Social Psychology

by Paul Seager

  a Homogeneity of members

  b Illusion of invulnerability

  c Cohesion

  d They all are

  10 A ‘mindguard’ is a feature of which symptom of groupthink?

  a Overestimation of the group

  b Closed-mindedness

  c Pressures towards uniformity

  d Actually it’s not a symptom but instead it’s a way of preventing groupthink from occurring

  12

  Leadership

  Exactly who makes a good leader is a matter for some debate. Some say John F. Kennedy was a good leader, but he made many mistakes and was perhaps less than perfect with regards to his private life. Some say Sir Alex Ferguson was a good leader, but it is questionable whether his talent was domain specific to football. Some say Adolf Hitler was a good leader, and he certainly pulled Germany out of a deep recession and returned it to prosperity, but after that … well, probably not! Defining who is and who isn’t a good leader is certainly a tricky question, but social psychologists have attempted to answer the age old question of whether some individuals are born to be leaders, or whether individuals can actually learn to be leaders. They have also examined many other aspects of leadership, such as whether there are links between personal characteristics and good leadership, what types of behavioural styles are employed by leaders, and the extent to which the situation can affect who becomes a leader. This chapter investigates the many facets of leadership.

  Defining leadership

  Many politicians have attempted to define leadership over the years. Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to leadership as ‘… the ability to decide what is to be done, and then to get others to want to do it’. John F. Kennedy claimed that he wanted to ‘… be a President who is a Chief Executive in every sense of the word – who responds to a problem, not by hoping his subordinates will act, but by directing them to act’. Margaret Thatcher referred to leadership in terms of power when she said, ‘Being powerful is being like a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t’. Whilst there are many more pithy but relevant quotes, these three highlight some interesting aspects of leadership that will be addressed throughout the chapter: leadership as a type of social influence (Eisenhower), different styles of leadership such as autocratic vs. laissez-faire (Kennedy) and leadership as being a type of power (Thatcher). There are many psychological definitions of leadership, all slightly different but with many addressing core aspects of the role, such as having the ability to influence others (see Spotlight below).

  Spotlight: Defining leadership

  Chemers (2001) refers to leadership as: ‘A process of social influence through which an individual enlists and mobilizes the aid of others in the attainment of a collective goal.’ (p. 376)

  Haslam, Reicher and Platow (2011) claim that: ‘Leadership … is not simply about getting people to do things. It is about getting them to want to do things. Leadership … is about shaping beliefs, desires and priorities. It is about achieving influence, not securing compliance.’ (p. xix)

  When talking about leadership, it is important to have in mind various leadership roles. This could include president or prime minister, football manager, scout leader, film director, chief executive or middle manager of a large or small company, and so on. Good theories of leadership should be able to encompass the diverse nature of the role.

  Leadership as power

  It has been argued by some that leadership is the exercise of power, and many types of power have been cited as playing a role in leadership. These include:

  • Reward power: Leaders provide their followers with what they want, such as a pay rise or a promotion, or take away what they don’t want, such as unpleasant working conditions.

  • Referent power: This type of power is wielded if the leader is respected, and acts as a role model for the group by emphasizing the group’s identification. For example, it could be argued that the Queen of the UK has referent power.

  • Informational power: Leaders with this type of power have access to privileged information and use it for persuasion purposes, such as a CEO with insider information about their company.

  • Legitimate power: This type of power is bestowed with rank, and as such is contingent on the leader retaining their current position. An example would be ranks within the police or armed forces, or a leader of a country.

  • Expert power: Individuals with this type of power are recognized as leaders within their specific domain who possess a superior ability, such as a professor of psychology. Their power is typically wielded within a confined field.

  • Coercive power: Leaders using this type of power use threats and punishment to ensure their followers do as they are told. Wielding this type of power typically leads to negative feelings from followers.

  It may be the case that different leaders wield different types of power at different times. In the case of managers, the more senior they become, the more likely they are to wield reward, referent, and coercive power. Knowing the different types of power that leaders might wield can show us how leaders can influence others, but it does not tell us many other things about them, such as who they are, how they behave, or how the situation they find themselves in affects their leadership role.

  Characteristics of a leader

  The ‘great person’ theory of leadership suggests that a leader is born and not bred; that is, they are naturally a leader as opposed to learning to be a leader. The popularity of this approach to leadership tends to fade in and out across the years, and it may also depend on the books that you read. It is possibly a question that will never be answered conclusively, but nevertheless psychologists have looked at individual character and personality traits which have been linked to successful leaders.

