A Social Identity Theory of Leadership

A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process generated by social categorization and prototype-based depersonalization processes associated with social identity. Group identification, as self-categorization, constructs an intragroup prototypicality gradient that invests the most prototypical member with the appearance of having influence; the appearance arises because members cognitively and behaviorally conform to the prototype. The appearance of influence becomes a reality through depersonalized social attraction processes that make followers agree and comply with the leader's ideas and suggestions. Consensual social attraction also imbues the leader with apparent status and creates a status-based structural differentiation within the group into leader(s) and followers, which has characteristics of unequal status intergroup relations. In addition, a fundamental attribution process constructs a charismatic leadership personality for the leader, which further empowers the leader and sharpens the leader-follower status differential. Empirical support for the theory is reviewed and a range of implications discussed, including intergroup dimensions, uncertainty reduction and extremism, power, and pitfalls of prototype-based leadership.

Evolutionary Origins of Leadership and Followership

Drawing upon evolutionary logic, leadership is reconceptualized in terms of the outcome of strategic interactions among individuals who are following different, yet complementary, decision rules to solve recurrent coordination problems. This article uses the vast psychological literature on leadership as a database to test several evolutionary hypotheses about the origins of leadership and followership in humans. As expected, leadership correlates with initiative taking, trait measures of intelligence, specific task competencies, and several indicators of generosity. The review finds no link between leadership and dominance. The evolutionary analysis accounts for reliable age, health, and sex differences in leadership emergence. In general, evolutionary theory provides a useful, integrative framework for studying leader-follower relationships and generates various novel research hypotheses.

Social Identity and the Romance of Leadership: The Importance of being Seen to be ‘Doing it for Us’

Previous research by Meindl (e.g. 1993) on the ‘romance of leadership’ suggests that individuals in leadership roles are perceived to be more charismatic to the extent that the organization they lead undergoes a crisis turnaround (e.g. moving from loss to profit) rather than a crisis decline (e.g. moving from profit to loss). Building on a social identity approach to leadership and previous research by Haslam and Platow (in press-a), this paper argues that this pattern should be tempered by the degree to which a leader’s behavior serves to affirm and promote an ingroup identity shared with followers. Consistent with this analysis, an experimental study ( N = 120) revealed that, independent of organizational performance, a (male) leader was seen as more charismatic in an intergroup context when his previous behavior had been identity-affirming or even-handed rather than identity-negating. Even-handed leaders also tended to be seen as particularly charismatic when they were associated with crisis turnaround, while identity-affirming leaders were protected from negative attributions in the context of crisis decline. These results suggest that social identity and self-categorization processes have a complex role to play in the emergence and perception of charismatic leadership.

Role of Organizational Identification on Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs), Transformational Leadership and Work Attitudes

This investigation explores the effects of organizational identification on employees’ Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) and the perception of leader behaviors. The study involved a cross-sectional survey of 439 employees from seven companies based in South Wales. Respondents completed two questionnaires that measured their organizational identification, ILTs, recognition of ILTs in their manager, manager’s leadership behaviors (transactional and transformational), and psychological reactions (job satisfaction, well-being, and turnover intentions). The level of organizational identification did not affect the prototype of an ideal work-based leader. However, high organizational identification was associated with more positive ratings on the actual manager, the extent to which their manager displayed transactional and transformational behaviors, and with more positive psychological reactions to work. Employees high in organizational identification based their judgments of their leader’s transactional and transformational behaviors on the extent to which they recognized their leader as possessing leadership traits. However, those low on organizational identification allowed their prototype of their ideal leader to bias their judgment of their actual leader’s behavior. Finally, there was partial support for the augmenting hypothesis (that tranformational leadership would predict additional variance in psychological outcomes above that predicted by transactional leadership) for those high in organizational identification but not for those low in organizational identification.

A Social Identity Analysis of Leadership Endorsement: The Effects of Leader Ingroup Prototypicality and Distributive Intergroup Fairness

This study (N = 216) measured the strength of endorsements for ingroup leaders who varied in both their relative ingroup prototypicality and distributive intergroup fairness. Leadership endorsement overall was positively related to group members’ levels of social identification and negatively related to their levels of reported self-interest. Among low identifiers, however, leaders’ distributive behavior reliably predicted endorsements, with stronger endorsements provided for distributively fair than unfair leaders. Among high identifiers, in contrast, both leaders’ distributive behavior and relative ingroup prototypicality were important. Leaders high in ingroup prototypicality received strong endorsements from high identifiers regardless of the leaders’ ingroup-favoring, outgroup-favoring, or fair intergroup behavior. Leaders low in ingroup prototypicality and who were relatively similar to the outgroup received strong endorsements from high identifiers only when the leaders made ingroup-favoring distributions. These data are interpreted within a social identity theory framework.

The Link between Leadership and Followership: How Affirming Social Identity Translates Vision into Action

Two experiments test the hypothesis that support for leaders is enhanced when their decisions affirm a distinct social identity that is shared with followers. In Experiment 1, participants showed less support for a leader who favored ingroup members who were relatively sympathetic to an outgroup position than for one who favored ingroup members who opposed an outgroup position. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2, which also showed that this pattern extended to support for the leader’s novel plans. Although participants indicated that they supported a leader who behaved evenhandedly toward all ingroup members as much as one whose behavior was identity-affirming, they were unwilling to back up the evenhanded leader with written comments and arguments. These data suggest that leaders’ capacity to engender active followership is contingent on their ability to promote collective interests associated with a shared ingroup identity.

