People are valued by others because of the position they occupy in an informal or formal group, an organization, or society—this is their status. They may be valued as persons regardless of their position—this is their esteem. They may be valued as trustworthy by others who have confident, positive expectations about them. Blaise Pascal (1660/1950) described a great nobleman as being valued for the status he had in society that made it possible for him to be “the master of objects that men covet,” and for these objects deference was paid to him. But he was not esteemed by Pascal as a person. In contrast, Pascal mentioned “M. N. [who] is a greater geometrician than I … [and whom] I esteem for his enlightenment of mind, virtue, health and strength” (Bass, 1960, p. 277). Pascal’s nobleman was of worth to others because of his noble status, the lofty hierarchical position he held in society. The nobleman’s position gave him wealth, control, power, and influence. A poor nobleman position would still be accorded some status and influence. Even without control of wealth to distribute, a nobleman’s position could still be of more importance than a commoner’s. Pascal’s mathematician was esteemed for his technical competence and personal qualities. Many noblemen of high status lacked such personal qualities and were held in low esteem by those who knew them personally or by reputation. Many ordinary folks who lacked status could be esteemed by others for their personal value.
The value that others accord members for their position—informally or in a group, organization, or society—is the members’ status. Status contributes to the members’ emergence as leaders. The same is true of the members’ esteem, the value accorded them by others for their personal qualities (Bass, 1960). Conflicts abound and ineffectiveness increases in the group, organization, or society when the esteem and status of the members are not correlated. A group will be in conflict and ineffective when its high-status members are low in esteem; it will also be in conflict and ineffective when its highly esteemed members are relegated to positions that accord them low status.
Warner, Meeker, and Eells (1949) observed that all societies and social groups of any size or complexity have status systems. Status structure and differentiation of functions are necessary for the coordination of efforts. Even collectives that are designed to minimize functional specialization and the differential distribution of rewards develop well-defined status structures (E. Rosenfeld, 1951). In traditional societies, age was an important determinant of status. However, the details concerning what was expected of members of different ages—infants, boys, girls, young men, young women, old men, and old women—differed from one society to another (Linton, 1945).
Occupants of various positions are provided with cues to make it easy to identify their status. Status differences in military organizations are clearly visible. In many societies, the adolescent often is easily discriminated by dress from the preadolescent, as is the married woman from the unmarried woman. Until modern times, each profession had its own identifiable costume. And the signs and symbols of differential status in the modern business organization are familiar. The top managers and administrators have extralarge corner offices on the top floor, custom-made desks, large leather desk chairs, carpeting, coffee tables, couches, and special parking spaces for their cars; first-line supervisors have small offices in the basement with wooden desks and chairs, and park in the lot wherever they can (Barnard, 1952).
Status differences affect how members group with each other. In a mixed social gathering, high-level officials will cluster, as will those who are lower in status. At a cocktail party, men often stay together in one corner of the room and women in another corner. In organizations, members tend to maintain some degree of physical distance between themselves and other members who differ from them in status. Status also determines how people communicate with others who are working at a distance. Thus members of organizations send memos to those above or below them in status but telephone those who are at their same level (Klauss & Bass, 1981). E-mail may substitute for both the telephone and written memos for senders several echelons above, below, or at the same organizational level.
Some positions provide occupants with direct control over what is rewarding to others; occupants of such positions have greater status in the organization (Barnard, 1951). In turn, such status-derived power makes it possible for the possessors to exert leadership and influence over others. Some roles make it possible for the role players to have access to information and the ability to solve the group’s problems.
Sherif, White, and Harvey (1955) found that the higher the importance of a member’s position, the greater was his or her competence as judged by other members. This finding fits with the facts of everyday life. Studies of the status hierarchy in social organizations show that positions accord their occupants more status if occupants of those positions either acquire more knowledge once they occupy the position or are selected for the position only if they have the knowledge. The occupations with the highest societal status (that is, value or importance to society), according to college students, are physician, lawyer, banker, engineer, and school administrator—all require a great deal of education and specialized knowledge. Low-status occupations include truck driver, coal miner, janitor, and ditchdigger—all of which necessitate little or no education. The status of occupations is remarkably stable. For 25 occupations, the correlations in status in 1925, 1946, and 1967 were all above .09 (Hakel, Hollman, & Dunnette, 1968) and were likely to be as high in 2000. Furthermore, miners’ and laborers’ perceptions of occupational status were similar to those of the college students (Cattell, 1942). But a strikingly different occupational hierarchy appeared when researchers asked a random sample of 2,000 Americans to rate the extent to which they valued the honesty and integrity of different occupational groups. The highest 10 occupations were firemen, paramedics, farmers, grade school teachers, college professors, dentists, U.S. military officers, plumbers, college athletes, and advertising executives. The lowest 10 were drug dealers, organized crime bosses, television evangelists, prostitutes, street peddlers, local politicians, congressmen, car salesmen, rock and roll stars, and insurance salesmen (Patterson & Kim, 1991). Evidently, trustworthiness did not coincide with high status.
In primitive societies, the high status of the medicine man and tribal elders was partly due to the knowledge held by anyone occupying such positions. In a world that had to depend on the memory of events and procedures (since no books were available), and in which life expectancy was short, age was highly prized. Because wisdom required age and experience, age, status, and leadership were strongly linked. Conversely, the lower status of women and children in patriarchal societies was often partly due to their ignorance of magic, ritual, and tribal history, which were known by the men only. The reverse was true in matriarchal societies, in which women were accorded much higher status.
Value and Importance of Positions. Zaccaro (1996) compared the executive performance requirements found in interviews with generals and lieutenant generals by Harris and Lucas (1991), major generals and brigadier generals by Lucas and Markessini (1993), and colonels by Steinberg and Leaman (1999a). Systematic differences could be seen in the importance of positional requirements at successively lower organizational ranks. Generals had longer work-time spans than did lieutenant generals and more boundary-spanning responsibilities. Shorter planning-time spans were available for major generals and brigadier generals, who also had less boundary spanning to do. Colonels were more likely than those below them in rank to be involved in goal setting, planning, and policy making.
People are appointed to positions by higher authority, or they may be elected. Their status is established by appointment if it is legitimate. If they are legitimately elected, their esteem is also likely to be higher. Status may also accrue from inherited positions or from volunteering for the position.
A price can be set on one’s status in an organization or society. Job evaluation establishes the worth of each position to the organization. One’s pay, then, depends on the established value and importance of a position, regardless of who occupies it. To control inflation, in 301 c.e. the Roman emperor Diocletian decreed fixed ceilings on prices and wages with penalties—exile or death—for exceeding the maximum allowed. A brace of chickens was to cost no more than 60 denarii, and first-quality boots no more than 120 denarii. Daily wages with maintenance were to be limited as follows: 20 denarii for shepherds; 25 for farm laborers; 50 for carpenters; 150 for picture painters. Monthly wages were to be no more than 50 denarii per pupil for elementary teachers; 75 for teachers of arithmetic; 200 for teachers of Latin or Greek; and 250 for teachers of rhetoric. For jurists or advocates pleading a case, the maximum allowed was 1,000 denarii (Lewis & Meyer, 1955). Similarly, one’s status and value to family, clan, or social organization were clearly fixed in Anglo-Saxon law. The wergild, or “man price,” varied with a person’s status in society. If the person was murdered or killed by accident, it was to be paid by the culprit to the victim’s relatives as retribution. The various social strata were valued by their respective prices. The church placed its own members on the wergild scale. It equated a priest with a thane. The price of a king was from 6 to 15 times that of a thane (Whitelock, 1950). Today, the executive who is incapacitated owing to the fault of another person still sues for a far greater estimated loss of income than does the manual laborer. The estimates are based on the expected future earnings of executives and laborers in the same general circumstances.
Striving for Increased Status. The desire for upward mobility is associated with attaining a more important and valued position to increase one’s influence. Those with lower status in a group are more likely to be concerned about raising their status than those who already have attained important leadership roles. In three industrial plants, M. Dalton (1950) observed that the lower-status executives tried to get more personnel to supervise and tried to transfer from staff positions (less influential) to line positions (more influential). The line executives, on the other hand, did not seek staff jobs and were more concerned about moving higher on the line and entering the management “eating circle.” Similarly, Bentz (un-dated) observed that members of college faculties who accorded themselves lower status tended to report more concern within their department about rank, status, and influence.
Aspirations for Upward Mobility. Upward striving for status may be reflected in a desire to identify with those of higher status or to accumulate the signs and symbols of higher status. Beshers (1962) called this striving “one-way status mirrors” when he observed the behavior of poor people of lower-class status aspiring to join the middle class.
Expectations of higher status are conducive to greater satisfaction. Kipnis (1964) reported that those who expect to move up are generally more satisfied with their work. Vroom (1966) studied students working for a master’s degree in a business school before and after they accepted positions and found that they rated organizations as attractive when they perceived that these organizations were instrumental to the attainment of their personal goals. H. H. Kelley (1951) found that high-status members with no possibility of promotion were least attracted to a group. Conversely, in another laboratory study, Spector (1953) reported that participants in an experiment who were placed in a pseudomilitary hierarchy and were promoted were the most satisfied. In the U.S. Air Force, Borgatta (1955b) noted that personnel who saw adequate opportunities for advancement to officer positions were less critical of the rewards and punishments possible. However, those who were actually striving for advancement in status were more critical than those who did not seek promotion.
In addition to seeking higher status, most of us, within limits, enjoy associating with groups of somewhat higher status, since these groups are likely to have more power and influence. J. W. Mann (1961) found that members of a group, especially low-status members, preferred to associate with groups of similar or higher status. Their desire tended to focus on the group that was next highest in status relative to their own group.
