Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 34:2

0021–8308

Leadership as Relationship
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Leadership Articles
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MICHA POPPER

LEADERSHIP AS RELATIONSHIP

The first modern attempt to formulate a theory of leadership appears to be that of

the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1841). Carlyle ascribes the entire phe-
nomenon of leadership to the leader himself. It is he who leads the masses, who
creates history and society, who molds the masses in his own image. Carlyle claims
that general history, the chronicles of all the deeds performed by man on earth, is
essentially the chronicles of the great people who acted in it. Those great people were
the leaders of people. They were the ones who created everything that humanity
enacted. The leader’s influence, according to Carlyle, is not limited to the social
and political level. He is above all a spiritual leader, and therefore Carlyle numbers
among his heroes, leaders and prophets, whose outstanding characteristic is genius.
Carlyle’s hero stands above others in courage, originality, and ability to see the truth.
Marx and Engels (1968) represent a diametrically opposed approach. In their
view, circumstances are the decisive factor, not the great man. They believe in the
existence of a historical order that is socio-economic, not spiritual-mystic. It is the
circumstances that dictate events, hence the leaders, whatever their character-
istics, are bound by circumstances whose dialectics dictate development. Marx and
Engels claim that people create their own history, but they create it not just
as they imagine it, not in circumstances they choose for themselves, but in the
circumstances in which they find themselves.
Max Weber’s discussion on leaders (1946) is in a certain sense a conceptual
solution to the contradiction between these polar approaches. Moreover, his ana-
lyses helped to focus the current discussion on leadership on the informal aspects
of influence, namely, on the distinction between authority—which Weber calls
“legal” authority—which is based on law and bureaucratic rules, power—
derived from control of certain resources that appear mainly in configurations
of authority that Weber calls “traditional” (e.g., hereditary monarchy), and
influence, which has its source in personality traits and behaviors of the leader

© The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600
Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
108 Micha Popper
himself as they are perceived by the people—influence that is characterized by
Weber as the result of “charisma.” Weber’s argument is that charismatic relations
are based on perceptions and emotions that are generated by a certain leader, not
necessarily connected with his place in the hierarchy (social or organizational) or
his control of physical resources or powers (e.g., military). He claims that:

In charismatic relations people no longer obey customs or laws, instead, the followers submit to
the imperious demands of a heroic figure, whose orders are legitimated not by logic, nor by the
hero’s place in an ascribed hierarchy, but solely by the personal “power to command” of the
charismatic individual ( Weber, 1946, p. 52).

Weber’s third distinction is the core of the current discussion in the leadership
literature (see, for example, reviews by Burns, 1978; Bryman, 1986; Lindholm,
1988, 1990; Bass, 1990). Leadership of the kind that Weber calls charismatic, is
largely “in the eyes of the beholder,” and indeed, a considerable proportion of
the research literature today deals with the interpretation and identification of
patterns of emotional relationships between the leader and his followers (e.g.,
Lindholm, 1990; Shamir, 1991; Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993; Popper, 2001).
The dialectical approach to leadership, first expressed in philosophical and
sociological thought, is reflected in the history of psychological research on lead-
ership. At the beginning, the romantic, one-dimensional approach characterized
the empirical research on leadership (Stogdill, 1974; Bass, 1990). Later, after the
disappointment with the “great man” approach (termed in psychological research
the “trait approach”), the emphasis in research shifted to the situation or circum-
stances as the major factors explaining events that were hitherto explained solely
through the leader (e.g., Leavitt, 1955).
In recent years, “Influence,” in senses such as internalization of values (Burns,
1978), inspiring people through vision or ideas (Bass, 1985), or building trust
( Bass, 1999) have been the major themes in leadership literature. These themes
differ from the way in which people were usually moved to act in earlier periods
of human history. Figures such as Herod, Nero and Julius Caesar, who are
described as leaders in history books, made people act by coercion and performed
acts that are today considered unacceptable. Thus, the essential difference between
what was described as leadership in earlier periods of history and leadership
in the modern era (after the “spring of nations”) is the centrality of “willing
influence,” of persuasion. This, as Burns (1978) argues, is the essence of the
distinction between leadership and rulership. In this sense, according to Burns,
many figures described in the literature as leaders were rulers more than leaders.
Leadership today, as mentioned, is analyzed in terms of notions such as
“charisma” and “transformational leadership” (e.g., “neo–charismatic” approaches,
Avolio & Yammarino, 2002). But, unlike the days of the trait approach, it is
discussed very much from the perspective of the followers (e.g., Meindl, Erlich &
Dukerich, 1985; Meindl, 1995). As Meindl (1995) typically claims: “Followers, not
the leader, and not researchers, define it . . .” ( p. 131). Indeed, there is a growing

