1
The old psychology of leadership
1 Evidence of these shackles was seen in the sitting South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford’s claim in Newsweek magazine that “it isn’t collective action that makes this nation prosperous and secure; it’s the initiative and creativity of the individual.” In line with the writings of Ayn Rand (e.g., 1944), this statement (downloaded from http://www.newsweek.com/id/219001) was presented by Sanford as a self-evident truism.
2 For full transcript see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27266223.
2
The current psychology of leadership
1 Henry’s speech had particular resonance in 1943 when Lawrence Olivier’s performance as Henry was invoked to stiffen British resolve against the Nazis.
2 In Lord’s original work these are actually referred to as leader “prototypes.” However, here we use the term “stereotypes” because in later chapters we introduce the concept of in-group prototypes and this has a rather different meaning.
3 As an aside, it is worth noting that the classical economic models on which theories like equity theory are based have recently been critiqued by leading economists who argue that cost–benefit assessments are informed by people’s salient identities (e.g., see Akerlof & Kranton, 2000, 2005).
4 This philosophy is sometimes associated with the disagreeably macho mantra “If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” Although it is often attributed to John Wayne, the source of this is actually uncertain (Keyes, 2006). Tellingly, though, it is said that Charles Colson, President Nixon’s general counsel, inscribed it to his boss on a plaque, as he thought it was a good summary of the thinking that informed US foreign policy in Vietnam.
5 A similar factor structure also emerged from research subsequently conducted by David Bowers and Stanley Seashore (1966) at the University of Michigan. This actually identified four categories of effective leader behavior: (1) support; (2) interaction facilitation; (3) goal emphasis; and (4) work facilitation. However, the first two of these behaviors can be subsumed within the concept of consideration and the last two relate to aspects of initiation of structure (Mitchell, Dowling, Kabanoff, & Larson, 1988). Likewise, an extensive review by Steven Cronshaw and Robert Lord (1987) pointed to the importance of five behaviors associated with successful leadership that relate to these same two factors: (1) acting promptly on decisions; (2) planning carefully what to do; (3) emphasizing group goals; (4) coordinating group activity; and (5) communicating expectations to group members.
6 It is worth pointing out too that as well as being a potential source of organizational toxicity, there is considerable comic potential in the idea that the key to being a good leader is simply to appeal to the higher-order motivations of one’s followers, and to present oneself as a transformational messiah. Indeed, this potential has been successfully exploited by a number of television script writers. Thus the mistakenness of this idea provides the central premise for the award-winning humor of bothThe Office (Gervaise & Merchant, 2002, 2003) and The Brittas Empire (Fegen & Norris, 2007). In both television shows the central figure is a hapless manager (David Brent, Gordon Brittas, respectively) who tries in vain to motivate his staff by presenting himself as a model of transformational leadership. Illustrative of this, Series 1 of The Office concluded with an ironic monologue in which David Brent summed up the secret of his managerial success as follows:
You grow up, you work half a century, you get a golden handshake, you rest a couple of years and you’re dead. And the only thing that makes that crazy ride worthwhile is “Did I enjoy it? What did I learn? What was the point?” That’s where I come in. You’ve seen how I react to people. I make them feel good, make them think that anything’s possible.
(Gervais & Merchant, 2002, p. 267)
Brent’s speech would not look out of place in In Search of Excellence or in any of the hagiographic texts on “Leadership secrets” discussed in Chapter 1. But in The Office—as in so many other offices—it is an excruciating joke.
3
Foundations for the new psychology of leadership
1 Note that we are not using the term “stereotype” in the pejorative sense that permeates much of lay and psychological discourse. We use this term simply to refer to people’s mental representation of a group. The accuracy of this representation is irrelevant for our analysis (but see Oakes et al., 1994, for an extended discussion). Instead, the key point is that people’s behaviors are tied to this representation, whatever it is.
4
Being one of us
1 During Charlesworth’s time as coach, the women’s team (the “Hockeyroos”) won nine major international tournaments including gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic games.
2 http://www.edu.aceswebworld.com/harding.html. Note that in his best-selling book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell (2005) suggests that Harding did not know much about anything at all, and indeed was only elected president because he looked like a president. This analysis, we suggest, is too simplistic. For, as these quotations suggest, there is evidence that Harding and his supporters had quite a clear sense of what it was that the American public were looking for in a president.
3 The first part of this quotation is also commonly ascribed to Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State (e.g., Nickell, 2005).