This striving for status—usually provided by a position of leadership—often involves the desire to achieve congruence in status among the various positions one holds. Dissatisfaction with one’s status in one organization may be due to one’s status in another. Benoit-Smullyan (1944) hypothesized that individuals with different status in different groups would attempt to equalize their stature in the various groups. Thus a business leader may endow an art institute to gain status in cultural circles. Fenchel, Monderer, and Hartley (1951) found that subjects’ striving for status in five groups to which they belonged was higher in those groups in which their current status was low.
Rejection of Higher Status. Although the desire for upward movement in an organization may be the norm, it may nevertheless require changes in residence, associates, and patterns of living. Upward mobility also may require a change in relationships with friends, associates, and former coworkers in the organization. In addition, a higher-status position involves changes in responsibility and accountability for results. It may even mean lower pay for some workers, who, if promoted to supervisor, will no longer be paid for overtime. Not all members of an organization welcome such upward mobility. For example, Springer (1956) found that 13 percent of 10,533 workers who were recommended for promotion to lead-man, assistant foreman, or foreman refused the promotion.
A significant factor in the emotional breakdown of medical officers during World War II was their promotion to a higher-level position of responsibility and status, according to Reider (1944). The young officer who depended on a superior for support not only lost it when he became a status peer of the senior officer but was also expected to provide support for his subordinates.
Losing Status. Although Olmsted (1957) found that members of a group can drop from a position of leadership to the status of participant without reducing their activities or losing their liking for their group, most people in important positions will be concerned about losing status. E. L. Thorndike (1940) noted that for many—perhaps most—people, political power is a habit-forming psychological drug. Abdications are rare. It is one’s general status that is involved, not the specific position. A president of the Teamsters Union is tenacious about maintaining his union office because it is inconceivable for him to return to driving a truck after a term in such a high-status position. Yet a cabinet secretary or the president of the American Association of University Professors can return to a high-status position in business or in academia after serving a term in office and so usually is not as reluctant to relinquish office (Selznick, 1943).
Lowered Status, Dissatisfaction, and Performance. Lowered status is likely to result in dissatisfaction and a decline in performance. H. H. Kelley (1951) studied, experimentally, the written communications of group members in high-status and low-status positions, with and without the possibility of status mobility, and found that low status was associated with relative dislike for the group task. Low-status members communicated their dissatisfaction to other low-status members. Furthermore, the high-status members who could lose their status made fewer positive comments than did those whose status was secure, and the low-status members with the possibility of upward mobility made fewer negative comments than did those who had no such opportunity.
Burnstein and Zajonc (1965a) observed that the performance of group members tended to suffer when their status was decreased and tended to improve when their status was increased. Loss of status was likely to generate hostility. Lindzey and Kalnins (1958) asked students to compare themselves and other persons with figures in a picture test of projective attitudes. The students tended to identify themselves with heroic figures, but identified other persons more often with nonheroic figures. In the students’ projections, changes in status after frustration revealed increased aggression by the hero against others and by others against the hero. Consistent with these findings, Worchel (1961) showed that one’s expressions of hostility against others were reduced by restoring one’s lost status.
Substantial evidence and everyday experience support a strong connection between status and leadership. Many people confuse and merge the two concepts. The worth or value of a manager’s position in the organizational hierarchy increases as he or she moves to higher echelons. Greater responsibility and authority accrue along with higher status. So does the manager’s leadership behavior. Thus, according to D. T. Campbell (1956), descriptions of the behavior of leaders and nominations for leadership of submarine officers were highly correlated with the officers’ rank and the organizational level of their positions.
A rise in status and status differentiation were reflected in effective leadership. In one Mexican village, economic development resulted in the emergence of a cohesive and wealthier class. These wealthier members led the initiation of projects, the mobilization of community support, and the successful completion of the projects. In a second village, without such economic and class developments, little change was possible. Only the first village could deal effectively with outside influences that sought to control local decision making (Krejci, 1976).
Increased Requirements. Systematic differences are observed in the requirements for leadership as one’s status increases. Routine production is of concern at the lowest organizational levels; systems and the external environment are of concern at the highest levels. Compared with the position of the lowest-level manager, the position of the top manager requires more innovativeness, vision, persuasiveness, and long-term orientation. It requires less modesty and participativeness.
Coercive Leadership. Bass (1960) deduced that the power accruing from members’ high status makes it possible for them to become coercive leaders—giving orders, demanding, deciding without explanation. This power, coupled with information and the ability to help the group that stem from their high-status positions, also allows them to persuade others or to permit participation by others in decision making. Although coerciveness is still possible, it has been much more constrained in the past century by changes in attitudes against it of both superiors and subordinates, by legislation, and by societal changes in the democratized world. Much of the research of 50 years ago on coercion is less applicable today, although the many current harassment cases in civilian and military life attest to its continuing occurrence.
Schell (1951) suggested that higher-status people may offer security, protection, and opportunity to their subordinates in return for obedience and zeal. Roethlisberger (1945, p. 287) remarked, “Personal dependence upon the judgments and decisions of his superiors, so characteristic of the subordinate-superior relation … makes the foreman … feel a constant need to adjust himself to demands of his superior and to seek approval of his superior.” Gerard (1957) found in an experiment that participants with high status tended to be controlling in their behavior, whether their role relationships was clear or unclear. But low-status participants required a clearly defined set of role expectations to be effective. Without group goals, high-status participants assumed broader prerogatives, whereas low-status participants seemed bewildered. High-status participants also perceived themselves to have more freedom of action than did low-status participants.
Attempted and Successful Leadership. Attempts to lead were more likely to be successful when the members differed in accorded status and when they were highly motivated than under the opposite conditions (Bass, 1963). A correlation of .88 was obtained between the organizational level of 131 supervisors in an oil refinery and their success in initially leaderless group discussions for which no one was appointed leader (Bass & Wurster, 1953b). If the problem concerned company matters, the correlation was even higher (Bass & Wurster, 1953a). A correlation of .51 was found between the rank of 264 ROTC cadets and their tendency to lead discussions among associates. When 180 cadets were retested in a new discussion among their associates a year after an initial discussion, those who had risen in rank from cadet noncommissioned officer to first lieutenant or higher during that year gained significantly more in observed success as leaders on the retest than did those who received a lesser promotion to cadet second lieutenant (Bass, 1964).
The power of the higher-status manager to influence his or her lower-status subordinates has been observed in numerous empirical studies. For instance, Jacobson, Charters, and Lieberman (1951) found that subordinate supervisors conformed to what they thought their bosses expected of them. Supervisors who said their bosses expected them to be considerate tended to describe themselves as more considerate leaders and were so described by their subordinates (Fleishman, 1953b). Similarly, F. C. Mann (1951) observed that supervisors who changed more as a consequence of training in leadership received more encouragement from their superiors and felt more secure in their relations with their superiors. Bass (1960) reported finding that the higher a salesman’s rank in a sales organization, the more likely was he to be nominated by the others as influential.
J. C. Moore (1968) ascertained that when dyads worked on an ambiguous task, partners of lower status in the same experimental condition tended to defer to the choices made by their partners of higher status. Subsequently, J. C. Moore (1969) found that agreement among partners eroded their expectations of differential performance that were activated by the differences in their status. O. J. Harvey (1953) found that members of a group expected more of their high-status members and overestimated the performance of the high-status members.
The influence of the leader’s status may contribute to better performance among subordinates. Thus Doyle (1971) showed how the processes and productivity of schoolteachers were linked systematically to the status attained by their principals. And Tang, Tollison, and White side (1988) reported that among 47 quality circles (QCs), the attendance rate by others was higher over a three-year period when the meetings were attended frequently by senior managers than when these managers seldom attended them. The QCs with a high level of attendance by middle management attempted more projects and had greater cost savings. But the effect of attendance by lower management on QC effectiveness was not significant.
Reasons for the Status-Influence Relationship. Influence accrues from high status because more attention is paid to high-status persons and because the behavior of persons with high status is more acceptable. Pedestrians at a traffic signal committed significantly more violations when they witnessed violations committed by a confederate of the experimenter who was dressed to represent a person of high social status, than when the confederate was less well dressed (Lefkowitz, Blake, & Mouton, 1955). Vrugt (undated) found that when a confederate who was introduced as a higher-status graduate student of psychology violated nonverbal rules in an experiment, it was more acceptable, since the behavior was considered to be intentional. But when a supposedly lower-status undergraduate did the same thing, it was attributed to an inability to behave suitably. In the same way, it has been found that group members address more remarks to high-status than to low-status members (Katz, Goldston, & Benjamin, 1958; H. H. Kelley, 1951). Sabath (1964) presented a confederate as a new member of either high or low status to groups who were performing discussion and construction tasks. During the construction task, the new member exhibited disruptive behavior, followed by actions that enhanced or impeded the group’s performance of the task. The high-status disruptive member was seen in a generally favorable manner whereas the low-status disruptive member was viewed favorably only when that person’s performance enhanced the group’s functioning. Consistent with these results, Pepitone (1958) concluded from a research review that the higher the status of group members, the greater was the attribution of good intentions and justification to their positive and negative acts. Persons accorded high status were more acceptable as authority figures, and their idiosyncratic behavior received greater acceptance (Hollander, 1961a).
Incorrect Attributions of Status. Leadership can be incorrectly attributed to high status. The romantic theory of leadership suggests that effective leadership is often attributed to individuals because they have been in high-status positions when the business organization has been effective, when in fact external or internal factors such as market conditions, governmental regulations, or highly qualified employees were responsible for the effectiveness (Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985).