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 Leadership as Relationship 109
body of research on leadership from the followers’ angle (e.g., Lord, Fotti &
Devader, 1984; Klein & House, 1995) in an effort to unravel the systematic
aspects in the process of “constructing leaders.”
Although inclusion of the followers in the discussion and research on leadership
is a very important conceptual development, this approach still reveals prevalent
inherent biases with regard to the leadership phenomenon in general and the
figure of leaders in particular. I will argue in this article that there is a need for a
more complex view and for different units of analysis in order to characterize the
leadership phenomenon as influence. But before proceeding to this argument, I
will review the explanations for the major bias concerning leaders—the tendency
to give them exaggerated weight.

SOME EXPLANATIONS FOR THE TENDENCY TO GIVE

EXAGGERATED WEIGHT TO LEADERS

There are cognitive as well as emotional explanations for the systematic biases in
the direction of magnifying the leader. Research in cognitive psychology reveals a
bias known as “the fundamental attribution error” ( Ross, Amebile & Steinmatz,
1977), whereby people tend to see behavior as deriving from the characteristics
of the performer and to minimize information regarding situational factors. This
bias may have a significant effect when it comes to analyzing leadership from the
point of view of the followers. For example, regular public opinion polls and even
expert analysis of the population’s trust in senior role-bearers and perception of
their functioning, indicate that the tendency to trust them rises substantially as
soon as they are elected to office (Popper, 2001). There are examples showing that
shifts that occurred in the American economy due to external changes were
attributed to the president elect before he had even had an opportunity to make
relevant decisions (Calder, 1977).
Cognitive psychologists (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1984) refer to concepts such as
heuristics, schema, prototypes, attributions, and similar constructs that help the
individual to “interpret the world.” This is an active process from the point of
view of the individual and is based on cues that he or she receives. In certain
circumstances, these cues may be of particular relevance to the magnification of
leaders in the eyes of the beholder, namely to the reinforcement of the inherent
fundamental attribution error with regard to leaders. Shamir (1995), for example,
showed the effect of social distance on followers’ evaluations. In one study, 320
students were asked to choose two types of leaders: a close leader, namely one with
whom they had face to face contact, and a distant leader, with whom they never had
close contact (e.g., political leaders). The subjects’ attitudes towards the two categories
of leaders were collected through interviews, and thoroughly coded and analyzed.
In general, it was found that distant leaders were perceived in a much more stereo-
typed manner as figures “larger than life.” The conclusion is that when the followers

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110 Micha Popper
get nearer to the leader and are in close contact with him, he becomes a creature
of flesh and blood with vices and virtues, rather than a stereotyped attribution.
Cultural context can also be a source of attribution biases that magnify leaders.
Some studies indicate that perceptions of leaders and “naive” implicit theories of
leadership are to a large extent culturally based (Lord, Fotti & Devader, 1984;
Gerstner & Day, 1994; Smith, Misumi, Tayeb, Peterson & Bond, 1989). In other
words, leadership prototypes (Lord & Maher, 1993) stored in the mind may differ
among people of different cultures. Moreover, these prototypes can color the
behaviors of the assessed leader to the point where it is hard to distinguish
between leaders’ actual behaviors and “cultural attributions” ascribed to them by
followers as a result of different cultural origin (Offerman et al., 1994). Generally,
in societies where there is a “large power distance” (Hofstede, 1997), namely high
respect for authority that is embedded in tradition, for instance, in Chinese or
some Arab cultures (see Hofstede, 1997), there is a stronger tendency to magnify
leaders (Popper & Druyan, 2001).
Thus far, I have reviewed briefly some cognitive biases which are proven to be
involved in the creation of perceptions and images of leaders. However, analyses
from other areas in psychology also present argumentation supporting the exist-
ence of a tendency among followers to “magnify” and even aggrandize their
leaders. This tendency stems from inherent needs of the followers themselves, not
necessarily from direct contact or real acquaintance with the leader.
The most basic explanation stems from the dynamics in the family, where big,
strong figures take care of dependent protégés. Freud, already in 1939, saw a
connection between the emotional bond with leaders and parenting relations. “It
is longing for the father,” wrote Freud, “which is common to all humans, from their
childhood days. Now it may become clear to us that the characteristics that we
attribute to the great person are the characteristics of parents, and that the essence
of the greatness of great people lies in this convention” (Freud, 1939, pp. 109–111).
All psychoanalytic theories give great weight to the asymmetrical dynamics in
childhood in determining the individual’s emotional development. People are
born and grow up into and within an asymmetrical psychological pattern, in
which there are “authoritative adults” who determine what is permitted and what
is forbidden, and above all (in the eyes of the viewer, the small child) have
immense power both to hurt and to protect. These dynamics may have many
expressions later in life (e.g., Fromm, 1941). One salient expression of such dynamics
may be seen in the manner in which leaders are perceived by their followers.
Recently, more complex perspectives have developed in the discussion on lead-
ership (Avolio & Yammarino, 2002), adding to the view of leadership, the impact
of social contexts on the dynamics of leader-follower relationships (Bryman, 1986;
Shamir, 1991; Popper & Mayseless, 2003).
The following sections of this article will elaborate on this perspective, and will
suggest more specific analysis units that seem to me important for the discussion
on leadership as relationship, while also noting the limitations of these analysis