  Key idea: The ‘great person’ theory of leadership

  The notion that a leader is born not bred, and consequently that leadership is a skill that cannot be learned.

  The physical appearance of an individual can have a strong influence on how we perceive them as a leader, and we may in fact judge their competence based on their looks rather than their ability (see Case study below). Overall, leaders tend to be slightly taller and heavier than their followers. The age of a leader tends to vary dependent on the group (e.g. political, business or social), but findings suggest that political and business leaders tend to be older than their followers. For example, some recent findings suggest that less than 0.1 per cent of corporate executives are under the age of thirty, but almost 75 per cent are aged fifty or older.

  In terms of intelligence, leaders are slightly more intelligent than their followers, and there is a general preference for this to be the case. However, if they are perceived as being too much more intelligent, an element of distrust may creep into the minds of their followers. Emotional intelligence (EI) is also a useful attribute for a leader to possess. It has been found to be linked with effective leaders, as they are able to anticipate potential problems, better understand the relations of their group’s members and are more able to communicate their ideas efficiently. They are also more able to control their own emotions successfully.

  Key idea: Emotional intelligence

  The ability to recognize, interpret and utilize emotions, both in others and oneself, in order to facilitate effective relations and communications.

  With regards to gender, their representation as leaders is extremely unbalanced with men being far more prevalent as leaders. The results of one study suggested that people are generally more comfortable with men as leaders than women. Researchers asked either men or women to take charge of a group for a task, and then surreptitiously filmed the faces of the ‘followers’: there were more smiles when a man was the leader and more frowns when a woman was the leader.

  However, there is a suggestion that the nature of the leadership role might affect the gender of an appointed leader: when an organization is in crisis the selected leader is more likely to be female (a phenomenon referred to as the gl
ass cliff), but when the organization is successful, the leader selected is more likely to be male. In terms of leadership style, experimental studies show that women adopt a more relationship-oriented style whereas men seem to be more task-oriented (see below). However, when observed in organizations, these differences change: whereas men continue with their task-oriented style, women were seen to evidence both a task-oriented and a relationship-oriented style of leadership (probably the best of both worlds).

  Case study: Judging potential leaders by their appearance and not their ability

  A study by Antonakis and Dalgas (2003) investigated whether voters chose politicians based on ability or appearance. Taking competing pairs of candidates from the 2002 French parliamentary elections, Swiss adults (naive to the actual results of the French elections) were shown the faces of the two politicians and asked to rate which of the two they perceived as being the most competent. Results showed that over 70 per cent were able to predict the actual winner based on appearance alone. The researchers therefore suggested that there was a high likelihood that many real-life French voters also based their choice for who would represent them in parliament based on appearance rather than performance.

  With regards to the personality of leaders, early research found no strong links between successful leaders and personality traits. However, more recent research suggests that effective leaders have been found to show elevated personality scores on measures of extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience. Other findings suggest that those who emerge from a group as a leader rate more highly in intelligence and in the traits of masculinity and dominance. However, the personality of a leader may depend on the gender of their followers, as one study suggested that when the group was all-female, emergent leaders tended to rate as being more intelligent and androgynous (showing high levels of both the male leader tendency to be task focused and the female leader tendency to be person-centred).

  Behavioural styles of a leader

  Whilst the characteristics and personality traits of a leader may tell us something about who leaders are, it still does not tell us exactly what they do. Good leadership may not be about who an individual is, but how they behave. A classic study addressing this issue was conducted by Lewin, Lippit and White (1939); they attempted to find out which of three types of leader behaviour – autocratic, democratic or laissez-faire – was the best. The setting for the study was an after-school club run for boys. The boys were divided into three groups and each group spent seven weeks with an individual leader who was trained in one of the three styles of leadership. One of the strengths of the study was that after the seven-week period was over, the individual leaders were trained in a different style of leadership which they adopted for the next seven weeks, and so on. Thus, for each period they behaved in a different way, meaning any findings of the study must have been due to the behavioural style of the leader and not due to their individual characteristics.

  During the seven-week period, the boys were engaged by their leader to complete different tasks. The autocratic leader was very directive, telling the boys what they were going to be doing and who would be doing what. They also remained quite aloof from the group. The democratic leader was much more prepared to discuss any decisions that needed to be made, and acted like a regular group member. The laissez-faire leader basically left the boys to their own devices, only answering direct questions and having only a minimal level of interaction with them.

