Trust and Leadership

Abstract

Studies in various disciplines have widely acknowledged the importance of followers’ trust to a leader’s performance. Although trustworthiness is commonly accepted as a desirable character trait for political leaders, political scientists have rarely attempted to examine the applicability of such findings to their own subject. Is followers’ trust in their political leader important? If so, how? This article explores these questions in the area of leadership retention, using as a case study the successful survival by Helen Clark, leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, of an attempted leadership coup in 1996. It suggests that the Re are two types of trust held by followers – ‘relational’ and ‘calculus-based’ – which are distinguishable in terms of their nature and characteristics; and that Clark’s survival was due to the high level of relational trust that her key supporters held in her. This finding confirms that followers’ trust is important for political leaders, with potentially crucial implications for the leader’s chance of survival in times of crisis.