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 Leadership as Relationship 111
units. In the discussion at the end of the article , I will present an integrative view
that stems from the analysis presented in the body of the article .

LEADERSHIP AS RELATIONSHIP

The shift to the view of leadership as relationships rather than as the exclusive
influence of a “great man”, on the one hand, or as the followers’ perception of
the leader which is largely the product of their desires, on the other hand , is to
some extent analogous to the shift to relational terms that has taken place in
psychodynamic theoretical thinking (e.g., object relations, Klein, 1932).This is a
shift to a form of thinking that regards the relationship itself as the psychological
essence, the important unit to analyze. There have been many attempts in the
literature to conceptualize leadership in terms of relationships; for example, ver-
tical dyadic linkage (VDL) theory (Dansereau, Graen & Haga, 1975), which was
the precursor of leader member exchange (LMX) theory (Graen & Uh-Bien,
1995) and transactional leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). All these notions
and models emerge from similar assumptions, namely that leader-follower rela-
tionships are based on exchange that is conscious and instrumental both for the
leader and for the followers. Due to its premise, this approach has been widely
used in leadership studies conducted essentially in business organizations (House,
1971; Bass, 1990; Bass & Avolio, 1990).
However, the assumption of instrumental calculativeness in human relations in
general and in leader-follower relations in particular has been widely criticized
(e.g., Lindholm, 1988, 1990). In a well-known review of the link between cogni-
tion and affect in psychological research, Zajonc (1980) argues that “preferences
need no inferences” ( p.151). In other words, affect is not a postcognitive phenom-
enon. “To arouse affect, objects need to be cognized very little—in fact, minim-
ally” ( p.154). This principle is also relevant to the impact of charismatic leaders.
Indeed, the emotional impact of such leaders has been clearly indicated in many
studies. Emrich et al. (2001), for example, after determining “levels of emotional-
ity” of words, expressions, and images, show that charismatic leaders use more
emotional expressions. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream,” and not “I
have an idea,” which is less emotive according to researchers. Other studies have
also shown that the emotional presence is a key element in leaders’ influence (e.g.,
Zaleznik, 1977; Willner, 1984; Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Lindholm, 1988; Hogan,
Curphy & Hogan, 1994; Popper, 2001).
In fact, if we return to the discussion that is considered the basis for the
sociological and social psychological discussion on leadership—Weber’s discussion
on charisma—we will see (despite his general thesis that expands the rational-
bureaucratic aspects) that the explanation for charismatic leadership does in fact
ascribe a central place to emotions, in a manner strikingly similar to Carlyle’s roman-
tic view. This is how Weber describes the phenomenon of charismatic leadership:

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112 Micha Popper
The term “charisma” will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue
of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural,
superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers and qualities. These are such as are not
accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on
the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader ( Weber, 1922/47, pp. 358–9).

Weber distinguishes between the charismatic leader and charisma as a phenom-

enon that can become a social institution. The charismatic leader is a person to
whom people relate as described in the above passage. However, when charisma
is routinized it is no longer a bond with a specific person, but is rather trans-
formed into an institutional or organizational phenomenon. Craib (1997) cites the
church as an example to illustrate Weber’s point. Christ was a charismatic leader,
the disciples who became priests and established the church routinized the char-
isma, according to Craib. The discussion here relates to the primary processes
of charismatic relationship—the relationship with the leader.
Within the range of emotional relations between leader and followers, we can
find diverse types of relationships. On the one hand there is dependence, leading,
in extreme pathological cases (e.g., Jim Jones) to mass suicide at the leader’s
request (Lindholm, 1990). On the other hand, there are relations of an outstand-
ing moral quality which can be attributed to the influence of the leader, as in the
case of Mahatma Gandhi (Burns, 1978; Chadha, 1997) or Nelson Mandela
(Sampson, 1999). In the following pages I will propose a conceptual frame-
work for classification and analysis of the various emotional relationships between
leaders and followers.

