A series of four studies conducted in Canada found that people who feel good about themselves (high self-esteem) tend to think that skilled and respected leaders are better at leading compared to people who don’t feel as good about themselves (low self-esteem). On the other hand, those with low self-esteem think that leaders who are assertive and controlling are better at leading. The study was published in the Journal of Personality.
Leaders depend on their followers to achieve their goals, so they have to influence their followers in a way that motivates them to follow the leader’s vision. The way a leader chooses to influence their followers determines the kind of relationship they have with them. This relationship can be one of enthusiastic commitment or just following orders begrudgingly. In extreme cases, followers might even revolt against the leader.
According to a theory called dual-strategies theory, leaders use two main approaches to influence followers: dominance and prestige. Dominant leaders are confident, competitive, and focus on their own interests. They take control and make decisions without consulting others. Prestigious leaders, on the other hand, are good at building relationships, empathetic, and skilled. They earn respect through their expertise and integrity, promoting trust and cooperation in the group. Dominant leaders aim for control, while prestigious leaders aim to gain respect through their people skills.
Study author Eric. J Mercadante and his colleagues wanted to explore how self-esteem of followers is associated with their perceptions of dominant and prestigious leaders’ leadership ability. Self-esteem refers to how worthy and valuable people feel relative to others. It affects individuals’ self-evaluations of their skills and competences, but also of their expectations and desires for social interactions and relationships. Given the two fundamentally different approaches to the relationship with followers dominant and prestigious leaders apply, the researchers wanted to see if people with different levels of self-esteem see these leaders differently. They conducted four studies to find out.
In the first study, 265 American participants recruited via MTurk completed an assessment of self-esteem (the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale). They then read two vignettes (textual descriptions) of two leaders. One was described as dominant (“a strong-willed leader who is willing to be aggressive to achieve Company A’s goals”, “likes to have control over all of the employees’ work”). The other was described as prestigious (“having strong managerial skills and thorough knowledge of the industry”, “is always willing to give advice and suggestions about the employees’ work”). Participants rated the perceived leadership ability of the two leaders. After that, they reported the extent to which they perceived “good leaders” as dominants and prestigious.
In the second study, 400 participants from MTurk were randomly assigned to recall an interaction with a dominant (“a particular situation in which someone … had power over you because they could make you feel bad…”) or a prestigious leader (“a role model you know personally and have worked with … in which you looked up to the role model because he/she had unique and valuable expertise…”). They also completed self-esteem assessments and rated the leadership ability of the leader they imagined.
Study 3 aimed to examine whether results of previous studies might be better explained by other psychological factors than by self-esteem. 250 participants recruited via MTurk completed assessments of self-esteem, narcissism (the Narcissistic Personality Inventory), self-efficacy (the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale), and anxiety (the Generalized Anxiety Scale). They then watched either a 4-minute video from the reality show Hell’s Kitchen, where the main protagonist is constantly yelling and cursing, criticizing subordinates, or of celebrity chef Curtis Stone teaching a novice chef how to cook while encouraging him and giving him compliments. They then rated perceived leadership abilities of the leader in the video they watched.
In study 4, they combined dominance and prestige of leaders to create 3 descriptions of leaders with different combinations of dominance and prestige levels (high prestige/high dominance, high dominance/low prestige, high prestige/low dominance). Participants read the descriptions assigned to them and evaluated the ability of the leader they read about to lead. They then reported the level of distrust towards that person (the Cynical Distrust Scale).
The results from the first study showed that people usually thought the prestigious leader was better at leading. But this difference was lowest among participants with low self-esteem and highest among those with high-self-esteem. Participants with low self-esteem perceived dominant leaders as better able to lead than participants with high self-esteem. Participants with high self-esteem perceived prestigious leaders as better able to lead compared to participants with low self-esteem.
The results from the second and third studies agreed with the first study. When the psychological traits of narcissism, anxiety, and self-efficacy were controlled for, the link between self-esteem and evaluations of leadership ability found in all three studies remained.
In the fourth study, participants with high self-esteem evaluated the leadership ability of the low dominance/high prestige leader more positively and the leadership ability of the high dominance/low prestige leader more negatively than low self-esteem participants. Participants with low self-esteem also reported greater distrust in prestigious leader. This might explain why they see prestigious leaders as worse leaders than participants with high self-esteem. Low self-esteem participants also reported that they would feel more authentic around a dominant leader.
“Across four studies, we found that followers’ self-esteem is associated with reliable, diverging perceptions of leadership ability for dominant and prestigious leaders such that followers with high self-esteem perceived greater leadership ability in prestigious leaders than did followers with low self-esteem, and followers with low self-esteem perceived greater leadership ability in dominant leaders than did followers with high self-esteem,” the study authors concluded.
The study makes an important contribution to the scientific understanding of relations between leaders and followers. However, it should be noted that evaluations of leadership ability were given either based on textual descriptions with very little data about the leader, on brief videos or base on imagination of a single interaction. This is in contrast to real-life leader-follower interactions that tend to be very extensive and long-lasting. Results of evaluation of real-life leaders with whom individuals have daily and extensive interactions might not yield equal results.
The paper, “Leadership in the eye of the beholder: Follower self-esteem is associated with divergent perceptions of leadership ability for dominant and prestigious leaders”, was authored by Eric J. Mercadante, Steven J. Heine, and Karl Aquino.
