Leadership of socio-political vanguards: A review and future directions

Abstract

With the influential rise of the Alt-Right throughout the West in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the leadership of these forms of fringe political groups. While some work on the leadership of these types of groups was done in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, less work has been done since then. Given the important role of these groups in today's political environment, a review and theoretical integration of this past leadership work, along with suggestions for future research directions, is overdue.This paper begins by reviewing what literature exists regarding the leadership of socio-political vanguards, as well as what additional literature exists that may also be relevant to better understanding the phenomenon of vanguard leadership. Vanguard leadership is then placed within the historical context and goals of past vanguard groups. This analysis then leads to further defining some of the components of vanguard leadership along with a review of typically associated leadership traits, skills and behaviours.While few theories directly address the way in which vanguard leadership operates, this paper reviews related leadership theories that might offer meaningful contributions to our understanding of socio-political vanguard leadership. Some theories, such as those related to social movements (particularly burgeoning), minor but influential mainstream political groups, and advocacy/activist collectives are particularly relevant here and are reviewed along with more general leadership theories that might also hold applicability, such as those related to leader and follower (and public) information processing and sensemaking under crises. The paper then concludes with some suggestions for future research directions.