LEADER AND FOLLOWERS: THREE TYPES OF EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Using the major psychological theories that deal with emotional dynamics, we can
roughly describe three types of emotional relations that may exist between leaders
and followers: regressive, symbolic, and developmental. Here I will describe the
nature of the three types.

Regressive relations

Regressive relations are rooted in a psychological mechanism of projection. Pro-

jection is defined in the dictionary of psychoanalysis ( Rycroft, 1995) as “the pro-
cess in which specific impulses, wishes, aspects of the self or internal objects are
imagined to be located in some object external to oneself ” ( p. 139).
Projection is characterized by the fact that it expresses unconscious processes
occurring in various relationships. Lindholm (1988), for example, sees leadership
relations as a form of falling in love. In his opinion, the motifs that exist with
regard to the lover during the period of falling in love, such as romanticization,

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 Leadership as Relationship 113
magnifying the loved one while ignoring or minimizing his/her faults, also exist
in the followers’ relations to their leader (see, for example, Jacobson & House,
2001). Freud saw the relations with the leader as a projected expression of the
longing for the father. “. . . resoluteness, strength of will, and energetic action (the
qualities attributed to leaders) are part of the picture of the father” (Freud, 1939,
p. 10). In other words, according to this type of explanation the leader is not
necessarily a “real person” but the fruit of the followers’ (unconscious) yearning.
This explanation naturally raises the question as to why the projections of many
people, sometimes thousands or even millions, are all directed at one particular
person. How is the basis for this shared projection formed?
The literature on charismatic leadership offers several explanations (see, for
example, Willner, 1984; Lindholm, 1990; Aberbach, 1995; Popper, 2001). One
explanation is based on a specific type of projection called narcissistic projection
(Kohut, 1971; Post, 1986, 1993).
The basic argument in the literature on the dynamics of narcissism is that the
infant’s development begins with the building of feelings of grandiosity, transmit-
ted to the baby by the constant admiration bestowed on him, mostly through
mirroring—the psychological process whereby the caregiver (usually the mother)
and her/his reactions serve the baby as a mirror (Kohut, 1971). According to
Freud (1986), this stage is necessary for the normal development of self love, the
sense of self worth ( primary narcissism). People who are narcissistically deprived
may, later in life, seek compensation in various directions (e.g., Storr, 1972; Popper,
2000, 2001), one of which is leadership. Two possible compensation processes can
occur with regard to leadership (Post, 1986, 1993). 1. The narcissistically deprived
individual may develop a tendency to seek followers who will serve as a mirror
reflecting wonderment and adoration that were so missing in the past. In this
pattern, the narcissistic leader is a “mirror-hungry personality.” 2. Since not
everyone has the ego resources to be a leader (Popper, 2000), some people with
narcissistic deprivation may become obsessive seekers of figures to admire. These
are “ideal-hungry personalities.” And when they find such figures, they them-
selves—through the projective process—become, in their own eyes, more like the
objects of their admiration and thus worth more. The meeting of mirror-hungry
personalities with ideal-hungry personalities may create a dynamic in which
desires and fantasies feed the needs, sometimes pathological, of both sides. Some
known cases of cults (e.g., Jim Jones, Charles Manson) demonstrate that such
dynamics, although rare, do, in fact, exist. (e.g., Lindholm, 1990).
Aberbach (1995) offers another explanation for the extreme projective relation-
ship that followers may maintain with charismatic leaders. He claims that the
intense emotional bond with the charismatic leader may stem from situations
described as anomie, negative imprinting, de-individuation, or the term used by
Aberbach—“homogamy” (Aberbach, 1995). Based on analyses of many char-
ismatic leaders (e.g., Hitler, Robespierre, Garibaldi, Lincoln, Lenin), Aberbach
argues that charismatic leaders, prior to the crises which raise them to power, are