Effects of Self-Accorded Status. When it mirrors status accorded by others, self-accorded status correlates with attempts to lead and to be successful as a leader. Guetzkow (1954) showed that key persons’ ratings of their own importance to communication networks correlated with their influential behavior in the networks. If there was a mismatch between self-accorded and accorded status, the attempts were likely to misfire.
A common but not well recognized phenomenon, and a source of potential conflict, is the belief by all people in a hierarchy that they have bigger and more important jobs than their bosses think they have (Haas, Porat, & Vaughan, 1969; Volkerding & Grasha, 1988). Gold (1951–1952) described how interactions between tenants and the janitor in a multiple dwelling changed when the janitor’s concept of his status changed as he adopted “professional standards” and began earning a higher salary than some of the tenants. The stage was set for conflict with those tenants who did not appreciate the janitor’s changed concept of the importance of his job.
Effects of Socioeconomic Status. Chapter 4 noted 15 studies through 1947 indicating that leaders were likely to come from a socioeconomic background according them higher status. For instance, C. A. Smith (1937) found that the leaders of an industrial town in Connecticut came from wealthy families with “connections.” Many additional works followed in support. Hollingshead (1949) observed that Elmstown’s young people displayed leadership behavior as a function of the social class of their family. Baltzell (1958) noted that the descendants of colonial merchants and statesmen, pioneering businessmen, and mining and railroad tycoons of Philadelphia all went to school with one another, lived in fashionable neighborhoods, were Episcopalian, joined the same clubs, intermarried, and eventually entered the elite class. They became the community leaders.
J. A. Davis (1929) found that only 19% of 163 Russian Communist leaders had peasant fathers, and only 29% had working-class fathers.1 Taussig and Joslyn (1932) observed that 70% of the fathers of 7,371 American business executives were businessmen, although businessmen constituted only 10% of the workforce. Even labor leaders tended to be the sons of professionals and businessmen (Sorokin, 1927b).
Numerous studies of opinion leaders attest to the strong link between socioeconomic status and leadership. Switzer (1975) found that peasant leaders in a progressive industrial-agrarian department of Colombia were better-educated, were more economically secure, and had a clearer land title than peasant leaders in a rural, conservative department. Farmers in Orissa, India, were more effective in motivating other farmers to apply improved agricultural techniques if they were higher in socioeconomic status (Rath & Sahoo, 1974). In addition, Roy, Jaiswal, and Shankar (1974) reported that sociometrically identified leaders in four villages in Bihar, India, tended to be higher in caste and had greater landholdings than their followers. But Chesterfield and Ruddle (1976) warned that extension agents did not pay enough attention to the less-visible opinion leaders in rural Venezuela, such as relatives, symbolic kin, and older community members. The middle class in Muslim countries, not the peasants, supplied the leaders of Al Qaeda.
Changes in Socioeconomic Status. Systematic changes have occurred, both in the United States and abroad. In the United States, status increases with money, education, and marriage into a higher class. Starting in 1944, the GI Bill made it possible for many working-class war veterans to attend college. Before this, a college education had been possible mainly for middle-and upper-class students. As a consequence of the GI Bill, a large number of working-class veterans moved up in class by meeting and marrying women who came from the middle and upper classes. The reverse occurred in the communist world. After a decade of socialism, 96% of managers in Poland reported that they came from the working class or lower middle class (McClelland, 1961).
In the United States, the Air Force Command passed in the 1980s to officers whose background was quite different from those who had engaged in World War II. According to Margiotta (1976), because of broader social recruitment in the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. Air Force leaders in the 1980s became more representative of the U.S. population in terms of socioeconomic origin, regional affiliation, size of their hometown, and religion. As with the military, U.S. political, business, and educational leaders in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early twenty-first century have been drawn less often from the mainstream. Affirmative action, a broadening of the right to vote, and a liberalization of attitudes about race, ethnicity, and religion greatly raised the educational level, status, and leadership opportunities of disadvantaged minorities. However, leadership opportunities still remain somewhat less for those not of European ancestry and for ethnic and religious minorities outside the mainstream (Korman, 1988).
Confounds. Ability and status are likely to be confounded. For example, early studies (Davis, 1929; Sward, 1933; Taussig & Joslyn, 1932) found that intelligence, skill, and educational level tended to be higher among those who were higher in socioeconomic status. Middleclass adolescents may become school leaders more often because they are somewhat higher in verbal aptitude than working-class students. Regardless of the cause, most psychological studies indicate the existence of class differences in verbal aptitude. For example, among 140 college women, a significant correlation of .21 was obtained between verbal aptitude (as measured by the American Council on Education linguistic score) and socioeconomic status as measured by father’s occupation, parents’ education, and religious affiliation (Bass, Wurster, Doll, et al., 1953). The relationship between leadership and socioeconomic status is also confounded with the tendency of higher socioeconomic status to be correlated with greater education and opportunity. The collateral interrelations were apparent to Jencks, Bartlett, Corcoran, et al. (1979), who looked at 13 demographic variables having to do with fathers and sons and concluded that a father’s occupation, family background, education, and intelligence are the best predictors of a son’s occupational success. Although credentials, demonstrated by degrees in engineering, law, or business administration, provide avenues to success in business leadership, it also helps to marry the boss’s daughter. Middle-class students can pursue more extracurricular leadership opportunities; working-class students frequently have to put their time into part-time jobs. Celebrity, wealth, marriage, and education can also move one’s status and influence upward. In the information age, education and knowledge have increased considerably in importance relative to the other variables.
The concordance of status and leadership is also confounded by the relationship of both status and leadership to how much time people spend with each other. Stogdill and Koehler (1952) found that the extent to which persons in lower organizational echelons mentioned an individual as one with whom they spent the most time correlated .82 with the mentioned person’s level in the organization. However, these mentions of frequency of contact also correlated .31, .33, and .23 with being preferred as a leader. Time spent with persons in other units also correlated highly with the other person’s level in the organization (r 5 .69). Similarly, Browne (1949) found that an executive who was mentioned frequently as one with whom others spent time was also an officeholder who described himself as being higher in authority and who was in a higher echelon in the organization. Another confound with status was noted by Jackson and Fuller (1966), who discovered that lower-class pupils liked middle-class teachers better. They seemed to the pupils to be less authoritarian.
Did Pascal overstate the case in suggesting that the nobleman would lose all his influence if he lost the power to control what lesser men wanted? The symbols, signs, and privileges would still make the poor nobleman’s position valuable in the eyes of others—a continued source of envy, deference, and respect. The rich commoner might still be willing to exchange places with the poor nobleman or to pay handsomely to have him as a son-in-law. Others’ perception of the legitimacy and value of the nobleman’s privileged position in the societal hierarchy would still give him some influence apart from his personal qualities. Thus the poor nobleman’s position would still provide referent power, and the rich commoner might still want to identify with the nobleman, regardless of the nobleman’s impoverishment. Nevertheless, Pascal was right to some degree, for the absence of any real power attached to one’s position generally results in the reduced ability to lead. Viteles (1953) talked about the first-level foreman as the “forgotten man,” since the foreman was left with only some of the symbols of status but little control over his subordinates. In a study of an electric utility company, Pelz (1951) found that supervisors who attempted leadership behavior failed to obtain changes in their subordinates if the supervisors lacked influence with higher-ups, if they had no voice in decisions made by their superiors, if they lacked freedom from superiors’ orders, and if their salary was low. Supervisors who were in positions that had more value and importance and had influence with higher authority were more successful when they made the same attempts at leadership. Influential supervisors were seen by their subordinates as being more able to obtain rewards and provide punishments for their subordinates. Supervisors who were unable to grant or deny rewards, despite their title and position, had the signs of status but were unsuccessful in leading their subordinates.
Status of Celebrities. Popular icons are famous, or sometimes infamous, personages. They are well-known figures but not necessarily heroes or charismatic leaders. As long as they remain highly visible, celebrities are extremely high in status and highly paid in relation to the general population. Their position as superstars—sports stars, rock music stars, movie stars, playboys, or aristocrats—is of much greater importance and value than their personal qualities because of the public image of their position that publicity agents and media hype create for them. That is, their image, rather than their talent, makes them influential. As long as they remain visible in their celebrated positions, the public will react toward them as if they were truly heroic or charismatic and will want to identify with them (that is, will want to be in their position as media stars). All or segments of the public will be ready to accept the testimonials of celebrities regarding products and politics. With some exceptions, celebrity status generally tends to be ephemeral, declining with a decline in publicity. Popular television anchors who remain at their posts can maintain their celebrity status over a long career, but movie and sports stars tend to fade if their public careers are short.
Esteem is the value of each member of a formal or in-formal collectivity as a person, regardless of his or her position in the collectivity. It is each member’s perceived potential to help the group, the organization, or society to attain goals, independent of the position the member occupies. Esteem is the person’s reputation in the eyes of others. Recognition of differences in esteem among members is established during the history of a natural group (Sherif, 1967) and increases in discrimination with the age of the group (Lippitt, Thelen, & Leff, undated). Such evaluations of the adequacy of group members are found among children eight years of age or even younger (Campbell & Radke-Yarrow, 1956). Heroes and heroines are highly esteemed. They serve as examples. They have the ability to persevere and overcome the obstacles that impede others. They may become legends through their sacrifice for the benefit of others. They may be real or fictitious.
