The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power

by Haslam; Alexander

• ISBN13: 9781841696096
• ISBN10: 1841696099
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-10
• Publisher: Psychology Pres

Summary

According to John Adair, the most important word in the leader's vocabulary is "we" and the least important word is "I". If this is true, it raises one important question: Why do psychological analyses of leadership always focus on the leader as an individual - the great "I".

Author Biography

S. Alexander Haslam is Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at the University of Exeter. Stephen D. Reicher is Professor of Psychology at the University of St Andrews. Michael J. Platow is Associate Professor of Psychology at the Australian National University.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. xi
Foreword	p. xiii
Preface	p. xix
Acknowledgments	p. xxv
The old psychology of leadership: Great men and the cult of personality	p. 1
Leadership in history: The "great man" and his charisma	p. 2
The political decline of the "great man" approach: The impact of the "great dictators"	p. 5
The standardization of leadership: Personality models and their failings	p. 7
The biographical approach: Looking for the roots of greatness in personal histories	p. 10
The theoretical deficiency of individualistic models	p. 12
The political deficiency of individualistic models	p. 14
The faulty definition of leadership	p. 16
Conclusion: Five criteria for a useful psychology of leadership	p. 17
The current psychology of leadership: Issues of context and contingency, transaction and transformation	p. 21
The importance of context and contingency	p. 22
The importance of followers	p. 28
The importance of that "special something"	p. 38
Conclusion: The need for a new psychology of leadership	p. 42
Foundations for the new psychology of leadership: Social identity and self-categorization	p. 45
Social identity and group behavior	p. 46
Social identity and collective power	p. 60
Defining social identities	p. 64
Conclusion: Setting the agenda for a new psychology of leadership	p. 73
Being one of us: Leaders as in-group prototypes	p. 77
The importance of standing for the group	p. 78
Prototypicality and leadership effectiveness	p. 82
Prototypicality and leadership stereotypes	p. 94
Prototypicality and the creativity of leaders	p. 103
Conclusion: To lead us, leaders must represent "us"	p. 106
Doing it for us: Leaders as in-group champions	p. 109
The importance of fairness	p. 111
From fairness to group interest	p. 118
Clarifying the group interest	p. 130
Conclusion: To engage followers, leaders' actions and visions must promote group interests	p. 132
Crafting a sense of us: Leaders as entrepreneurs of identity	p. 137
The complex relationship between reality, representativeness, and leadership	p. 138
Social identities as world-making resources	p. 143
Who can mobilize us? The importance of defining category prototypes	p. 147
Who is mobilized? The importance of defining category boundaries	p. 155
What is the nature of mobilization? The importance defining category content	p. 159
Conclusion: Leaders are masters not slaves of identity	p. 162
Making us matter: Leaders as embedders of identity	p. 165
Identity as a moderator of the relationship between authority and power	p. 166
Leaders as artists of identity	p. 171
Leaders as impresarios of identity	p. 179
Leaders as engineers of identity	p. 188
Conclusion: Leadership and the production of power both center on the hard but rewarding work of identity management	p. 192
Identity leadership at large: Prejudice, practice, and politics	p. 197
The prejudice of leadership	p. 198
The practice of leadership	p. 205
The politics of leadership	p. 215
Notes	p. 219
References	p. 223
Glossary	p. 245
Index of leaders and leadership contexts	p. 253
Author index	p. 257
Subject index	p. 263
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