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114 Micha Popper
often seen as ineffectual, banal and unimpressive. J.M. Roberts’s assessment that
“if not for the French Revolution, Robespierre would be remembered at best as
an ‘ornament of the Arras bar’ ” (1978, p. 3) might be generally true of the rela-
tionship between crises and charisma. Aberbach discerned that many charismatic
leaders had suffered early childhood experiences that included loss and separa-
tion. The anomie of the individual resulting from grief, residual anger, idealiza-
tion, and alienation, suddenly emerge as microcosmic correlative and a symbol of
a specific, usually transient, social condition. Crisis triggers off mass attachment
behavior, with the charismatic figure as its focal point. The charismatic figure is
recognized as one schooled in crisis, and hence capable of offering directional
leadership, thereby reducing widespread uncertainty and fear. In normal condi-
tions, the would-be charismatic leader’s psychopathology has relatively little social
value. However, in crisis situations, his handicaps and self-schooling in trauma are
perceived as having social value. Crisis creates a “match” between the charismatic
and the external world. His emotional incapacities may become a source of public
strength (Hitler, for example, was the epitome of sanity to most Germans during
the 1930s and for most of the war years (Kershaw, 1991).The charismatic leader’s
handicaps, transformed to public advantage, generate an aggressive creative energy
to confront the crisis. More than that, the charismatic frees the people from their
individuality, making them forget their separate pasts in a temporary anonymity,
caught up by the goals and actions of the group (e.g., Festinger & Newcomb,
1952, Zimbardo, 1970). In sum, traumatized conditions and regressive process
can obliterate or significantly decrease differences between people in terms of age,
education, political and social attitudes, and create similarity that is a common
basis for the growth of charismatic leaders who are perceived as saviors.
There are many variations of the description of regressive relations between
leaders and followers (e.g., Lindholm, 1988, 1990; Kets de Vries, 1989; Popper, 2001),
but they all share one central argument which is illustrated by the examples presented.
The argument is that regressive relations are not formed on an ideational or
philosophical basis, but rooted in primary urges, anxieties, feelings of distress.
Projections are thus brought into play to provide an answer to oppressive psycho-
logical states. Regressive relations have resonated largely in human history because
of the drama that often accompanied such relations. However, it cannot be said that
such relations are more typical or frequent than others. Most of the relations between
leaders and followers are not charged with unconscious pathological undercur-
rents. In most cases they do include elements of content, ideology and even
psychological development. Such categories of relations will be examined below.

Symbolic relations

Unlike regressive relationships with a leader, which are usually based on uncon-
scious psychological processes and imply some degree of surrender of the self by

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 Leadership as Relationship 115
the followers or diminishing of their self worth (Lindholm, 1988), or narcissistic
assimilation into the personality of the leader to the extent of total dependency
(Popper, 2001), symbolic relations grow out of content-based meanings, messages,
ideologies, and values, which the leader is expected to represent or emphasize.
The adoration of Mandela before his release from prison and immediately after
it was not adoration of a concrete person. He was, as Nadine Gordimer put it,
a “personification of the future” (in Sampson, 1999, p. 411). He became, as both
he and his friends said, an “icon,” a symbol of liberation, of autonomy, of a new
national identity.
The “symbolization” process, of Lincoln, for example, testifies to the emotional
attitude towards symbols. In an empirical analysis of the construction of Lincoln’s
leadership in the public consciousness, Schwartz (2000) describes how Lincoln
gradually became an admired leader, in a process that began at the beginning of
the 20th century, years after his death, and gathered force. Examination of the
Congressional Record entries between 1875 and 1890 revealed 4.2 entries on Wash-
ington (who was the most admired leader in America) for every one on Lincoln.
Between 1905 and 1919 Lincoln surpassed Washington by a ratio of about 1.5 to
1. Similarly, in the New York Times, the number of articles about Washington far
exceeded the number about Lincoln until the very turn of the century. After 1905,
the Lincoln coverage outpaced Washington’s by a ratio of almost two to one. By
the time the large monument to Lincoln was unveiled in 1922, he was the most
admired president in the history of the US (Schwartz, 2000). An analysis of the
circumstances and conditions in which his figure became a symbol indicates that
this transformation took place intensively during World War I and the period of
the most massive immigration in the history of the United States. The US went
to war in the name of democracy, and Lincoln was the embodiment of the
struggle for democratic values. Similarly, it was easy to turn Lincoln into a symbol
when the waves of immigration were growing and the question of equal oppor-
tunities became central in the public consciousness. Many organizations that
fought against deprivation of civil rights used the figure of Lincoln to promote
their struggle. For example, women’s organizations used the Civil War and the
liberation of the slaves as an analogy for their struggle, as did other minorities that
felt deprived (Schwartz, 2000).
The explanations offered for such processes emerge from certain theoretical
approaches that complement each other’s arguments. One approach is based on
the assumption that people have an inherent need for meaning (e.g., Frankl, 1963;
Maslow, 1970). Shamir and associates (1993) formulated a theory of social psy-
chology based on symbolic interactionism (Stryker, 1980). The argument is that
leaders have an impact on their followers’ self concept and evoke their motivation
for self expression. To explain the link between leaders and followers, Shamir and
colleagues present the following assumptions based on literature in the area of self
concept and motivation: 1. People are not only pragmatic or achievement-motivated,
they also have a need for self expression. 2. People are motivated to guard and