While … [heroic] greatness appears almost magical, it is indeed most human. … Because of that humanness … individuals attain heroic stature. They are of us, but are clearly different. … We look to heroes and heroines for inspiration. Through their achievements, we see humankind more positively. They make us feel good … and feel proud. They may become definite role models, and our lives follow a different direction. … By learning about their lives, our lives become enriched. Denenberg, 1997, p. 23
Those with more personal ability, regardless of their position, will be more esteemed, since they can be helpful to others through their ability to solve others’ problems. They can help the group, organization, or society to attain its goals. In the same way, those with personal power, regardless of their position, will be more esteemed, since they can directly give or deny love, friendship, security, and other interpersonal rewards. It is possible for them to coerce others by manipulating such rewards, but they are likely to lose esteem if they do. People with esteem that is due primarily to their personal ability will be more successful in persuading others when they attempt to do so (Mowday, 1979). If their esteem depends on both personal ability and personal power, they can emerge as leaders (Bass, 1960). For children, the real heroes of the past such as George Washington have been replaced by cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse; for adolescents, by the unreal world of 50 Cent; for adults by the hype of Tom Cruise. The picture of George Washington in one classroom was replaced by a cartoon of Snoopy (Dennenberg, 1997).
Need for Esteem. Maslow (1954) called attention to the need for esteem. Just as we would like to occupy valued positions, most of us also desire to be valued as persons, particularly by those we value (Wurster, Bass, & Alcock, 1961). Lippitt, Thelen, and Leff (undated) hypothesized that we are more concerned about being criticized personally than about being criticized for the social role we play. This concern with one’s value was implicit in Festinger’s (1954) theory of social-comparison processes. It results in the practical advice to supervisors that if they need to correct a subordinate’s poor performance, they should focus on the performance, not the subordinate’s personal motives, attitudes, or value.
We are more satisfied with situations and groups that provide us with esteem. For instance, Van Zelst (1951) indicated that highly esteemed workers were more satisfied with their jobs and with their firm. Heyns (1950) noted that participants who felt they were accepted were more satisfied with the decisions of a conference. But Flint, Bass, and Pryer (1957a) failed to find any relation between esteem of members and their attraction to problem-solving groups.
The value, importance, or worth of a person as a person, regardless of the person’s status, is in the eye of the beholder. Pocketbook voters will esteem a president according to their perception of his effect on their personal economic life; sociotropic voters will evaluate a president on what he does for the national economy (Kinder, 1981). Extensive evidence points to the ease with which members share perceptions of each other’s esteem. Potential differences in esteem are quickly recognized by other members of a group (Gronlund, 1955a) as well as by trained observers (Stein, 1971).
Importance of First Impressions. Gronlund (1955a) observed that group members agree about as well on their relative esteem at the beginning of their interaction as after extended acquaintance. In experiments with dyads, Levinger (1959) found that although later behavior influenced a partner’s behavior more than first impressions did, the first impressions tended to determine behavior throughout the experiment. Likewise, Barker (1942) found that after a few moments of getting acquainted, a group of strangers exhibited a high degree of agreement in choosing members for seatmates. Vielhaber and Gott-heil (1965) studied 117 cadets who were rated by four judges after only 20 to 35 seconds of observation. The judges’ ratings correlated .45 with the upperclassmen’s evaluations after four weeks of observation and correlated .31 with composite evaluations of aptitude for service made 14 weeks later. According to Hall and Lord (1996), these effects of first impressions are due to rapid cognitive processing of likes and dislikes.
Experimentally, it was possible to raise or lower the esteem of a neutral stranger merely by providing some false cues about the stranger. The results depended on others’ attitudes toward those cues (Asch, 1946). H. H. Kelley (1950) introduced two persons to an audience, one as “warm,” the other as “cold.” The audience’s perceptions of the personality of the two was altered by the adjective used in introducing them. The “warm” person became more esteemed than the “cold” person.
Esteem and Self-Esteem. As with comparisons of self-ratings and ratings received from others, in most situations—unless we are depressed, lack need for control, or are overly modest due to cultural inhibitions or a self-deprecating personality—our self-ratings of esteem tend to be more favorable to us than ratings of esteem accorded us by others. We overestimate our self-esteem. According to Thompson (1999), we have an illusion of control, and therefore of our personal influence if the situation is familiar to us, if we are personally involved, if we have foreknowledge about the desired outcome, and if we are focused on success. Even in circumstances with chance outcomes, we think we personally can influence the outcome. Gilovich and Savitsky (1999) offer a different explanation. When making judgments about ourselves, we anchor them in our own experiences. The spotlight effect biases our estimate. We overestimate the attention others pay to our behavior and appearance. We also overestimate the extent to which our unexpressed contributions to the group are discerned by the other members.
Agreement is not high between ratings of our self-esteem and the esteem that others accord us. Gronlund (1955b) correlated each individual’s rank according to the others in a group with the individual’s ranking of the other group members. The median rank order correlation was only .40 for 104 graduate students. Blake, Mouton, and Fruchter (1954) studied 10 trios in a discussion task. There was limited agreement between the individuals’ ratings of themselves and the observers’ ratings of them. Generally, 360-degree ratings of merit, leadership, and other personal appraisals highly related to esteem by superiors, peers, and subordinates have only low to zero correlations with self-ratings.
Chapter 8 detailed the importance to leadership of self-confidence and self-esteem. As was noted, Bass (1955b) found a correlation of .38 between self-esteem and emergence as a leader in initially leaderless groups, but the correlations between self-esteem and objective success as a leader were only .17 and .18 for a total of 95 participants. Moreover, self-esteem may be quite different from the esteem accorded by another person. For instance, one would expect that those with extremely low or extremely high self-esteem would be too preoccupied with their own concerns to be highly esteemed by others (Reykowski, 1982). Nonetheless, one would ordinarily expect some correlation between self-esteem and esteem. Shapiro and Klein (1975) found such a correlation in encounter groups, but only after two days of meetings and only for a composite profile of the leaders as seen by themselves and by the nonleaders. Similarly, Willerman and Swanson (1953) found that members’ evaluations of themselves were only modestly related to other members’ evaluations of them.
Accuracy of Leaders. Leaders tend to be more accurate about their own esteem than are other members. But this tendency is not surprising, since everyone in the group can make more accurate judgments about the leader than about other members. The leader’s behavior is more visible, more frequent, and more observable than the behavior of most other members (Bass, 1949). According to H. H. Jennings’s (1943) sociometric analyses in a girls’ school, a comparison of self-estimates with estimates by others showed that the “overchosen” (the stars) appraised themselves most accurately on having good ideas and making others feel benefited, whereas the “underchosen” (the rejectees and isolates) estimated themselves most accurately in expressing discouragement and being easily hurt.
Agreement among Others. Pairs of observers completed final ratings of esteem achieved in initially leaderless group discussions among members of similar status. Correlations between the pairs of observers ranged from .51 to .83. Similar results were obtained for ratings of cadet leaders. A reliability of .68 was obtained as an index of agreement among ratings by 2 to 17 ROTC cadets rating a total of 307 fellow cadets (Bass & Wurster, 1953a, 1953b). Prien and Culler (1964) found, however, that observers agreed better about those who participated a little than about those who participated a lot.
The sociometric ratings among very young children were inconsistent from one period to the next (Lazar, 1953). But according to Newsletter, Feldstein, and New-comb (1938), as the age of campers increased, the stability of their sociometric ratings increased as well. Northway (1946) reported rate-rerate correlations of .8 to .9 when summer campers rerated each other a week after a first rating. Bjerstedt (1956) reported correlations of .82 between ratings and reratings four months apart among 867 Swedish schoolchildren aged nine and older; even after 13 months, the rate-rerate correlation was .73. McGuire, Lammon, and White (1953) found a similar consistency among adolescents from one year to the next. Even when half the children in a group, aged 6 to 12, are replaced with new members, the remaining children’s ratings of esteem were consistent, to some extent, with earlier ratings (E. Campbell, undated).
Popularity and Respect. People desire to be respected, admire those whom they esteem, and want to be esteemed by those they esteem (Wurster, Bass, & Alcock, 1963). The acceptance of a stranger is related to his or her esteem and prestige (Byrne, Griffitt, & Golightly, 1966). Santee and Vanderpol (1976) found a correlation of .83 between being liked and being respected and a correlation of .78 between being liked and being seen to be of value to the organization. In Bass’s analysis (1960) of five sociometric ratings of 203 salesmen by their associates, being liked correlated .60 with being seen as of value to the firm and .49 with being seen as capable. Graves and Powell (1988) found that 398 college recruiters rated applicants’ subjective qualifications for being hired substantially higher if they personally liked the applicants.
Perceived Similarity. We esteem those whom we regard as most similar to us in attitudes, interests, and abilities. We tend to reject those whom we regard as different or unlike us. Thus Graves and Powell (1988) found that recruiters gave more favorable ratings to applicants if the recruiters considered themselves similar to the applicants. Also, we tend to choose as friends those who are similar to us or only slightly higher than us in socioeconomic status (A. Ellis, 1956).
Many investigators have demonstrated that similarity in attitudes is a significant factor in sociometric choice.2 Byrne (1965) found that acceptance of a stranger was related to similarity of attitudes. A stranger who was perceived to have attitudes similar to those of the raters was adjudged more intelligent, more moral, and better informed (Byrne, 1961). Furthermore, we particularly like others who are similar to us on socially desirable dimensions (Hendrick & Brown, 1971; Palmer & Byrne, 1970). We prefer those who share our group’s norms and values (Stein, 1982b).
In numerous studies,3 perceived similarity in personality characteristics is also significantly related to interpersonal choices. A review by Berscheid and Walster (1969) suggested that similarity of attitudes and personality was associated with mutual attractiveness and therefore with valuing of each other.
