Psychology of Leadership

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One of the topics in the article “The New Psychology of Leadership” by Reicher, Platow & Haslam, (nd) which I found to be most interesting was the concept of group identities, “The most effective leaders define their group’s social identity to fit with the policies they plan to promote”, (Reicher, Platow & Haslam, (nd). I believe this to be important if a leader has followers who share and embrace their vision. Followers need to be able to relate to their leader and feel as though they are a member of the group with the same goals and invested interest.

According to Steffens, Haslam, Kerschreiter, Schuh, & van Dick, in their article “Leaders enhance group members' work engagement and reduce their burnout by crafting social identity” (2014), “leaders’ identity entrepreneurship” is when a leader actively engages in the promotion of the group’s identity.

The research conducted by Steffens et al. (2014) “indicated that when leaders acted as identity entrepreneurs, group members not only reported higher group performance but also experienced less burnout and were more engaged at work”.

This shows the importance of an effective communication climate, not only does an effective leader need to define the identity and how it relates to their vision, they must also share this with their followers. This research illustrates the importance of knowing your followers, and the role communication, motivation, and empowerment have on the success of an organization.

Leaders Role and Traits

One of the sections of “The New Psychology of Leadership” by Reicher et al. (nd), which I can relate to my leadership is found in paragraph 5, “According to this new approach, no fixed set of personality traits can assure good leadership because the most desirable traits depend on the nature of the group being led”. I believe this correlates to the situational leadership theory; every situation and/or group being led will require a different leadership style and can lead to a leader expressing different personality traits depending on the group or individual. An effective leader will be able to seamlessly adjust their leadership style to suit what is required by their followers.

References

Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience (Sixth ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning

Reicher, S., Platow, M. & Haslam, S. (n.d), The New Psychology of Leadership

Steffens, N. K., Haslam, S., Kerschreiter, R., Schuh, S. C., & van Dick, R. (2014). Leaders enhance group members' work engagement and reduce their burnout by crafting social identity. Zeitschrift Für Personalforschung, 28(1/2), 173-194. doi:10.1688/ZfP-2014-01-Steffens