4 At least in part, this analysis helps to explain why it was Richard Nixon who was able to negotiate with the Chinese during the Cold War, and why it was Ariel Sharon who, as Prime Minister of Israel, was able to pull Israeli troops out of Gaza. In both cases these leaders had established reputations as “mainstream” leaders who were staunch defenders of the in-group. Specifically, Nixon was known for his hawkish political views (see Note 4 for Chapter 2) and Sharon was a war hero renowned for having played a decisive role in the Yom Kippur War. That is, both were highly in-group prototypical in these particular intergroup contexts, and were thus afforded substantial latitude in their behavior—to the extent that they were able to engage in what many considered to be out-group favoritism.
5
Doing it for us
1 This was a lesson that Goethals had learned first hand as the US army officer and chief engineer responsible for building the Panama Canal—an engineering feat that, in its time, many considered unequalled and unrivalled.
2 For a discussion, see http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/06/nationalanxieties.
3 For a press report, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4496989.stm.
4 Along similar lines, recent research by Michelle Ryan has shown that the tendency to blame women leaders for poor company performance overlooks the fact that women are particularly likely to be appointed to leadership positions when companies are in crisis (Ryan & Haslam, 2005, 2007; see also Haslam & Ryan, 2008; Kulich, Ryan, & Haslam, 2007). The widespread view that men make better leaders than women (e.g., as examined by Eagly & Karau, 2002; Schein, 1973) can thus be attributed in part to the simple fact that they are given healthier groups to lead.
6
Crafting a sense of us
3 Despite the opinions of this MP being widely cited, to our knowledge, he or she has never been identified by name. For example, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3663713/A-lion-in-a-donkey-jacket.html.
9 See the article by Tom Frank in Le Monde Diplomatique of February 2004: “A war against elites: The America that will vote for Bush”, retrieved from http://mondediplo.com/2004/02/04usa.
10 For a full transcript of the debate, see http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s1200036.htm.
11 For details and extracts from all three Senators’ speeches, see http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=297086&.
12 For the full speech, see http://.law.yale.edu/avalon/subject_menus/inaug.asp.
13 Cited in Time, August, 20, 1990. For the full text see: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,970924-4,00.html.
14 The full text can be found at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1D7103AF931A35753C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3.
15 This text is taken from Wills (1992, p. 263). A full text of the address can also be found at http://.law.yale.edu/19th_century/gettyb.asp.
7
Making us matter
1 It is no coincidence that Louis’financial problems forced him to seek help and set in train the events that led to the Revolution. It is no coincidence that when Louis did ask for help, he was not supported as “one of us” but seen by the people as a weak outsider. The King’s bad language ensured that he could not mobilize the nation but rather the nation mobilized against him. At this point, those institutions on which he had previously relied to suppress opposition now turned against him. Ultimately the army refused to impose the King’s order on an insurgent Paris. To quote Blanning (himself quoting Antoine Rivarol): “the defection of the army is not one of the causes of the Revolution, it is the Revolution itself.” To this, Blanning adds the telling coda: “All revolutions are like that” (2003, p. 427).
2 At the same time, and in line with points we made in Chapter 6, it is worth pointing out that George’s desire to maintain his standing with his English in-group also led him to deny the extension of the same progressive values to American colonists—a factor that played a key role in their forging of an alternative identity by means of the American Revolutionary War.
4 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9145. The quote is adapted from an earlier remark by Ed Murrow about Churchill: “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle to steady his fellow countrymen and hearten those Europeans upon whom the long dark night of tyranny had descended” (see http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30475.html).
5 There are many references for this quote—which sometimes reads “writinga book is an adventure”. A favorite is from the dedications page of A practical approach to transesophageal echocardiography (Perrino & Reeves, 2007).
8
Identity leadership at large
1 Sometimes known as “emotive conjugation,” this notion of the irregular verb was first discussed by Bertrand Russell in the 1940s, but later immortalized by the fictional civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby in Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay’s (1989) television series Yes, Prime Minister.
2 This incident is captured on video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIwBvjoLyZc.
3 The translation of Livy’s account can be found at: http://perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Liv.++3.+26.
4 It is important to note that the new psychology of leadership that we advocate in this book suggests that the authenticity of leadership is grounded in the correspondence between the behavior of the leader and the meaning of the group that he or she leads. Similar points to this are made by some contemporary advocates of authentic leadership who argue that authenticity in leadership arises from the quality of relations between leaders and followers (e.g., Eagly, 2005).
5 As with many such apocryphal sayings, no one is quite sure who Macmillan said this to—some say to a young journalist, some say to President Kennedy. Similarly, no one really knows what he was referring to—some say the Suez crisis, some say the Profumo affair.
6 For the full text, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/20/greatspeeches1.
7 Though, tellingly, as he began to lose the war and the support of key sections of the German community, his leadership faltered.
8 In slightly different forms, this statement is attributed to a number of influential leaders including Gandhi and the British Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law.