Mutual Attractiveness. People tend to like those who like them (Newcomb, 1956). Furthermore, the extent to which people are attracted to each other and the extent to which they actually interact are enhanced by their perceived similarity in attitudes and personality and even more by the degree to which they like each other (Aronson & Worchel, 1966; Byrne & Griffitt, 1966a, 1966b). For instance, the expectation of being liked by a participant in an experimental task was significantly related to interpersonal attraction (Backman & Secord, 1959; Darley & Berscheid, 1967). Similarity in competence also makes a difference in personal attractiveness. Thus Zander and Havelin (1960) found that members of experimental groups tended to be attracted to others whose competence was closest to their own.
Competence. M. A. Price (1948) studied esteem among 223 women in a junior college. Women who were esteemed by their schoolmates were mentioned on an 11-item “guess who” test as most similar to the person who has good ideas, expresses joy and satisfaction, keeps the central idea in mind, appeals for group loyalty, and makes others feel that they will benefit by following her suggestions. Women who were rejected were more frequently mentioned as being most similar to the person who expresses fear and worry and embarrasses others.
Bass and Coates (1953) found positive correlations between scores on intelligence tests and peers’ ratings of esteem in the ROTC. The “ability” items that were listed on a peer-evaluation scale for assessing esteem among Marine cadets at Officer Candidate School (OCS) included “well trained,” “experienced,” “performs well before the group,” “has sound judgment,” “thinks quickly,” “exhibits imagination,” “is well educated,” and “is a fine athlete” (Hoffman & Rohrer, 1954). Likewise, H. H. Jennings (1943) noted that institutionalized girls who were “overchosen” (those who were more desired as associates) exhibited more ingenuity, planning, and organization. The more esteemed members of Whyte’s (1943) street-corner society were known for their resourcefulness and the past success of their ideas. In the same way, Zeleny (1946–1947) found that cadets with exceptional ability in flying were more likely to be chosen as flying partners. Similarly, Feinberg (1953) noted that regardless of economic background, esteemed adolescent boys were higher in athletic and scholastic proficiency than were those who were rejected by their peers. But in choosing friends, Riley and Flowerman (1951) suggested, we tend to select those who are “smart, but not too smart; pretty, but not too pretty.”
Demonstrated competence increases one’s esteem. Gilchrist (1952) found that people who consistently succeeded on assigned tasks became more attractive to others. Lippitt, Polansky, Redl, et al. (1952) reported that at a summer camp, boys with a history of success were most liked. Zander and Havelin (1960) found that those who were highly competent in experimental groups were preferred over those who lacked competence. And Jackson (1953a) noted that when members of a formal organization judged other members of the work group, they valued most those whom they perceived as having contributed to the achievement of the group’s goals and having conformed to the group’s standards.
An individual’s ability to help the group can be increased, of course. R. E. Andrews (1955) suggested that supervisors should be given as much information about policies and decisions as possible to enhance their standing with their subordinates. Whyte (1943) noted that leaders can increase or maintain their perceived value to their group by making sure the group engages in activities at which the leaders are most proficient.
“Unearned” Esteem. Yet it must be clear that one can be esteemed for a variety of reasons that have little or nothing to do with one’s ability to help the group. People may gain esteem merely because of their similarity to stereotypes or popular conceptions of esteemed or popular figures. For instance, youthful looks, gray hair, and a handsome face are strong political assets in television campaigning; immature facial characteristics (associated with infantile helplessness) will reduce a would-be leader’s expected value (Berry & McArthur, 1986). Also, one’s family name may carry great weight. The meteoric rise of George W. Bush to the office of governor of Texas and then the presidency is illustrative.
Esteem, Conformity, and Deviations. Before new individuals can be accepted by the other members of an established group and rise in esteem, they usually must demonstrate that they will abide by the rules of the group and share its ways of behaving and its goals (N. Anderson, 1923).4 Thus Bonney and Powell (1953) found that the highly esteemed children in sociometric analyses were more cooperative. Likewise, Marwell (1966) found that experimental subjects chose those who had been cooperative on a first task assignment as partners for a second task assignment. Christie (1952) found that if a new army recruit increased his acceptance of the prevailing authoritarian attitudes, he was more likely to be esteemed by his peers after six weeks in service. Similarly, Havighurst and Taba (1949) noted that adolescents who conformed best to the middle-class standards of a school were most likely to be esteemed by their middle-class peers. Following a survey of the literature, Northway, Frankel, and Potashin (1947) concluded that esteem was highest in children who were not extremely shy nor so aggressive as to interfere with the group’s activities. However, Stein (1982b) theorized that highly esteemed members of a group only appear to conform to the group’s norms, since they actually exemplify them. They do not have to move from their own points of view to be seen as conforming to the group’s normative values and attitudes.
Numerous exceptions have been reported. Mumford (1959) found more deviation among highly esteemed canteen workers. Blau (1960) reported that when cases were unimportant, caseworkers deviated more from the norms about gossiping. Conformity to the ideals of one’s reference group may be more important than conformity to the opinions of a temporary group or a particular local group (Sherif & Sherif, 1964). What is most important, as Hollander’s (1978) theory and research demonstrated, is that the member with esteem who first conforms to the group builds up idiosyncracy credit that permits him or her to deviate and to emerge as a group leader.
Meeting Expectations. We like and value those who behave according to our expectations. Thus Sharpe (1956) reported that the evaluation of principals’ effectiveness by teachers and staff was highly related to the principals’ conformity to the expectations of the teachers and staff. Jackson (1953) found that foremen were evaluated by subordinates according to the match between the foremen’s behavior and the subordinates’ expectations. Baumgartel (1956) reported the same kinds of results for the staff’s evaluations of the directors of a medical research center. Foa (1956) asked Israeli factory workers what they thought was the best way for a foreman to handle difficult situations involving workers, and how their foremen usually dealt with such incidents. Favorable evaluations of their foremen increased as the discrepancies decreased in how the workers thought the foremen should behave and how the foremen usually behaved. Tsui (1982) found that in a sample of 217 middle managers, the managers’ reputation for effectiveness correlated with their bosses’, subordinates’, and peers’ expectations about the managers’ role.
Santee and Vanderpol (1976) correlated the degree to which professors conformed to students’ expectations. One group of students rated their satisfaction with different professorial behaviors; another group of students indicated which behaviors were typical of their professors and rated the professors’ esteem. The professors’ conformity to the students’ expectations correlated .56 with the students’ ratings of respect and .61 with the students’ ratings of the professors’ value to the university. Fulfilling campaign promises with legislation approved by Congress has been used as an index of public satisfaction with a president’s performance. Reelected presidents from Wilson to Nixon fulfilled 75% of their pledges. Jimmy Carter, who fulfilled 60% of his campaign promises, failed to win reelection. The failure was also attributed to the importance of his failed pledge to reduce unemployment and inflation (Krukones, 1985). Because he had been able to fulfill so many of his campaign promises, Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996 and ended his second term in office with high approval ratings despite the scandals that had marred his presidency.
Interviews with 11 chief executive officers led Bruce (1986) to conclude that the CEO’s status and the power accruing from their top position in the firm were not enough to ensure their success in office. Their first task was to gain acceptance and to get a lot of people in the organization to know and trust them personally. They had to see the company and to be seen. The CEOs took control in such a way that their firms began to take on their personal character.
Esteem and Successful Influence. Bird (1940) concluded that leadership reflects the esteem in which the member is held. Similarly, Homans (1950) proposed that those of “higher social rank” in a group initiated the interactions with others. Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet (1948) suggested that the influence on opinion of personal contact depended on trust in esteemed persons. Sims and Manz (1981) noted that esteemed leaders attract more attention to themselves and, therefore, could serve as models in organizational life. Rosenthal and Frank (1956) reasoned that the efficacy of psychotherapy depended on the patient’s confidence in the therapist.
Brim (1954) discovered that mothers were more willing to adopt recommended child-rearing practices if they esteemed the physician who suggested the new methods. But esteem of the physician was not enough to sustain the new behavior. To sustain the new behavior, approval and support from their husbands was also required. Lanzetta and Haythorn (1954) observed that the more students esteemed their instructors, the more their opinions would coalesce with those of the instructors.
Garrison (1933) obtained a correlation of .82 between the tendency of high school seniors to be admired and their tendency to be chosen as leaders. Page (1984) showed that U.S. presidents from the 1930s to the 1970s could move public opinion on such issues as inflation, energy, foreign policy, and civil rights only if their performance in office was approved by the public. If their performance was disapproved, they either had no effect or actually pushed people farther from their positions.
Sociometric Evidence. In sociometric studies, members of a group nominate the person or persons in the group with whom they spend the most time or with whom they prefer to work, to play, and so on. “Stars” receive many nominations; “isolates” receive few or none. As more attractive persons, stars are higher in esteem than isolates. In his seminal sociometric studies, Moreno (1934/1953) observed that the higher the esteem of group members, the more nominations they received and the greater was the volume of words expected and accepted from them by other members. The esteemed member was more frequently permitted to assume the initiative and to terminate activities. In the same way, H. H. Jennings (1947) found that the sociometrically “overchosen” in a girls’ institution exhibited four times as much behavior described as “making new events happen” or “enlarging the extent of activities” as the “average chosen.” When the girls were free to choose a leader, H. H. Jennings (1943) observed, they tended to select someone who displayed spontaneity and enlarged the field of action for others. C. A. Gibb (1950) and Borgatta (1954) indicated that ratings of the effectiveness of leaders were highly related to the leaders’ ratings as desired work partners but were unrelated to their ratings as persons desired as friends. The member who showed a great deal of initiative and participation attracted a large portion of the positive emotional responses of the other group members. Similarly, Newsletter, Feldstein, and Newcomb (1938) found that an individual’s leadership in a group was determined largely by the cordiality received from others rather than by the leader’s cordiality toward others.
