What Makes Us See Someone as a Leader? A Field Theory Approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT We propose that what seems to be uniquely common to individuals perceived as leaders is that they all either meaningfully challenge the status quo or meaningfully resist challenge to the status quo over a sustained period of time. While we note that a relationship between leadership and challenge to the status quo has been alluded to in the literature, especially regarding (but not restricted to) charismatic leadership, a deeper theoretical development has been missing, particularly addressing the context of the social setting in which challenge may occur as opposed to a leader-centric view. Moreover, we observe that a commensurate connection between resistance to challenge and leadership is relatively unobserved and unexplored. We develop our argument drawing on Lewin’s field theory and propose a theoretical explanation of how leadership emerges in the perception of others consequent to the sustained invocation and interaction of situational social forces, specifically meaningful challenge, or resistance to challenge, of the status quo. The theory lends itself to empirical study. MAD statement While the field of change management recognizes the connection between Lewin’s field theory, the process of change and his classic experiments on leadership, it has missed field theory’s connection to the perception of leadership acts and, more specifically, how leadership emerges in the perception of others. We draw on Lewin’s theory to explore the process of leadership emergence. We focus on forces that challenge (and thus attempt to change) the status quo, as well as those that resist challenge (and thus resist change) to the status quo. Our paper makes a difference in extending leadership theory and practice by providing a more robust understanding of the challenge concept and its relationship to perception of leadership, with a detailed discussion about how challenging the status quo works in its social context. We also shed new light on resistance to challenge as a dimension of leadership, wherein leaders oppose change and strive to preserve the status quo. In particular, we explore the missing connection between Lewin’s field theory and leadership emergence. Moreover, we show how Lewin’s field approach can be used to empirically study the forces at work in leadership emergence.