Lecture 4 - Social Identity Leadership Flashcards
Whats the premise of social identity leadership
- describing it
Leadership can be quite hierarchical- coach just at the top, giving all the instructions downwards to the players
But social identity leadership, instead of top-down, it becomes a collaborative process
1. Idealised influence
2. Inspirational motivation
3. Intellectual Stimulation
4. Individualised consideration
Outline the fundamentals of SIL
- describing it
- A lot of the fundamentals are about relationships:1.Emotional Connection, 2.mobilization, 3. team-orientated
- Getting input of followers; what do we want to be about
- What is important to us? Pride, legacy etc?
- Establish symmetry between leaders and followers
- Manager with close relationships is better at motivating and connecting to their players
- “Make everybody feel part of a group… And I am one of them”
Outline Alex Ferguson as a case study of showing social identity leadership
Alex Ferguson, become less about being a figurehead and more about immersing himself in the team – like a father. Clearly different than just having a dictator at the top giving instructions.
Outline the All-Blacks as a case study for showing Social Identity Leadership
•Sir Graham Henry: “The greater those connections, the more resilient and the stronger we were, the better we were”
•Established a senior leadership group, made up of some experience players and some young players
- decided how they wanted to train, how they wanted to prepare for a match, and what sort of the Rugby they want to play
•Embody the ‘we’ no ‘I’
• Win 80% of their games
Outline British Cycling as a case study for showing Social Identity leadership
- marginal gains
•Leaders and members connected through sense of belonging and emotional attachment to their group
• British cycling
– always trying to make marginal gains, gain that 0.01% difference
- pillows, nutrition etc
•Everyone had a shared identity for marginal gains, no matter what job you played
•This is powerful – everyone working towards marginal gains
What psychological principles underly Social identity Approach to Leadership
•Focuses on influential and contextual processes of leadership
•Looks at the social psychological processes underpinning leadership effectiveness
•Thinking about:
- Language
- messages
- Manipulating environment
•Can use these things as a vehicle to bring about social change
• Can influence group members through their own social identities
– why are you part of this group? Why do you want to be?
- understand their motivation
Outline Haslamet et al (2011)
- Support for Social Identity Leadership
Found:
•Social Identities lay the foundation for effective leadership
•Understanding the identities that people have, means you can lead them better
Outline Platow & Van Knippenberg (2001)
- support for Social Identity Leadership
- Leaders that create social identity perceived as in-group leaders, and more effective
- In group leaders use inclusive language – “we are trying to”, - instead of: “the players are trying to”- “We” and “us”. Instead of “the team” – subtle but influential
Outline research into politicians and inclusive language
Politicians get more votes when they use inclusive language
What are the 4 principles of Social identity Leadership?
- Describing it
- Leaders as in-group prototypes
• represent the group
- represent the ideals of the group
- what do we want to do/ achieve/ strive for
2. Leaders as in-group champions •Champion the group - act in the groups interests - once you have the idea of what you want to be, coach makes decisions on behalf of the group - decide on what the team wants
- Leaders as entrepreneurs of identity
• Be an entrepreneur of the group
- Develop and evolve the essence of the group
- rebrand/ change a little bit, but keep the fundamentals the same - Leaders as embedders of identity
• embed for the group
- provide structure/ activities for “us” to achieve our vision
- how the team wants to train for example
Developing, managing and advancing a shared social identity is foundation of successful leadership
Outline Slater, Barker, Coffee & Jones (2015)
- Research into the SIL
- Team GB at 2012
Methods:
•Qualitative exploration of leaders communication in the media at London 2012
•Various leaders including 4 performance directors, Team GB lead, Seb Coe.
•Data collected through media, interviews, press conference, blogs of 100 days prior, 30 days following
•Interviews before, during and after
•Inductive and deductive thematic analysis
Findings
- found: The high performance environment of Team GB at London 2012, was nestled inside 3 components:
- Team Identity
- Kit: everyone worse the same kit-
everyone had a connection, relationship and a commonality with everyone else
- shows that wearing a badge similar to others is important - Team values
- strong sense of team, even with individual sport athletes, who had a team behind them - Team vision- everyone working towards the same goal
What are the 3 things that make a leader effective?
- Reicher & Hopkins (2001)
- Geissner & Van Knippenberg (2008)
- Subasic et al (2011)
- Mobilisation
- the extent to which group members are motivated and compelled to achieve a leaders vision
•Reicher & Hopkins, 2001:
- after a social identity leadership intervention, athletes went above and beyond regular training. Because they had a connection with their team/ values, work harder than before - Trust
- In-group leaders, that represent group, perceived as more trustworthy
•Geissner & van Knippenberg, 2008
- trust them to make the best decisions for them as athaltes and greater good of group - Influence
- in-group leaders perceived as more influential than out-group leaders
•Subasic, Reynolds, Turner, Veenstrat & Haslam, 2011):
- When you’re an in-group leader, don’t need to use reward/ punishment as much, because of the strong connections you have
What did Bass (1985) identify as a key element of transformational leadership?
- Describing it
Bass (1985) identified Charisma as a key element of transformational leadership
- Van Dijke & De Cremer (2010) - looked into this
Outline Van Dijke & De Cremer (2010) as researchers into charisma
- identified by Bass (1985) as a key element of transformational leadership
Bass (1985) identified Charisma as a key element of transformational leadership
- Van Dijke & De Cremer (2010) - looked into this
They measured charismatic leadership:
- Found: charisma was attributed to leaders when leaders were perceived to represent and act for the group
- act for the group and on behalf of the group
Suggests charisma is something leaders can construct by representing the in-group
Overall what has research been linked to in Social Identity found
- can introduce the research section of an essay
- Creation of shared social identity is the foundation of successful leadership
- Been linked to:
- trust
- effectiveness
- mobilization
- Charisma
- influence
- positive emotion