Peer and Buddy Nominations. The highly chosen tend to be successful leaders in future settings. This tendency has resulted in the use of nominations by peers and buddies to forecast the subsequent success of leaders in the military. From World War II onward, peer ratings of esteem by cadets in Officer Candidate School or the military service academies have been found to be one of the best single predictors of subsequent success as a regular U.S. Army officer (Haggerty, Johnson, & King, 1954). Thus, a correlation of .51 was obtained between esteem among peers at West Point and rated success as an infantry officer 18 months later. A correlation of .42 was obtained between esteem among fellow trainees in Officer Candidate School and combat performance as a U.S. Army officer (Baier, 1947). Similar results were reported by the U.S. Air Force (1952) and the U.S. Marine Corps (Wilkins, 1953; Williams & Leavitt, 1947b).
Evidence from Leaderless Group Discussions (LGDs). A strong case can be made for the personal factor from studies using an initially leaderless group discussion (LGD) to assess esteem and leadership during the discussion and again in real life as much as two years later. In these small-group discussions, in which no member is appointed leader, high correlations were found between ratings by observers or peers of the value and contribution of members to the group and their in fluence and emergence as leaders of the group (Bass, 1954a). Moreover, those members who were esteemed most highly by their peers had the most influence on the other members and on the group’s decision, according to objective measurements of changes in opinion (Bass, 1955a). Elsewhere, Bass (1961c) reported that attempts to lead were more successful among able and esteemed leaders, especially when the congruence between the leaders’ esteem and self-esteem was great. Wurster, Bass, and Alcock (1961) obtained results with 95 LGD participants indicating that they felt more responsive toward the suggestions and opinions of persons whom they esteemed than toward those of people in general. Thus the highly esteemed person had an advantage in opportunities to influence others because the others tended to feel responsive toward his or her behavior. Bass (1954a) reported a median adjusted correlation of .51 for 17 studies of emergence as leader in LGD and subsequent appraisals of meritorious leadership performance from one week to two years later. The criteria included rated merit as a U.S. Army cadet and officer (Weislogel, 1953), nominations for positions of leadership in a sorority or fraternity (Bass & White, 1951), rated potential and general merit as a civil service administrator (Arbous & Maree, 1951), rated adequacy as a foreman (Mandell, 1950a; Wurster & Bass, 1953), and rated suitability for the foreign service of South Africa (Vernon, 1950). Similar findings were reported for British supervisors (Handyside & Duncan, 1954), Finnish foremen (Rainio, 1955), and military trainees (Gleason, 1957).5
Leadership and Perceived Helpfulness. Leaders will be successful to the degree that they are seen as having the potential to be helpful. In 72 business and governmental conferences, Crockett (1955) noted that emergent leaders were rated as members who were most needed by the group. In another study of industry, N. A. Rosen (1969) obtained ratings of workers’ preference for eight foremen. Foremen who were high and low in preference then changed places. The findings suggested that the new foremen were evaluated in terms of their ability to help the group. The greater the consensus among the workers in weeks 1 to 10 that the new foreman “is our leader,” the greater was the increase in productivity and cohesiveness in weeks 11 to 16. Also, S. Rosen, Levinger, and Lippitt (1961) found that schoolchildren and college students rated helpfulness and fairness as the most important traits that enable individuals to influence others; and that adults rated fairness first and helpfulness second in importance. Kelman (1970), Olsen (1968), and Sells (1968) placed particular importance on the confidence and trust that followers had in their leaders. In turn, such confidence and trust in the leader were linked to the competence of the leader. In a report on 72 men in the Antarctic for a year, P. D. Nelson (1964b) concluded that what differentiated leaders from nonleaders in maintaining their esteem was their stronger motivational commitment to the group.
Feelings about the helpfulness of leaders are multidimensional. R. D. Mann, Gibbard, and Hartman (1967) obtained college students’ expressions of feeling toward different leaders as well as descriptions of the followers’ responses. The data were factor-analyzed. Among the factors that emerged were feelings about the leader as an analyst, as an authority figure, and as committed to the leader-member relationship. The investigators found that the leaders were esteemed for supporting the members’ independence, identification, and social closeness. But M. G. Evans (1973) and Lawler and Hall (1970) noted that such perceived esteem in leaders can be induced in subordinates by their own needs and desires for particular behaviors by leaders. The distortion becomes great in the charismatic leader who may be perceived by followers as a savior. Leaders of therapy groups were seen as more helpful if they were evaluated as higher in self-disclosure and as more mentally healthy (May & Thompson, 1973). Bolman (1973) reported on the extent to which therapeutic improvement occurred according to individuals’ and peers’ ratings of the members of therapy groups. A favorable characterization of the therapist helped, but Bolman failed to replicate previous findings in which liking the therapist as a person contributed to improvement in the members. Though how well one is liked may increase one’s emergence as a leader (Schubert et al., 1974), being liked is not necessarily a substitute for esteem in contributing to the leader’s performance.
Visibility, Likeability, Esteem, and Leadership. Numerous commentators have pointed out that it is important for aspiring managers to make themselves visible to those with higher authority in order to increase their prospects for promotion. Tagiuri and Kogan (1957) found that self-confidence enhanced an individual’s visibility in a group. Although visibility made some contribution to a person’s emergence as a leader, it did not make as much of a contribution as did the person’s perceived value to the group.
Being liked, popular, and chosen as a friend tend to make some contribution to emergent leadership, but not as much as esteem does. Numerous investigators have found nominations received for leader and for friend to be positively correlated.6 Duncan (1984) observed that managers who were first seen as friends by employees could then be admitted to the employee’s “humor network.” Perceived friends could become initiators and foci of work-related jokes. However, friendship tended to correlate less with leadership than did other variables, such as nominations for followership and amount of participation (Lana, Vaughan, & McGinnies, 1960).
Bass (1960) found that influence is more strongly associated with one’s sociometrically rated value and ability than one’s sociometrically determined popularity and visibility. Table 10.1 shows the results of such a sociometric study of 203 salesmen. In each of their sales units, the salesmen nominated seven others as “liked as a coworker” and rejected seven. They repeated these nominations for “value to the company,” “ability to solve the company’s problems,” and “influence.” Each salesman’s score was the number of his nominations less the number of rejections by others on each criterion. His visibility was the percentage of all salesmen in his division who knew him. Being of value and ability correlated .68 and .74 with influence; being visible correlated only .29 with influence; and being liked or popular correlated .50 with influence. Visibility and popularity were unrelated; but as Riedesel (1974) noted popularity and likeability systematically confound sociometric studies of the esteem-leadership relationship. In all, it would appear that being liked and being visible may still be of some importance to one’s influence, but in general, perceived competence and values are of much more importance to leadership. Nevertheless, being visible to higher-ups remains important in moving up the career ladder. Organizations and cultures differ in what is found estimable, so it is expected that in an organizational culture in which only the “bottom line” is valued and the well-being of its constituents is disregarded, esteem will accrue to the hard-driving, ruthless leader who brings victory over competition. Polls conducted in Russia early in the twenty-first century indicate that despite the killing, imprisonment, and starvation of millions of innocent victims, and despite his authoritarian mismanagement, Stalin is still esteemed by 20% of the Russian public for successfully building the Communist Soviet Union and for defeating Nazi Germany.
It is often difficult to sort out whether members’ value and contribution to the group, organization, or society is due to the information, control, and importance of their position or to their personal qualities. In fact, since more qualified people are ordinarily promoted and occupy higher-status positions in an organization, a positive correlation is expected between members’ status and their esteem. This was found in experimental groups (Flint, Bass, & Pryer, 1957b). Additionally, status is often gained through personal ability and effort. Persons who are likely to be esteemed because of their personal characteristics are also likely to be promoted to positions of greater worth in formal hierarchical organizations. Thus esteem often leads to the achievement of a higher status (Pellegrin, 1952). Promotion to a higher status in industrial and military organizations often depends on superiors’ ratings of one’s worth to the organization, although, of course, upward mobility in status can also be due to chance, tradition, or favoritism—unrelated to one’s esteem.
According to Sherif and Sherif (1953), those in positions of control (high status) are perceived by others to be endowed with superior personal traits. Perlmutter (1954) confirmed that the greater the perceived capacity of individuals to influence the perceiver, the more traits will be assigned to them and the more desirable the traits will be. In the same way, Courtney, Greer, Masling, and Orlans (1953) noted that military recruits who were given positions with the most responsibility and authority were most esteemed. Barnard (1951) agreed that abilities would be imputed to persons of higher status even when the abilities could not be recognized. This, he suggested, was a way that low-status followers maintained their own self-esteem. The followers rationalized that they were being persuaded by the most capable members of the organization, rather than coerced only because of differences in status.
Table 10.1 Median Intercorrelations among Five Sociometric Ratings of 203 Salesmen by Their Associates
Visibility |
Popularity |
Value |
Ability |
Influence |
Visibility |
-.05 |
.39 |
.38 |
.29 |
Popularity |
|
.60 |
.49 |
.50 |
Value |
|
|
.73 |
.68 |
Ability |
|
|
|
.74 |
SOURCE: Adapted from Bass (1960, p. 282).
Esteem was found to be higher for individuals with the status of owners and professionals in agricultural communities (Hooker, 1928). Likewise, among three canteen work groups, those living at higher socioeconomic levels were more esteemed (Mumford, 1959). Prestige and popularity were observed to be higher for persons who were heads of organizations in their communities (J. E. White, 1950). D. T. Campbell (1953) noted that among the crews of 7 out of 10 submarines, the commanding officer was most esteemed. He received the most nominations as the person others wanted to see in command. Merit ratings (esteem) of military officers tended to be higher if their military rank was higher (Robins, Willemin, & Brueckel, 1954). A review of efficiency ratings from 1922 to 1945 revealed a positive correlation between the rank of officers and their merit ratings. In Korea, those at higher grades in the service received more favorable ratings of their performance in combat (U.S. Army, 1952). In a study of 1,900 military personnel, Masling, Greer, and Gilmore (1955) found that the higher individuals ranked in the military organization, the greater the number of favorable sociometric mentions they tended to receive in regard to both military and personal matters.
