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1185 Leadership and Followership. An PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13th INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE “Management Strategies for High Performance” 31st October – 1st November, 2019, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWERSHIP. AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE Sergiu BĂLAN a*, Lucia Ovidia VREJA a a The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania ABSTRACT The paper presents extensively, from a theoretical point of view, the concepts of leader and follower and their extensions, leadership and followership, as well as the role of leaders and followers in crowd coordination and common action. The main approach of the concepts is that of evolutionary psychology, as this theoretical framework indicate that both leadership and followership are evolutionary adaptations, their properties and characteristics being also found among other species of animals that manifest sociality. The attempt to pinpoint the evolutionary origin of both leadership and followership, and the common features that animals and humans share in terms of leaders and followers is a necessary undertaking for explaining leadership in organizations and, possibly, in improving the quality of leadership. KEYWORDS: adaptation, environmental mismatch, evolutionary psychology, followership, leadership, sociality. 1. INTRODUCTION The concepts of leadership and followership are widely used in social sciences, although they might be defined differently, depending on the type of collected empirical data and on the content and focus of analysis. For instance, anthropological research indicate that leadership is a human universal, found in every society (Boehm, 1999), albeit having different forms and being founded on distinct characteristics, while various studies in social psychology indicate that leadership is an emergent attribute of any group, big or small, as empirical data indicate that whenever a number of people gather together, a formal or informal leader implicitly appear (van Vugt, 2006), to coordinate the actions of the group. Although the specific literature in social sciences is abundant in definitions and theories of leadership, they fail to explain what is the origin of leadership and followership, why the emergence of leaders seems to be a necessity of any kind of groups or what are the benefits of adopting a certain type of social behavior, especially that of a follower. Moreover, the same literature lacks extensive and consistent explanations for followership, given the widely held opinion that humans, as well as other primates, are very competitive and hierarchically structured species, with individuals permanently trying to achieve the alpha-position in a group. The current paper is an attempt to systematize the various types of explicative theory, with an emphasis on why they are unsuccessful in offering a generally accepted explanation for the emergence of leadership and the existence of followership. By adopting the evolutionary theory stance, the paper includes a literature review and a critical disquisition on the main features and strong points of the main theoretical frameworks of analysis, including the evolutionary one. * E-mail address: [email protected] 1185 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13th INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE “Management Strategies for High Performance” 31st October – 1st November, 2019, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS 2.1 Theories of leadership Complex questions such as what is leadership, why leaders emerge in any group, how leaders act and coordinate the actions of their followers, what are the essential qualities of people who stand out in a crowd have been the concerns of various specialists in different disciplines. While their efforts have led to no less than ten or even eleven theories of leadership, briefly presented below, it is worth mentioning that neither of them fully explains the intricate and plentiful aspects of leadership, as they all provide “proximate” explanations, meaning that they only “describe how leadership manifests itself and what forms it can take”, without touching upon why “leaders (or followers) exist at all” (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011). The Great Man theory is, most probably, the oldest theory of leadership, with theoreticians going back in history as far as the Greek philosopher Aristotle. According to this theory, “leaders are born not made”, they are special human beings, chosen to do great things or dramatically change their environments or even the world, being naturally endowed with superior virtues such as intelligence, wisdom, determination, morality or strength. Such Great Men, usually emperors or formal leaders who led societies or countries to glorious victories or helped them overcome extremely harsh times, are those “special” individuals who have passed the test of history and have found their place in the pantheon of exceptional figures. As the Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (2008) put it, the “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here”. Although the theory is still used today, especially in the business field, to explain how noteworthy “saviors” salvage companies from bankruptcy or societies from total destruction, it fails to clarify why such leaders live undistinctive and unremarkable lives for most of their time, have no out-of- the-ordinary qualities for long periods of time and display heroism only under certain circumstances (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011). The trait theory, actually derived from the Great Man theory, assumes that what make some people leaders are the traits they display, attributes that might be both innate or acquired through education. Although, initially, the essential traits, if inborn, or skills and competencies, if learned, of a leader were “intelligence, extroversion and ambition” (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011), various theoreticians added later a long list of attributes, such as “assertiveness, dominance, energy, self- confidence, persistence, alertness” (Stodgill, 1974) or competencies, such as “creativity, oral fluency, diplomacy, persuasiveness and social skills” (Bass & Bass, 2008). Although such traits or competencies are indeed necessary or, at least, desirable, for individuals to stand out of the crowd and assume leadership positions in various groups and situations, not all of them are mandatory. Moreover, the trait theory assumes that all the leaders in all the fields of activity or in any time need to have the same traits, which is not the case, as different situations require different skills, abilities, traits. The psychoanalytic theory starts from the idea of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (2012), that groups or societies are families in miniature, therefore the leader plays the role of the father of the “primitive tribe”. According to this theory, leadership stems from an individual’s childhood relations with his father, some leaders trying to mirror the behavior of their imposing fathers, while others trying to achieve greatness in order to compensate for their absent fathers. In either case, the experience of the early years of childhood is decisive in determining the leaders’ stance. Moreover, based on the father-child relationship, more precisely on the love or fear emotions binding the two entities (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011), psychoanalysis would explain both the leadership and followership behaviors, with followers serving their leaders out of love or fear. Although alluring, this theory is rather simplistic and speculative, giving no importance to other factors that shape and influence the personality and behavior of any individual, such as dispositional or situational factors. 1186 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13th INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE “Management Strategies for High Performance” 31st October – 1st November, 2019, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA The charismatic leadership theory presumes that some individuals, especially political and religious figures, captivate followers based on their charisma, something that is almost impossible to define, yet “you know it when you see it” (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011). Charismatic leaders attract followers not based on their acts, on what they did, but on their personality, skills and characteristics, in other words, on what they are, therefore “charisma, oratory, manipulation and intimidation are often more important than wisdom, special expertise and administrative experience” (Ludwig, 2002, 5). According to this theory, charismatic leadership is demonstrated by individuals whose personalities act like a “social glue” and who are able to bring together large numbers of people, especially strangers, who adhere to the leader’s ideology or are willing to bring their contribution to achieving a high-order purpose. The charismatic leadership theory, nevertheless, fails to explain what charisma is, whether it is innate or learned, why historical figures identified as charismatic leaders are not always positioned on the side of the good, or why this charisma seems to work better and influence followers in hard times rather than in peaceful times. The behavioral theory is, to a certain degree, the opposite of the charismatic leadership theory, focusing on what the leaders are doing, and assuming that leadership is the result of specific, effective behaviors that would demonstrate, as the famous Blake-Mouton managerial grid indicate, both “concern for employees” and “concern for task” (van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011). In terms of concern for followers or employees, a perspective of the same theory indicate that there
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