Leadership requires both shared identity and consensus on who best embodies the group view

Evidence

These contrasting examples demonstrate the way in which the ability to lead depends upon the ability to represent a group consensus which in turn is a product of shared identity (Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarty, & Reynolds, 1998). Where there is no group and no consensus every other voice represents a threat to one’s own. But where there is a group and there is a consensus then one voice can speak for all. Thus leaders and followers are bound together in a double sense. First, their relationship is dependent upon the existence of a shared social identity. Second, their relationship is dependent upon an agreement as to what constitutes the consensual group position and who best occupies that position. — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 67

Categorization

• DEFINE: States the two-fold structure of the leader-follower bond as shared identity plus agreed-upon embodiment of the consensual position.
• QUESTION: Does this framework distinguish between cohesion built on shared positive identity versus on exclusion of an outgroup — the direct comparison the reader was probing?
• XREF: connects to: Leadership acts on followers through collective group norms, not just individual exchange — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 34; Leadership must be understood as a group process rather than a leader-follower dyad — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 35; Leadership is impossible without a pre-existing or manufactured shared social identity — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 50 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Leaders lead by representing a consensus that shared identity makes possible. #expands (0.92) — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 67
• Leaders politicize groups by embodying the shared identity that makes their frames normative #expands (0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4439
• Leadership requires shared identity but also active identity entrepreneurship by leaders. #qualifies (0.88) — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 124
• Leadership rests on reciprocal imitation, each following because others follow #complicates (0.76) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 738
• Social identity complexity governs who counts as an in-group member #complicates (0.73)