The fact that status and esteem are correlated may be a valid assessment of the value of both the positions and the personal qualities of the people involved. When status and esteem are truly mismatched, the lack of correlation may reflect the overevaluation of esteem associated with an accurate appraisal of status. Thus almost all high-ranking military officers are usually appraised as excellent or superior in performance. An appraisal may also reflect the overevaluation of a position because of the high esteem earned by the occupant. For example, although paraprofessionals have lower status than registered nurses, the importance of the paraprofessionals’ position may be raised significantly in the eyes of patients if the patients think their well-being depends more on the performance of the paraprofessionals than on that of the nurses.
Maintaining Esteem and Status. Subordinates value and esteem leaders who are considerate of their needs and who avoid being domineering (D. T. Campbell, 1953). Leaders will lose their esteem if they fail a group or if, as was mentioned earlier, they use their esteem to coerce members into accepting their influence and if they threaten to withdraw support and affection. Conversely, the esteem of leaders will be enhanced if they effectively contribute to their groups’ success (Bass, 1960). More important positions and higher status will be assigned to those who are seen to contribute or who have the potential to contribute to the well-being of others or the success of the organization.
Americans’ trust of business, government, organized religion, and one another has been declining rapidly in the past four decades. In 1996, 55% of those polled said they had confidence in big corporations, big government, and organized religion. By the early twenty-first century, such trust was down to 23%. Since 1960, trust in other people had declined from 50% to 30%. The many business scandals and stock and accounting frauds accelerated the mistrust of business corporations. There was a marked decline in trust in companies of 19% between 2002 and 2006. The attacks of 9/11 and the war on terror caused a turnaround in trust of government. Americans’ trust in their fellow citizens rose to 65% (compared with 3% in Brazil). Nevertheless, the increasing disparity in the incomes and wealth of the rich and the poor in the United States and the economic segregation of the rich and poor in urban neighborhoods and suburbs increased mistrust among the poor (Purdy, 2004). A similar decline in trust occurred in many other countries. In December 2005, a poll in France found only 1% of voters saying they would support President Chirac’s reelection in 2007. Declines in the public’s trust in business ranged from 11% to 36% in Germany, Turkey, Canada, and Spain in polls in 2004 and 2005. Trust in business fell from 5% to 9% during those same years in Mexico, China, Indonesia, India, Britain, and Brazil (Kingsbury, 2006).
Meaning. Trust in a person has been defined as “reliance on the … authenticity of a person … in the absence of absolute knowledge or proof of … the truth. … Trust represents our best guess that [the person] is as he or she is purported to be” (Fairholm, 1995, p. 11). Trust in a leader is a follower’s belief and willingness to act on the basis of the leader’s words, actions, and decisions (McAllister, 1995). In trusting the leader, the follower increases vulnerability to the leader (Deutsch, 1962). Blind trust with no realistic knowledge of the leader, or with no assurance of the truth about the leader, is fraught with risk (Fairholm, 1995).
Importance to Leadership. Trust in the leader has become a particularly prominent issue in the study of leadership. Brinkly (1994) argued that the erosion in public confidence in our politicians is due to lack of trust in their leadership. For Butler and Cantrell (1984), interpersonal trust is a determinant of the amount of cooperation to be expected between subordinate and superior. Podsakoff et al. (1990) found that it was the important intervening variable in a factor-analytic investigation of transformational leadership. Jung and Avolio (2000) conducted a controlled brainstorming experiment with 194 undergraduate business upperclassmen in groups led by two confederates who were trained in either transformational or transactional leadership. The task was to recommend ideas for improving education. Path analyses showed that trust in the leaders and value congruence with them mediated the extent to which the quality of the ideas (long-term orientation and innovativeness) was significantly augmented by transformational but not transactional leadership. There were both direct and indirect effects on the participants’ subjective satisfaction with the leadership.
“There is scarcely any form of economic activity, from running a dry-cleaning business to fabricating large-scale integrated circuits, that does not require social collaboration” (Fukuyama, 1997, p. 6). Unless it can be tightly controlled by habit, contract, law, rules, norms, and regulations, such collaboration requires trusting relationships to be effective. Mutual trust is an important outgrowth of the exchange between a leader and a member of a group. As leader-member exchanges (LMXs) continue, the leader and the member evaluate each other’s ability, benevolence, and integrity. If the evaluations are positive, trust is built between them (Brower, Schoorman, & Tan, 2000).
Correlates of Trust in the Leader. Ordinarily, trust in the leader is likely to be correlated with the leader’s esteem. It involves confident positive expectations by the follower of the leader’s motives regarding the follower in circumstances that are risky for the follower (Boon & Holmes, 1991). The leader’s status also makes a difference. Those who were higher in status, as indexed by their position in the organizational hierarchy of a large Australian mining firm, were more trusting of their superiors. They perceived themselves to be more influential than did those supervisors and employees of lower status (Savery & Waters, 1989). Transformational leaders appeared to generate more trust. Den Hartog (1997) found that among 1,289 subordinates in six Dutch organizations, trust in management was greater with charismatic, inspirational, and individualized considerate leadership than with transactional leadership. Jung and Avolio (2000) obtained a correlation of .56 between experimentally created transformational leadership and rated trust in the leader. Blackburn (1992) reported that trust in a leader was increased by participation of subordinates in decision making, and by clear and open communications (Blackburn, 1992). Leaders who explained decisions, delegated, shared control, and showed concern also contributed to trust (Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard, et al., 1998). But in South Africa, Engelbrecht and Cloete (2000) did not find (as they expected) that how long the supervisor and subordinate had worked together moderated the effects of the supervisor’s integrity and benevolence on the trust in the supervisor.
Antecedents to trust in quality LMX relationships have included credibility (Butler, 1991), congruence of values (Sitkin & Roth, 1993), and previous positive outcomes (Gabarro, 1979). Brockner, Siegel, Daly, et al. (1997) conducted telephone interviews with 354 employees. The investigators found that subordinates trusted management if procedures were fair (r 5 .64); the outcomes of their supervisor’s decisions were favorable to them (r 5 .63); and they supported their supervisor (r 5 .70).
Unconditional trust was expected to be based on mutual respect and shared values (Jones & George, 1998). Hua (2003) argued that the subordinate’s reaction to uncertainty and vulnerability serves as a frame for evaluation of management behavior, generally, which in turn affects trust in the supervisor. Supportive evidence was collected in China and the United States. Kouzes & Posner (1993, p. 108) summed it up: “To be trusted … we [leaders] have to extend ourselves by being available, by sharing … personal experiences, and by making connections with the experiences and aspirations of our constituents.”
Personality and Trust in the Leader. Leaders differ consistently from each other in personal traits associated with how much they can be trusted by their subordinates. Subordinates’ trust in their supervisors was linked to the supervisors’ integrity and benevolence (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) and to the leader’s integrity and ability (Boies & Corbett, 2005). Along with integrity and benevolence, supervisors’ competence appears linked—though to a lesser extent—with the tendency to be trusted (Engelbrecht & Cloete, 2000). Other personality traits of consequence to being trusted include loyalty, respect, openness, receptivity, discreetness, fairness, honesty, judgment, and consistency. It remains controversial whether or not the traits also apply to supervisors’ trust in their subordinates (Schindler & Thomas, 1993). Behaviors and expressed attitudes that increase a leader’s trustworthiness in the eyes of followers include caring, helping, moral character, and willingness to serve others.
Stages in the Trust Relationship. According to Lewicki, Stevenson, and Bunker (1997), trust between people is dynamic and develops over time. In the leader-follower relationship, early on a follower’s trust in the leader is a matter of calculation. The follower learns under which circumstances the leader rewards performance and under which circumstances the leader imposes discipline and penalties. In the second stage of the development of trust, the follower learns about the leader’s attitudes and behavior in different contexts and the leader’s reactions in different situations. In this second stage of trust development, inconsistencies in the leader’s reactions can be forgiven if they are understood by the follower. In the third stage of trust in the leader, the follower identifies with the leader’s wants and intentions. The follower appreciates and understands the leader’s needs and can effectively act for the leader. The leader can be confident that his or her interests will be protected—for the leader’s development of trust in the follower will parallel the three stages of the follower’s development. At first, the leader’s trust in the follower will not be high and will also be a matter of calculation. The leader will monitor, reward, or take corrective action based on the follower’s performance. Trust becomes information-based in the second stage, as the leader learns that the follower can be depended on to do the right things and to do them well. In the third stage—identification—the leader can confidently expect that the follower will be cooperative and can share their common goals. According to Lewicki, Stevenson, and Bunker’s (1997) factor analyses of ratings of trust in others by 482 undergraduates, the three stages could be determined by a single general factor. The two ratings of trust with the highest factor loadings were: “This person and I really stand for the same basic things” (.88) and “This person and I share the same basic values” (.87).
Authenticity and Trust. Authenticity and trust have been stressed frequently in theory and research on leadership. I have already noted the repeated appearance of trust as an important aspect of interpersonal communications. In one of many such studies, Sgro, Worchel, Pence, and Orban (1980) obtained significant positive correlations between Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Orientation Scale for 41 cadet leaders and how satisfied their subordinates were with the leaders. The trust scores of their subordinates were related to positive evaluations of them on various dimensions of behavior, such as consideration, tolerance for freedom, persuasion, and initiation of structure. A leader caught in insincerity, duplicity, deceit, and double-dealing would be hard to trust. A trustworthy leader would be seen as expressing genuine feelings and thoughts.