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116 Micha Popper
promote their sense of self esteem and self worth. 3. People are motivated to
preserve and even increase their self consistency. 4. Self concepts are composed
partly of identities, which are organized in a hierarchy of salience (Stryker, 1980).
Since places, people, and certain objects have expressive emotional meaning, certain
leaders may also have expressive meaning in relation to the identity of the followers.
The leaders are thus a psychological means of enhancing the followers’ self worth.
The very fact of attaching themselves to a specific leader makes the followers part
of that leader’s essence. Furthermore, because the values and identities have a social
basis and are shared by many people, the leader who represents these values offers
or represents the link between the followers’ self concept and the values and
identities of broader collectives (Shills, 1965; Durkheim, 1973). For example, Shills
(1965) distinguishes between “central” and “peripheral,” referring to a “symbolic
center” which certain people are perceived as more capable of representing than
others. The more they are perceived as clearly representing the symbolic center,
the better their chance of becoming “symbols of leadership.” Macintyre (1981)
articulated a similar idea in a slightly different conceptualization. In his view, the
leader expresses a narrative, and in attaching themselves to the leader people are
in fact attaching themselves to the narrative which they see themselves as sharing.
In sum, the emotional element in symbolic relations is generated either by the
ideological nature of the vision presented by the leader (Bennis & Nanus, 1985;
Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993; Berson et al., 2001) or by the leader’s emphasis of
social identities; for example, by relating to the common history of the collective
and its shared symbols which distinguish it from other collectives (Shamir, 1991).

Developmental relations

The regressive or symbolic explanations for leader-follower relations are more

characteristic of descriptions of political or social leaders, acting mostly in the
context of frequent changes of the status quo (Kellerman, 1984). Weber, too, saw
the charismatic leader as a phenomenon that appears in a certain rare or unique
context (at least statistically). But no less important is his argument relating to the
routinization of charisma (Craib, 1997), that is to say, turning charisma into a
mundane quality that concerns not only revolutionary social or political leaders
but is also relevant to the more prosaic levels of leaders in organizations, teachers,
priests and ministers, heads of local authorities, leaders of sports teams, and in
fact anybody who influences the feelings of others.
The leadership style that is most discussed in the leadership literature, and has
a charismatic and emotional element that is frequently manifested in daily rela-
tionships and behaviors, is the type known as transformational leadership (Burns,
1978; Bass, 1985, 1999) or, as some call it, “neo-charismatic” leadership (Avolio
& Yammarino, 2002). This kind of leadership has been the subject of extensive
research and discussion since the mid-1980s, yielding findings on an unprecedented

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 Leadership as Relationship 117
scale (Bass, 1990, 1999). This leadership style is characterized by the emotional
influence that causes people “to be more” than they were before their relations
with the leader—to be more moral (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999), to be more pro-
social (Hoffman, 2000), to do things that Bass (1985) refers to as above and
beyond the accepted norms in their environment. Thus, the major element in
these relations is the developmental one. An illustration of the nature and essence
of these relations was presented by Popper and Mayseless (2003). They compared
conceptual discussions and research reported in the literature on transformational
leadership with discussion and research on good parenting in the area of devel-
opmental psychology, and found striking similarity both in the conceptualization
and the research findings.
For example, it was found that (a) both show individual consideration for their
“protégés” (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bass, 1985; Howell, 1988; De-Wolff & Van
Ijzendoorn, 1997); (b) both reinforce the protégés’ autonomy (Maccoby & Martin,
1983; George & Solomon, 1989; Shamir et al., 1993; Bass, 1985); (c) both are
positive examples to identify with and look up to (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Baum-
rind, 1978; Bass, 1985; Shamir et al., 1993); (d) both promote trust (Mussen et
al., 1984; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Howell, 1988), self-confidence and self-
esteem (Bass, 1985; Howell, 1988; Bornstein, 1989), self-realization (Baumrind,
1978; Bass, 1985, Shamir et al., 1993), achievement orientation (Bass, 1985; Cas-
sidy, 1994), and a tendency to become similar to them (the leaders or parents)
(Bass, 1985; Howell, 1988; Van Ijzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1997).
Further, the metaphor of transformational leadership as good parenthood (Pop-
per & Mayseless, 2003) emphasizes an aspect that is largely hidden both in paren-
tal and leadership relations. Leaders, like good parents, first of all provide a sense
of security (Heifetz, 1994; Popper & Mayseless, 2003). Good parents do not only
influence their children to be autonomous and self efficacious, and to uphold
social values by being models for imitation and social learning (Bandura, 1995).
As many studies in developmental psychology have shown (see review of research
in Cassidy, 1994), the sense of security they provide gives their children more
freedom to engage in activities such as exploration through games, and creates a
social dynamic to deal with satisfaction of curiosity and suchlike functions that are
“more developmental” (Bowlby, 1969; Popper & Mayseless, 2003). In the same
way, leaders who provide a sense of security release pent up energies to deal with
more developmental functions such as personal progress and response to intellec-
tual stimulation (Avolio & Bass, 1988), and pro-social orientation beyond the
changing circumstances.