  Key idea: Leadership styles

  An autocratic leader is directive towards followers; a democratic leader consults and seeks consent from followers; a laissez-faire leader shows disinterest towards followers.

  At the end of the three rotations of leadership styles, the results were analysed and differences were found in measures such as the levels of efficiency of the groups, the satisfaction with belonging to the group and levels of aggressiveness displayed by group members. Lewin, Lippit and White concluded (unsurprisingly) that the optimal style of leadership was that shown by the democratic leader. However, this does not tell the full story. Whilst the groups with the democratic leader showed higher levels of friendliness, spent as much time working when the leader was present as when they were absent, and showed the lowest levels of critical discontent, the groups with the autocratic leader actually spent the most time working of the three groups when their leader was present (though their levels of working were the lowest of the three groups when their leader was absent). This suggests that if group output is a key performance indicator of a group (as opposed to, say, satisfaction), then an autocratic style of leadership may have its merits (though the groups with this type of leader did also show high levels of hostility, negativity and scapegoating, therefore this type of leader might not have a long-term future with a group).

  One of the interesting things about this study is that it suggests that leadership style can be learned and is not actually set at birth. In addition to these three styles of leadership, research has suggested that other leadership styles are prevalent. Based on his work with interaction process analysis, Bales (1950) concluded that individuals were either task specialists or socio-emotional (person-centred) specialists. The task specialists were normally the biggest participators in group activities, and their behaviour was mainly focused on task interaction activities; this type of leader also tended to exhibit more of an autocratic style of leadership. The socio-emotional specialists were more likely to pay attention, and respond to, the feelings of other group members; they also tended to exhibit a more democratic style of leadership. Interestingly, he conceived of these two leadership styles existing as mutually-exclusive behaviours – leaders were either one or the other.

  At about the same time, the Ohio State leadership studies were being conducted, and were investigating leadership in mainly military and industrial groups. They found two main themes emerging which bore a striking resemblance to the two behaviours identified by Bales; they referred to them as:

  1 Initiating structure (the equivalent to a task-centred specialist)

  2 Consideration (the equivalent to a socio-emotional specialist)

  The interesting difference was that these two themes were measured on two separate scales, from low to high; thus you had a rating on each. This meant that it was possible to be high in both initiating structure and consideration (and thus presumably a good leader), whereas Bales claimed that you could only have one style or the other, though he did concede that it was possible to be rated on a continuum between the two extremes.

  Two other styles of leadership are also worthy of mention, namely transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership refers to a leader who treats their relationship with their followers as a simple transaction, whereby expectations and shared goals are defined in advance, rewards are promised, and given, for good behaviour, and punishment is meted out for digressions from the expected behaviour. If the transactional leader is an active one, they watch and search for deviation from the rules and standards expected by their followers and take corrective action; if the leader is a passive one, they intervene only when standards are not met. Although it sounds like a transactional leader is uninspiring (compared to a transformational leader – see below), in many situations it is just what a group (whether it be a small company or a pack of cub scouts) may need if things are going well and running smoothly.

  Key idea: Transactional leadership

  A traditional style of leadership that advocates the attainment of a collective goal through the rewarding of desired behaviours and the punishment of undesired behaviours.

  A transformational leader, on the other hand, by the very force of their personality, tends to have a profound effect on their followers. This type of leader inspires people to change. According to Bass (1990) (see below), transformational leaders have a number of key qualities which include:

  • Charisma: they provide vision and a sense of mission to their followers; they gain th
e respect and trust of the group and instil in it a sense of pride. In terms of traits and characteristics, they are self-confident, determined, have good verbal skills, high energy levels and a keen intellect.

  • Inspiration: they supply intellectual stimulation to those around them and are able to communicate their ideas simply but effectively.

  • Individualized consideration: each follower feels that this type of leader gives them their individual attention (even though this may not actually be the case).

  Transformational leaders can vary in their personal styles, but have the ability to raise standards in the group that they lead. A word that is used a lot to characterize them is ‘maverick’, as they are much more likely to engage in risky behaviour than transactional leaders. One of their assets is that they feel able to reject conventional methods when they believe it will pay dividends to do so. However, whilst they tend to show superior performance in uncertain or crisis situations, they are not always appropriate; in a stable situation, the last thing a group may need is a transformational leader who may feel the need to ‘shake things up’.

  ‘… transformational leadership … occurs when leaders broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group.’

  (Bass, 1990, p. 21)