly correlated with formal ity for the social context to be changed by ly assessed intelligence. At a broader level, leaders or for leaders to be changed by the then, what we see is that despite research social context. Yet if one reflects for just ers' efforts to keep their (and our) analyt a moment on the leadership of Mandela, ic gaze solely on the psychology of leaders, Roosevelt, and Hitler, it is clear that in each the psychology of followers keeps worm case, the leader and his social context both ing its way into the picture. exerted a powerful influence upon each 145 (3) Summer 2016 25 This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rethinking the other. Indeed, as we explained above, the tom), these approaches have important Psychology of reason why leadership fascinates us is pre limits. In particular, they presuppose that Leadership cisely because of this potential for transthe terms of the exchange are set. That is, formation. It therefore makes little sense leaders should only provide people with to subscribe to a framework that allows no the things they already consider a reward, space for change. rather than change what they count as a re Even more fundamentally, however, stan ward. But, as we have already argued, one dard contingency models generally ignoreof the key accomplishments of leadership the most important element of the lead is to transform the things we care about and er's context : followers. And even when the to make us concerned about things we pre importance of followers is acknowledged,viously ignored, whether that be particu such approaches fail to build their perspeclar commodities, equality, environmental tive into the analysis. Does it matter wheth sustainability, or whatever. Transactional er followers see the leader as the right per approaches also presuppose that actors are son for the situation ? Do these perceptions motivated entirely by personal gain, repre of fit affect the support that followers givesenting one of the ways they fail to break to the leader? Yes, it does, and such considwith traditional individualism. Thus, they erations gain importance as the leadershipreduce followership to the question what's stakes become higher. Moreover, the fact in this for me ? But this misses another key that the followers' perspective is ignored accomplishment of leadership : the ability in most contingency models helps explainto transform followers' focus on individual why empirical support for them is mixed atbenefit into a concern for the greater good. best, and why it becomes weaker the further In short, it is generally only when leaders away from the laboratory one gets. and followers prove willing and able to rise More recently, the conceptual and empirabove their personal self-interest - to ask ical failings of standard contingency modinstead what's in this for us? - that they are els have led to new transactional and trans able to advance their interests. formational approaches that make follow The latter critique provided important ership a key part of the story. These modelsimpetus for the development of transforma mark an important departure (though, as tional approaches. These approaches insist we shall see, not a complete departure)that effective leadership (in whatever con from the traditional individualist metathe text, and however newsworthy) is based on ory of leadership research. For they treatmore than just mercantile arrangements leadership as a social relationship betweenin which mutual obligation flows from in leaders and followers, rather than as someterpersonal account keeping. Instead, what thing to be sought within the leader alone. makes the process remarkable is precisely Transactional approaches view leadershipits capacity to allow people to embrace a as a form of social exchange in which followbigger vision of their place in the world, to ers work to realize a leader's vision to the work for the collective good, and thereby extent they believe that the leader is work to scale new practical and moral heights.12 ing for them in return and that there is eq We fully endorse this critique. In particu uity between what they put in and what lar, we agree that people are able to impact they get out of the process.11 For all their the world to the extent that they are able appeal (not least in pointing to the ineffi to work together as members of a group. ciency of organizations that provide exces Such an approach marks a revolutionary sive remuneration to those at the top while turn in the study of leadership. Likewise, offering meager wages to those at the bot it requires a revolutionary turn in the way 26 Dœdalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences This content downloaded from 220.235.228.37 on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 23:22:46 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms we conceptualize human psychology and, ership needs to explain. Five features in par- S. Alexander more particularly, concepts like identity ticular are important : !