A Social Identity Approach to Sport Psychology: Principles, Practice, and Prospects

Drawing on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we outline an approach to sport psychology that understands groups not simply as features of sporting contexts but rather as elements that can be, and often are, incorporated into a person's sense of self and, through this, become powerful determinants of their sport-related behavior. The underpinnings of this social identity approach are outlined, and four key lessons for sport that are indicative of the analytical and practical power of the approach are presented. These suggest that social identity is the basis for sports group (1) behavior, (2) formation and development, (3) support and stress appraisal, and (4) leadership. Building on recent developments within sport science, we outline an agenda for future research by identifying a range of topics to which the social identity approach could fruitfully contribute.

The Moderating Effect of Gender on Leadership Intervention Impact

A total of 57 intervention-based leadership studies that included sufficient data on leader and follower gender were included in this meta-analysis. By intervention, the authors mean any study where the researcher overtly manipulated leadership as the independent variable through training, assignment, scenarios, or other means. Results showed a significant difference in the effect sizes for leadership interventions conducted with all-male and majority-male participants versus all-female and majority-female participant studies; however, these differences varied based on the setting of the intervention, the theoretical basis of the intervention, and the type of outcome. Implications for further research on gender differences with respect to examining cause—effect impact of leadership interventions are discussed.

Negative Outgroup Leader Actions Increase Liking for Ingroup Leaders: An Experimental Test of Intergroup Leader-Enhancement Effects

We conducted two studies to examine how information about outgroup leaders' negative actions affect ingroup leader favorability ratings. Study 1 found that people hold more favorable attitudes toward ingroup leaders (i.e. their own nation's leaders) when learning of negative actions of outgroup leaders (i.e. another nation's leaders). Study 2 replicated the finding, examining social identity strength as a moderator of this effect, and found that participants with strong national identification exhibit this intergroup leader-enhancement effect but participants with weak national identification do not. These data extend previous research on liking for leaders and are consistent with predictions derived from social identity theory. The implications of these findings for intergroup relations research and the psychological study of leadership are discussed.

Leader—Follower Effects in Resource Dilemmas: The Roles of Leadership Selection and Social Responsibility

Previous research on the allocation of scarce resources shows that when people are assigned labels of leader or follower in their group, leaders allocate more of the scarce resources to themselves than followers do. In three laboratory studies, we examine the idea that how people are selected for the leader role (i.e. election or appointment) determines whether leaders take more or equal shares (relative to followers) from a common resource. In a first experiment, we show that participants were more accepting of norm violating behavior by an appointed versus elected leader. In a second experiment, we show that when participants were assigned to a leader or follower role, allocations of appointed leaders differed significantly from those of elected leaders and followers, whereas there was no difference between the two latter conditions. Moreover, elected leaders were shown to feel more social responsibility than both appointed leaders and followers. In a final experiment, we show that when participants were primed with the concept of social responsibility (relative to a neutral condition) no difference in allocations between appointed and elected leaders emerged.

The Political Solidarity Model of Social Change: Dynamics of Self-Categorization in Intergroup Power Relations

Social and political change involves a challenge to the status quo in intergroup power relations. Traditionally, the social psychology of social change has focused on disadvantaged minority groups collectively challenging the decisions, actions, and policies of those in positions of established authority. In contrast, this article presents a political solidarity model of social change that explores the process by which members of the majority challenge the authority in solidarity with the minority. It is argued that political solidarity as a social change process involves a contest between the authority and the minority over the meaning of a shared (higher order) identity with the majority. When identity ceases to be shared with the authority and becomes shared with the minority, majority challenge to authority in solidarity with the minority becomes possible. The model's contributions to existing social psychological approaches to social change are also discussed.

The polity of academic medicine: evidence-based democracy

The authors consider the empirical data examining relationships between democratic governance and organizational success. There is overwhelming evidence that democratically run organizations excel in key parameters of success, such as business valuation, productivity, responsiveness, innovation, decision making, and worker morale and satisfaction. A review of physician surveys shows that discontent with academic administration is a major contributor to faculty turnover. Other data indicate that the basic concepts justifying autocratic governance of a department are deeply flawed and that autocratic governance is counterproductive. The authors conclude that the democratic governance of academic departments is the only model that is scientifically valid and would greatly enhance all missions of academic medicine in the 21st century.

Speaking for Others: The Pros and Cons of Group Advocates using Collective Language

We examined how rhetorical style affects evaluations of group advocates, and how these evaluations are moderated by group identification. University students were given a letter to the editor defending student welfare. The argument was either constructed using personal language (‘I believe’) or collective language (‘we believe’). Furthermore, the letter was either attributed to an official advocate (president of the student union) or an unofficial advocate (a rank-and-file member of the student body). Consistent with the social identity perspective, participants who showed strong identification as a university student thought that the group would feel better represented by official advocates using collective rather than personal language. Low identifiers, however, did not rate the rhetorical styles differently on representativeness. Furthermore, low identifiers (but not high identifiers) rated official advocates as more likable and more effective when they used personal rather than collective language. The discussion focuses on the conflict low identifiers might feel between (a) needing to homogenize with other group members in order to maximize the influence and political effectiveness of their message at the collective level, and (b) protecting themselves against categorization threat.