Smircich and Chesser (1981) constructed and evaluated a highly reliable standardized questionnaire for subordinates to use in describing the authenticity of their superiors. Convergent validity was demonstrated. The measure of authenticity dealt with existential aspects of the superior-subordinate relationship, for example, “My relationship with my superior is open and direct.” It had sociological elements (“My superior shows flexibility in carrying out the role of supervisor”), empathic aspects (“My superior could step into my shoes and know how I feel”), and social-psychological issues (“When we talk, I know my superior really listens to me”). However, authenticity did not necessarily mean mutual understanding between superiors and subordinates. The authenticity attributed to the superiors was of no consequence for 141 subordinates and 58 superiors whose respective ratings of the subordinates’ performance did not agree.
Hackman and Johnson (1991) suggested five nonverbal ways for the leader to build trust and confidence: (1) Maintain eye contact when talking to others and avoid shifting the eyes, looking away, and downcast eyes. (2) Use spontaneous gestures to emphasize points to convey emotional intensity, and avoid too many pauses or speaking too rapidly. (3) Maintain an open, relaxed posture and avoid keeping hands and arms crossed and close to the body. (4) Maintain a conversational speaking tone with a varied rate, pitch, and volume. (5) Avoid wearing dark glasses, which convey a stereotype of untrustworthiness. Six other suggestions they made are: (1) Be consistent by knowing your own values and clarifying to yourself what you believe; (2) Appreciate the followers and what they believe. (3) Affirm shared values. (4) Help followers to develop. (5) Create a sense of direction. (6) Sustain hope.
Trust in leaders is enhanced by the way they explain their decisions (Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard, et al., 1998). If subordinates judge the explanation for the decision procedure and the process to be adequate, the decision maker will be rated as more trustworthy than if the explanation and process are judged inadequate (Shapiro, 1991). Adequacy requires more information about the logic and fairness of the decision (Bies, Shapiro, & Cummings, 1988). Lee Kuan Yew was reelected to office by overwhelming majorities for 30 years and was of prime importance in Singapore’s rapid economic development, cultural maturity, and political stability as a “guided” democracy. Despite its lack of natural resources, the small former British colony rose in the 30 years to a modern postindustrial state with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes. An important factor was the trust placed in Lee by the electorate; this trust was built by his words and deeds. Twenty-six of his annual National Day Rally speeches were content-analyzed by M. D. Barr (2000–2002). His rhetoric appealed to tradition and the desirability of continuity to connect present and future goals to the past. He noted past successes and the need to overcome threats to future successes. He expressed confidence that constituents would meet present and future challenges. He also expressed self-confidence, though indirectly—modesty is a requirement of Chinese culture. Similarities between Lee and his constituents, rather than their differences, were emphasized, as was the collective identity of the three largest ethnic groups: Chinese, Muslims, and Tamils. “We swim or sink together.” Lee pointed to adherence to a specific set of values and principles to gain the electorate’s trust.
Elsbach and Elofson (2000) conducted an experiment comparing explanations for decisions that were hard or easy to understand and were or were not legitimated. In contrast to technical explanations, which were hard to understand, trust was much higher when the explanation was in simple language and easy to understand, with cues about the motives and character of the decision maker rather the logic of the decision. Legitimation was of consequence only when the decisions were hard to understand. The authors suggest that the decision maker may not be trusted if decisions are explained only in technical language that is hard to understand or dependent on expert systems. To build long-term trust, leaders need to spend time preparing explanations of their decisions and need to consider the language and labeling of the explanations.
To paraphrase Kouzes and Posner (1996, p. 5), the credibility of a leader’s message rests on trust in the messenger. Such trust depends on belief in the messenger as honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. One cannot lead successfully without trust. Considerable evidence bolsters the expectation that effective teamwork hinges on mutual trust between team members and the team leader (Day, 2001). The level of trust between school principals and teachers correlated with the teachers’ agreement about teacher certification policy regardless of their principal’s position on the issue (Steele & Pinto, 2005).
Martin (1996) examined the effect on 22,000 subordinates’ ratings of 4,454 executives when the executives exhibited more trust-directed behaviors, and the effect on subordinates’ favorable attitudes. Trust-directed behaviors of the executives were strongly correlated with subordinates’ favorable attitudes; this correlation was stronger even than correlations of rated “executive vision” behaviors with subordinates’ attitudes. However, trust combined with vision yielded the most favorable attitudes. Martin pointed to the value of executives’ establishing an organizational environment in which trust is pervasive and essential to successful leadership.
Dirks (2000) examined trust in the coach among 355 basketball players in a men’s college conference. He found that it correlated .57 with future performance and .60 with past performance of the teams. The teams’ talent and experience added to the prediction of performance, but trust in the leader was an antecedent as well as a consequence of successful performance by these teams. A meta-analysis of 106 findings based on 847 to 10,631 cases was conducted by Dirks and Ferrin (2002). They examined antecedents and consequences of trust in the leader. Antecedents that were predictive of trust in the leader included transformational leadership (.72), transactional leadership (.59), and participative leadership (.46). Perceived distributive, procedural, and interactional justice, respectively, predicted trust with correlations of .50, .61, and .65, but length of relationship did not predict it (r 5 .01). Unmet expectations correlated 2.40 with trust. In turn, trust predicted outcomes including job satisfaction, .51; job performance, .16; and various organizational citizenship behaviors. Intention to quit correlated 2.40 with trust. In another study, of 1,686 employees, when decisions were made by higher authority with outcomes perceived as unfavorable to the employees, such as relocating work facilities or ordering job layoffs, the establishment of trust in supervision overcame what would have been adverse employee reactions to the decisions (Brockner, Siegel, Daly, et al., 1997).
Trust in management and in the immediate supervisor also goes along with commitment to the leadership and the organization, according to many studies. An ethical trusting relationship between subordinate and superior is established if the subordinate is able to align personal with organizational values, to disclose thoughts and feelings, to seek and learn from constructive feedback, to think and behave independently, to move beyond self-interests, and to work in a warm, friendly, open, and cooperative environment (Rusaw, 2000).
The value of a person’s position in a group or organization is the person’s status; the value of the person to others—to the group or organization—is the person’s esteem. Consensus about status and esteem is usually established quickly. More knowledge is usually associated with those in higher-status occupations and positions. Throughout history, differences in the value of positions and differences in the value of occupations have been recognized. In 2002, the average compensation of a CEO was 200 times that of the lowest-paid employee. The rate doubled by 2005. Upward mobility in status is sought and downward mobility is dissatisfying. Individual members of a group or organization can be more coercive if their accorded status depends on their personal control of what is desired by others in the group. Such members will attempt more leadership. However, continued direction, particularly if it is coercive, may lead to resentment and loss of esteem. High-status people can also be more influential because others pay more attention to them and tend to judge their behavior as more acceptable. High-status people can break the rules more easily (“The king can do no wrong”). Conflict arises if accorded status is mismatched with self-accorded status, but the status accorded to figureheads without real power will still give them some influence.
Individuals tend to choose friends whose social status is similar to their own. Group members, however, tend to prefer highly esteemed and high-status persons for positions of leadership. Members interact more frequently with these highly esteemed and high-status persons than they do with low-status members without esteem; they also accept high-status, highly esteemed people more readily as authority figures, justify their actions on behalf of the group more readily, and exhibit more tolerance of their deviant behavior. The highly esteemed members with high status are permitted to suggest innovations in the group, but they are not expected to interrupt or otherwise to behave inconsiderately toward low-status members with less esteem.
Members of a group quickly size up the leadership potential of a new member. Status evaluations that are made on first acquaintance are rather highly correlated with evaluations made several weeks later. Group members tend to choose other members, as well as leaders, whose values, interests, and personalities are similar to their own. They tend to regard leaders as more attractive than members of lower status, and to consider both the positive and the negative actions of high-status members as legitimate.
We tend to evaluate ourselves in terms of the reactions of others. The more attractive the group, the greater its impact on the members’ evaluations of themselves. For this reason, a loss of status is damaging to the members’ self-respect, particularly if the downward mobility is interpreted as evidence of decreased liking by other group members. A loss of status may be accompanied by a decline in performance, reduced liking for the task and the group, and feelings of hostility. However, ordinary members may reject the opportunity to rise in status if doing so involves radical changes in responsibility and style of living that are in conflict with their self-concept and system of values. Thus those who become leaders appear more willing to accept the responsibilities that accompany the rewards of high status.
The concomitants of esteem include respect, admiration, being liked as a person, and being judged as competent. But esteem may also be earned for irrelevant reasons. Furthermore, esteem may be misjudged as status, and vice versa. Members can be more persuasive if their esteem depends on their being perceived as able to solve the group’s problems. To gain esteem, they first need to conform to the rules, but thereafter they can begin to innovate and deviate without losing their esteem. Assumed similarity of beliefs, attitudes, and values contributes to being esteemed and attractive to others. We lose esteem by violating others’ expectations of us.
Considerable evidence from sociometric research—use of the LGD, and studies of students, salesmen, managers, school principals, military officers, and therapists—demonstrates the contributions of esteem and perceived helpfulness to success as a leader above and beyond considerations of visibility and likeability. The esteemed leader may achieve charisma in the eyes of others.
Trust of followers in the leader is linked to the leader’s esteem. Strongly related to trust in the leader is the follower’s perception of the leader’s competence, caring, integrity, and willingness to serve others. Also important are the leader’s accuracy and consistency in communications that explain decisions in simple, easily understood language. Perceived authenticity is likely to make a difference as well.