DISCUSSION

As pointed out in this article, looking at leadership as relationship permits a view

that is more relevant to our period, when “persuasive relations” are more common

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118 Micha Popper
than in periods when “traditional authority,” in Weber’s words, dominated, some-
times without any restraint. Moreover, the perspective of leadership as relation-
ship permits a view that is admittedly more complex but also more dynamic, and
therefore more accurate. Just as there are different types of relationships—friend-
ship, romantic love, parent-child relations, etc.—and there are situations and
cultural and mental contexts that influence the dynamics of relationships, so it is
with leadership. A true picture of a phenomenon so complex as leadership cannot
be obtained, to use a metaphor from photography, by looking at stills, which
freeze a situation at a given moment (such as happens in much psychological
research, see Bass, 1990); it requires photography that shows movement over time.
The conceptualization of leadership as relationship not only allows for this but
enables us to see the movements in the background, the circumstances in which
the relations exist (and change from time to time). In other words, the concep-
tualization of leadership as relationship permits an integrative view of leaders,
followers, and circumstances, and thus reduces the bias discussed in this article,
of giving too much weight to the leader.
Although theoretical classifications are somewhat arbitrary, the three types of
relations discussed in this article (regressive, symbolic, and developmental) repres-
ent a range that includes the more common variables that are discussed in
leadership literature (Bass, 1990). The argument is that different economic, social,
cultural, and organizational circumstances have differential effects on the prob-
able existence of these relations. For example, regressive relations are more likely
to occur in amorphous and crisis situations (Hertzber, 1940; Burns, 1978; Willner,
1984; Bass, 1985; Pillai, 1996). The conceptual distinction made by Mischel
(1973) can perhaps provide a certain degree of generalization to this argument.
Mischel distinguishes between “strong psychological situations” and “weak psy-
chological situations.” A strong psychological situation is one in which people feel
that there is a high degree of stability and certainty in their lives. The major
argument is that in a weak psychological situation, the absence of stabilizing
factors leads people to seek psychological substitutes, of which the most conveni-
ent are leaders, particularly those perceived as “strong” (Calder, 1977; Meindl,
1995; Popper, 2001). This desire for strong leaders is, naturally, fertile ground for
the growth of regressive relations with a leader. Indeed, a review of the circum-
stances of the emergence of some prominent charismatic leaders in history indic-
ates the recurrent existence of a link between weak psychological situations and
the emergence of such leaders. For example, most historians explain the rise of
Hitler (who democratically won 38% of the votes) as being related to the severe
economic and social crisis in Germany between the two world wars (e.g., Fest,
1974). Lenin, analyzing his success in reaching his position of leadership, claimed
that it was mainly the result of his ability to evaluate accurately the critical cir-
cumstances of the period, to identify the precise point where serious uncertainty
developed in the wake of the fall of the Czarist regime and the ability to fill the
vacuum of government and introduce a degree of stability and order (Bass, 1985).

