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What makes someone become a political leader? What are the factors, psychological or otherwise that carry an individual through ranks of thousands or even millions to political office? It seems an obvious question and one that holds great fascination for people, yet it is one of the most poorly addressed areas in the field of political psychology. As Burns puts it, (1978, as cited in Hermann, 1986) “political leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” The study of political leadership is complex and fraught with difficulties. There are huge problems of gaining sufficient access to enough information to make accurate psychological judgements about political leaders (Hermann, 1986, Kressel, 1993), and of being able to generalise the rich findings from a narrow area of political leadership (the US Presidency) to the much more diverse field of political leadership in general (Hermann, 1998). One must remember too, that the study of political leadership is not only the study of figures with the great authority such as monarchs and US Presidents, but the study of all leader-type positions on the scale of political authority and therefore can include such leaders as mayors, chairmen and councillors (Paige, 1977).
Starting with the early work of Laswell (as cited in Kressel 1993), several models explaining how a person becomes a political leader have developed. The most major approaches to the study of political leadership will be considered, starting with the early psychoanalytic approach drawn from Laswell continuing through Etheridge (find reference). Winter’s later work which is grounded on McClelland’s theory of human motivation (Winter, find reference) and Barber’s four types of Presidential character will then be evaluated, as will later work by Simonton and Imelmann (1998), which uses standard personality instruments to indirectly assess the personality of leaders, and recent explorations into the impact of birth order and gender to political leadership (Audeway & Van Den Berg, 2003, Rosenthal et. ... In order to judge the merits of these theories, however, one must first consider the importance of individual differences between political leaders.
One of the core issues at the centre of the study of leadership is the amount of importance that should be given to personality not only in how a person becomes a leader but in the type of leader a person becomes (Hermann 1986, Kressel, 1993, Putnam, 1977). There are two general approaches to the role personality has to play in political leadership (Hermann, 1986, 1998, Winter, find reference).
Approximate Word count = 2012
Approximate Pages = 8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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