Boris Johnson's blundering was political genius. But now that moment has passed | Steph... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...ris-johnson-brexit-coronavirus
leadership group great theory genius psychology research
shared by Javier E on 07 Jul 20
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One of the most potent and enduring myths in our society is that leadership is reducible to the power of the leader. A few special individuals are blessed with special qualities that set them apart from the rest of us and entitle them to rule. As Thomas Carlyle asserted, “Universal history … is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here.” If only we could isolate the qualities that make these leaders exceptional.
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Such ideas launched numerous studies that sought to find personality characteristics that predict leadership success – none of them particularly fruitful.
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such an approach misses a very obvious point: leaders only achieve anything through their followers, and “great man” theories write the followers out of history.
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And leaders are never just leaders, they are always leaders of a particular social group – a nation, a political party, a religion
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leadership is a group process: and, more specifically, it is the cultivation of a “we” relationship between leaders and followers.
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Effective leadership, then, is not about what separates the leader from others. It is about what brings the leader together with group members and allows him or her to represent them
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n effective leader is one who is seen to be one of us, to work for us and to achieve the things we value. That isn’t about being ordinary or typical. It is about being prototypical – of representing the values and the qualities that make our group distinctive.
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In addition, effective leaders are not passive. They actively craft the group narrative and their own personal narrative to make the two mesh: they are skilled entrepreneurs of identity.
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Hence, no given set of qualities will guarantee effective leadership, for these will change according to the identity of the group.
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the performative politics of populism can backfire by making one unrepresentative as the groupings change. In the midst of a pandemic where the widest possible compliance to restrictive measures is necessary, the nation and its communities must be unified and inclusive. The inherently divisive categories of populism are no longer tenable.
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Moreover, we need competent governance to get us through, rather than insurgent incompetence to get our votes. In this global crisis, our blundering prime minister is no longer of the group, nor for the group, and certainly not achieving what the group needs.