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 Leadership as Relationship 119
There has been no systematic discussion on the conditions that are conducive
to the appearance of the relations defined in this article as symbolic. But a
scrutiny of the writing that deals with symbolic aspects of leadership (Shills,
1965; Tucker, 1970; Shamir et al., 1993, 2000; Hogg, 2001) indicates that
the symbolic element appears mostly in the context of issues of identity.
Whether it is a question of order of priorities in the hierarchy of identities of
the individual (Shamir et al., 1993), or of creating a symbolic center in a broad
social context (Shills, 1965), or of harnessing motivation to act by expressive
means (Shamir et al., 2000), the leader is a representation of a broader, more
transcendental essence. The more prominent mentions of symbolic leadership
relations appear when the question of personal or collective identity is at the
center of the social, organizational, or historical event. For example, in a
book describing the creation of organizational cultures, Schein (1992) describes
the central role played by the founding leaders in setting the values and the
identity of the organization. Apparently it is no coincidence that a great deal
of evidence points to the influence of leaders whom historians call “fathers of
the nation.” ( Washington, Attaturk, Ben Gurion, Gandhi) (see Bar-Zohar, 1968;
Burns, 1978; Chadah, 1997). In situations where there is an “identity vacuum,”
as described by Schein (1992), the question of identity formation becomes
central, and the leader’s role regarding this aspect becomes more prominent.
Also in situations of change, when there is a transition to other identities or
different emphasis on certain elements in the identity, the symbolic element
becomes central, and this affects the centrality of leaders in these situations
(Shills, 1965).
However, symbolic leadership relations should not be seen as existing or
having meaning only in large systems, or in unique or dramatic situations. The
symbolic aspect can also exist in small frameworks and in everyday relations. For
example, Shamir et al. (2000) refer to the use that army company commanders
make of symbolic means such as flags, and historical references to the army,
the unit, or the nation, in order to harness the soldiers’ motivation. Countless
examples of this can be found in the everyday life of organizations (O’Reilly &
Pfeffer, 2000).
The kind of relations characterized in this paper as “developmental” have been
identified and researched extensively, particularly in the space defined as “leader-
ship in everyday life” (Popper, Mayseless & Castelnovo, 2000; Popper & Mayse-
less, 2003). For example, to ensure that his soldiers are fit for battle the
commander develops the skills of the new recruits, the manager develops the
required skills in his workers, the school principal develops his teachers’ skills, and
the coach trains his sports team. Developmental relations are the core of the task
in these contexts, in fact, they are its purpose and essence, and without them the
task would not succeed. Most of the expressions of developmental relations in the
leadership research literature concern the daily interactions taking place in such
contexts, in which the analogy of transformational leadership to good parenthood

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120 Micha Popper
is particularly salient and relevant (Popper & Mayseless, 2003). This interpretation
perhaps creates another dimension for the analysis of developmental relations,
emerging from Shamir’s (1995) findings that the type of relations existing between
distant leaders (leaders of nations, for example) and their public differs from the
type of relations between close leaders (such as managers in organizations) and
their people. Close leadership permits developmental relations, which may be
expressed in empowerment and coaching in aspects such as functioning and self
efficacy by virtue of the ability to maintain close interpersonal interactions (Con-
ger & Kanungo, 1998; Spreitzer, 1995). In the case of distant leaders, there is an
absence of close and intimate interaction with most of their people, and therefore
the dimensions of coaching or empowerment (building self-efficacy) and similar
variables are less relevant to the discussion. Burns (1978), in analyzing distant
( political) leaders, argues that transformational leaders in this category of leader-
ship have a developmental effect, but the developmental influence in relations at
this distance is mainly on the moral level. According to Burns, transformational
leaders (among whom he counts leaders like Gandhi) cause their followers to
develop in moral thinking. The conceptual framework for the description of
such development, according to Burns, is to be found in Kohlberg’s (1963)
developmental theory. That is to say, transformational leaders cause their people
to develop on the moral scale from the lowest, pre-conventional (egocentric)
level, in which only the rules of reward and punishment determine relations and
patterns of behavior, to the conventional (normative) stage, in which conventions
and the prevailing social norms of the environment dictate the behaviors of
individuals, to the post-conventional stage, in which absolute values such as justice
determine the behavior of the individual. Distant transformational leaders,
through their messages, decisions, and behaviors, bring their people to rise in the
moral scale.
It seems, therefore, possible to sketch roughly the circumstances that lead to the
probable appearance of the three types of relations described. This is simply the
classification stage, but it is a stage on the way to forming a theory. One possible
direction for an ordering conceptual framework at the primary level (in terms of
the individual) are theories such as Maslow’s (1970) and Alderfer’s (1972) hier-
archy of needs, which place survival and safety at the bottom of the scale, higher
up the scale the needs for belonging and identity, and above these developmental
needs. We saw from the examples and the research that regressive relations tend
to prevail more when the need for safety and survival in the physical sense are at
the focus of people’s awareness. Then, the desire for a strong, protective, and
charismatic figure in the basic Weberian sense may be dominant. When people
are not preoccupied mainly with the need for safety and survival but with per-
sonal and social identity, there will be increasing probability of the existence of
symbolic relations. And when both these groups of needs are no longer predom-
inant, developmental relations will come to the fore. Obviously, reality is more
complex, and the three types of relations are not totally mutually exclusive. But

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 Leadership as Relationship 121
what is offered here is an initial conceptualization, emerging from an interpreta-
tion based on what appears to be quite consistent in observing leadership in the
present era.

Micha Popper
Department of Psychology
University of Haifa,
Mount Carmel, Israel
popper@construct.haifa.ac.il

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