Identity Mediators: Leadership and Identity Construction in Campaign Speeches of American Presidential Candidates' Spouses

Gleibs, Ilka H.; Hendricks, Kristen; Kurz, Tim

doi:10.1111/pops.12448

Cited by 15 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Previous organizational research in this tradition has tended to focus on followers' evaluations of leaders (e.g., perceived trust or perceived effectiveness; Barreto and Hogg 2017) but considerably less on material outcomes of leadership (e.g., organizational performance). At the same time, although research by has examined the effect of we-referencing language on leader effectiveness (i.e., election victory), studies of identity entrepreneurship have largely involved qualitative studies of political leadership (e.g., Augoustinos and de Garis 2012;Gleibs et al 2017;Reicher and Hopkins 2001). Expanding this approach to the strategic level of business leadership, the current study provides evidence of the impact of CEOs' social identityrelated behavior on material organizational outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The Value of Speaking for “Us”: the Relationship Between CEOs’ Use of I- and We-Referencing Language and Subsequent Organizational Performance

Fladerer¹,

Haslam

Steffens

et al. 2020

J Bus Psychol

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CEOs have been argued to play a critical role for organizational performance. However, CEOs cannot achieve success singlehandedly. They rely on other organizational members to execute and implement their agenda and to contribute to organizational success. In the present research, we propose that CEOs serve as identity leaders of their organization who are able to enhance organizational performance by representing and cultivating a sense of shared collective identity ("us") with those they lead. One way for leaders to do so is through the use of we-referencing (as opposed to I-referencing) language. We examine this idea in a pre-registered study of organizations listed in the DAX (i.e., leading German stock index) between 2000 and 2016, assessing the impact of CEOs' use of we-and I-referencing language in letters to the stakeholders (N = 378) on objective indicators of organizational financial performance. In line with hypotheses, results show a positive relationship between CEOs' use of we-referencing language and key indicators of financial performance: return on assets and sales per employee (while there was no evidence of an association with return on sales). At the same time, results indicate that the use of I-referencing language was unrelated to organizational performance. These findings advance the literature on strategic leadership and on the social identity approach to leadership by suggesting that CEOs' thinking and acting in collective terms is associated with greater organizational financial performance. Keywords CEO leadership. Identity entrepreneurship. Financial performance. Social identity approach to leadership. We-referencing language. Linear mixed-modeling The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say 'I'. They do not think 'I'. They think 'team'. They understand their job to be to make the team function… There is an identification (very often quite unconsciously) with the task and with the group. (Drucker 1992, p. 14). CEOs are the figureheads of their organization. Their choices and behaviors have been argued to be critical for the performance of organizational members and the organization as a whole (Boal and Hooijberg 2001; Finkelstein et al. 2009; Hambrick and Mason 1984). Although CEOs have direct influence on strategic decisions (e.g., acquisitions), they rely on other organizational members to execute and implement their agenda. Accordingly, without the engagement and support of followers, CEOs' visions and goals will count for little because they will not be translated into material reality (Bennis 1999; Haslam and Platow 2001). In simple terms, this is Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The Value of Speaking for “Us”: the Relationship Between CEOs’ Use of I- and We-Referencing Language and Subsequent Organizational Performance

Fladerer¹,

Haslam

Steffens

et al. 2020

J Bus Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The social identity work of leaders’ entrepreneurship is a ‘fluid consequence’ (Mabey & Morrell, ; p. 110) shaped by various contexts and not just a fixed representation of leaders as consistent instantiations of the whole nation (Reicher & Hopkins, ). Identity entrepreneurship performance is ‘perspectival’ (Gillespie, Howarth, & Cornish, , p. 392), meaning that categorization processes stem from social positions, different ways of viewing historical reality, and different ways of pursuing particular group interests to support political candidacies (Gleibs, Hendricks, & Kurz, ). Our findings respond to and call for the need for inclusion of social contexts and various group relations in identity entrepreneurship processes (Steffens et al ., ; Yukl, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commemoration in crisis: A discursive analysis of who ‘we’ and ‘they’ have been or become in ceremonial political speeches before and during the Greek financial downturn

Gkinopoulos

Hegarty

2018

British J Social Psychol

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This study analyses the discourse of statements of the leaders of two Greek political parties commemorating the restoration of Greek democracy on 24 July 1974; the ruling party New Democracy and the opposition, Coalition of the Radical Left. We focus on how these leaders act as entrepreneurs of their identities by constructing their ingroups in broad or narrow terms and their outgroups in vague or specific terms. These constructions were ventured during a period of relative political stability (2008) and instability (2012), and we focus on how ingroup prototypes and group boundaries are narrated across Greece's past, present and future in ambiguous or concrete terms. The study aligns the social identity approach to political leadership with studies on political discourse and 'the rhetoric of we'. We view commemorative statements as historical charters and respond to calls for discourse analysis to take greater account of historical context. The findings suggest concrete hypotheses about how leaders with different amounts of political support might define, as identity entrepreneurs, who 'we' are, and who 'we' are not in democratic contexts marked by stability or crisis.

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“…During this period, there were 10 party leaders (six Conservative, four Labour) of which five became (or were) Prime Minister. Previous research has used such data to explore the construction of social representations and their parameters (Gleibs, Hendricks, & Kurz, 2018; Obradović & Howarth, 2018; Reicher & Hopkins, 1996).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other research in this area has noted similar findings in the way that the unemployed are not just defined, but also compared, with employed people (Gibson, 2009). We can interpret this kind of rhetoric as identity entrepreneurship (Gleibs et al , 2018; Reicher et al , 2005), where British identity is constructed around notions of hard work, effectively excluding unemployed from belonging within the national identity.…”

Section: Study 1a: Exploring Frames Used By Politiciansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elite stigmatization of the unemployed: The association between framing and public attitudes

Okoroji

Gleibs

Jovchelovitch

2020

British J of Psychology

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This paper uses a multi‐methods approach to explore the social psychological construction of stigma towards the unemployed. Study 1a uses thematic analysis to explore frames used by political elites in speeches at U.K. national party conferences between 1996 and 2016 (n = 43); in study 1b, we track the usage of these frames in six national newspapers (n = 167,723 articles) over the same period showing an increase in the use of negative frames. Study 1c shows that these are associated with national attitudes towards welfare recipients using the British Social Attitude Survey. We find the ‘Othering’ frame is correlated with negative attitudes towards the unemployed, even when controlling for the unemployment rate. This finding supports the claim that social attitudes are related to frames produced in the political and media spheres. We provide theoretical integration between social representations theory and framing which affords development in both domains.

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Identity Mediators: Leadership and Identity Construction in Campaign Speeches of American Presidential Candidates' Spouses

Cited by 15 publications

References 41 publications

The Value of Speaking for “Us”: the Relationship Between CEOs’ Use of I- and We-Referencing Language and Subsequent Organizational Performance

The Value of Speaking for “Us”: the Relationship Between CEOs’ Use of I- and We-Referencing Language and Subsequent Organizational Performance

Commemoration in crisis: A discursive analysis of who ‘we’ and ‘they’ have been or become in ceremonial political speeches before and during the Greek financial downturn

Elite stigmatization of the unemployed: The association between framing and public attitudes

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