Implicit Leadership and Followership Theories: Dynamic Structures for Leadership Perceptions, Memory, Leader-Follower Processes

Abstract

In this review, we address implicit leadership theories (ILTs) and implicit followership theories (IFTs). Both types of implicit theories are important because leadership and followership are dynamic, socially constructed processes (Meindl, 1995) in which a leader’s perceptions of followers are as critical as followers’ perceptions of leadership. Both types of perceptions elicit confirming responses from the person being perceived, helping to create a dynamic leadership process in which relatively stable social structures emerge over time as leader and follower roles become differentiated. ILTs (and IFTs), which are a fundamental part of this process, are also dynamic in that they can be tuned automatically to particular contexts (Lord, Brown, and Harvey, 2001). In this dynamic process, both parties use their implicit theories to make sense of and react to the other party’s behavior, creating an evolving basis for further interaction. In this sense, leadership is an ongoing, dynamic, two-way exchange between leaders and followers that is structured by both parties’ implicit theories. Shamir (2007) provided an example of how important this process can be. He noted that Adolf Hitler perceived himself to be merely a drummer gathering the masses for the arrival of the “great leader” (the F¨ uhrer) until his 30s, when he began to view himself as Germany’s rightful leader. This shift in his self-perception may have been largely influenced by the way his followers responded to him. Within this chapter, we discuss three broad areas of research that emphasize perceptual processes that are central to this dynamic leadership process. First,