Leader appeal, leader performance, and the motive profiles of leaders and followers: A study of American presidents and elections.

Abstract

Three leader trait and leader-follower interaction models of leader appeal and leader performance are evaluated with data about the motive profiles of American presidents and American society, in both cases measured at a distance. Presidential appeal, defined in terms of electoral success, is significantly correlated with the congruence or match between the president's motive profile and that of his contemporary society. In contrast, presidential greatness, as rated by historians, as well as several important outcomes involving war and peace are associated with certain of the president's motives by themselves, but not with president-society What is a leader? What is a popular leader? Are they the same? Are they the result of the same or different factors? Our naive belief in the great theory of leadership, that the person shapes events and the leader creates his or her own greatness, has long been challenged by scholars from diverse disciplines who analyze leadership appeal and performance into broad impersonal forces and social-structural Yet in the real world of politics, the factor of personal appeal or having (in the language of the Harris poll) attractive, forceful personality is of enormous concern to campaign strategists and journalists (even if it is largely treated as error variance by voting analysts; see Nie, Verba, & Petrocik, 1979; Sears, 1969). And in the real world of history, successful leaders such as Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt display such a blend of wisdom, flexibility, and good tactics that we conclude their greatness must be based, at least in part, on personal characteristics (e.g., see Burns, 1956; Haley, 1969; Vidal, 1984). Can these phenomena of greatness and appeal among political leaders be analyzed in psychological terms? Several classic theories and a good deal of contemporary social psychological research suggest a variety of models for a leader's appeal and performance. This article presents data on the psychological characteristics of one kind of leader--American presidentsand one series of followers--American society from the 1780s through the 1960s--as an empirical commentary on (not a test of) these theories and issues.